About Chapters

A chapter, generally speaking, is a subdivision of a book.

A chapter could be one word long, one line or several, one paragraph or several, and so on. Chapters can be grouped into parts. Sometimes they have titles, other times they are just numbered, 1,2,3 . . . N, or headed with Roman numerals: I, II, III, and so on. Kids talk about “Chapter books,” that is, books that are organized into chapters.

How a book is organized can have an impact on the reader’s experience. I once bought a book about 500-pages long, organized into 108 chapters, written by one of my favorite authors. I was greatly looking forward to reading it. I became disillusioned after only a few chapters. Each chapter, rather than about 5 pages long, ended up only about 3.5 pages long. I stopped reading it part-way through because I could never get lost in it. It was too chopped up. I was always either starting or stopping a chapter. Short chapters pull readers through faster, but that was ridiculous.

I have seen books with chapters 20-30 pages long. It’s easy to feel bogged down in long chapters.

I try to make chapters not too short, not to long, some shorter, some longer.  I hear Einstein again: Chapters need to be as long as reasonable, but not longer.  

Long fiction is now, for me, is in my rearview mirror. Whatever you’re writing in, do what feels natural. Become committed to it, write from your heart, and your reader will go with you.

Next: Alice on Writing.