Comments | emeraldpen: Question Regarding Chapter Length

emeraldpen

Question Regarding Chapter Length

Mar 19, 2006 22:10

In reading WiP's or Multi-Chaptered Fic, is there a rule of thumb regarding length?

I'm looking at this thing that I'm writing and I'm thinking that these two "chapters" should actually be one chapter instead. It does jump the length up from around 2400 words to around 5000 words.

Meep!

Comments 10

teot March 20 2006, 03:21:50 UTC

I usually post between 2,000 to 7,000 words in a chapter, but it's really up to the author. Some people post less than 1000 word chapters, but those tend to annoy me.

emeraldpen March 20 2006, 03:35:09 UTC

I'm kind of doing this by feel and where the chapter breaks feel like they belong. That makes sense to me, what you said. Hum. Okay, the only problem now is that I feel more nervous if all the chapters need to be that long. *facepalms*

(The comment has been removed)

emeraldpen March 20 2006, 04:05:53 UTC

This is helpful. I'm thinking that the bit that you read isn't really finished until I at least get them out of the Ministry.

nicevenn March 20 2006, 05:41:26 UTC

I usually keep my chapters between 1,000 and 2,000 words, because then I can post more often and people won't forget about the fic. If I'm reading I don't mind them being longer, but more then 4000 or 5000 gets annoying 'cause I might not have time to finish it in one sitting...

emeraldpen March 20 2006, 07:52:19 UTC

Really? What if there's not a good natural break? I mean, everyone's different but as I said above, I'm doing this by feel.

Also, thank you!

nicevenn March 20 2006, 16:16:56 UTC

It's most important that you feel it's the right place to stop. Ultimately, its the story that matters, not chapter length ;)

here from metafandom annwyd March 22 2006, 03:41:56 UTC

I've never strictly judged by length whether or not a chapter is ready to be posted--so long as it gets through the plot bits that it needs to get through, it's a chapter. However, I tend to be annoyed with myself if a chapter is under 3,000 words, and I doubt I'd post it if it were under 2,000 words. I haven't had to worry about posting chapters that are too long, because I struggle to write anything of length, but when I'm reading other writers' chaptered fics, I tend to get frustrated if a chapter is more than 10,000 or so words.

stakebait March 22 2006, 04:11:47 UTC

It really depends -- on natural breakpoints, on how long the story is overall, on how long you can read without your eyes crossing. I'd say 1,000 words is a minimum unless you've got a really compelling reason to be shorter (such as this being a self-contained interlude between longer chapters ( ... )