Pages would you say an approximate chapter would be or rather is there a point when a chapter gets to be to long...Im just having a hard time separating things
successful authors have chapters varying from patterson's 2-3 pages, to michener's and clancy's near book-length ones... so there is no 'approximate' or 'average' sized chapter... no good/right or bad/wrong size... your chapters should be as long as they need to be and you want them to be... period!
A chapter can never be too long or too short because it is a segment of the story. Think of the chapters as blocks of infomation - restricting info into a fixed amount of pages is nonsensical - would you stop your narrative half way through because it overflowed the fixed format, or edit it until it fitted the format, of course not. Writing is challenging enough without forcing your work into regimented blocks or page counts, go with the flow and don't restrict your chapters just write and divide up the story later.
As Mom would say: as long as it takes. There's no limit to how short of long they can be. I'll occasionally split mine in the middle of the action because I don't want a thirty page typed chapter, but that's just me. There's no hard, set rule about how one has to go about it.
I would suggest not restricting it to any length, whether it be only a page or two, or twenty pages. When I was writing my first novel (and during most of my second) I had the belief that no chapter should be shorter than 4,000 words. I still think that that is a good chapter length for myself in particular, but I would strictly follow that rule, throwing in pointless blocks of text just to get to the word count I wanted, which is definitely not a good thing. When you think that all the information is there for the reader, then that is your chapter. If you think the scene is sufficient enough, that you got your point across and that you told what you wanted to say, then there you go. Sometimes it might be three pages, sometimes it make take a lot longer than that. And if you feel like your chapters just run together and are STILL having trouble separating them, don't worry about it. I wrote my third novel without even thinking about chapters. I just wrote it and decided to go back when I was finished and separate (unless it was clear during the writing process that that was the end of the segment, then I would just put a break and move on). Just do what works best for you!
thanks everyone, i was only asking because what would essentially be my first chapter is about a page and a half before I switch scenes to approximately half way across the world so it would make a decent chapter change.
It doesn't matter how many pages each chapter is. If the purpose of your chapter required 20+ pages, but the next chapter is 5 pages then that's okay. Just so long as the flow doesn't get bogged down or sped up too much.
Writers don't measure their works in pages, because publishers don't. They specify manuscript lengths in words. So should you , if you don't wish to be seen as a rank amateur.
Like it was said above, there's really no limits on chapter lengths, as long as you feel the story is connecting that's a good sign that the chapter length really don't matter.
