How long is the average fanfiction chapter

Look back through previous chapters. About how many words is each one? If you're averaging words per chapter and the next one is , consider breaking it into two parts.

You don't have to, but staying within words of the other chapters tends to result in a reader-friendly, smooth experience [so if you're averaging , is the point where your readers will really start to notice that this chapter is really long]. For full length novels on wattpad, the average or recommended length is generally words per chapter.

That's generally considered enough information to make a reader feel like an update was worth it, it's long enough for most people to read in under ten minutes, it's mobile-device friendly, and it's plenty of time for things to happen in your story. Rather than force your chapter to meet a certain word count, end it where it naturally ends. It might be a little longer or a little shorter. Note: Some of you might push chapters to or words or more, and that's okay, but if you ever wonder why some people aren't reading your story, remember that on Wattpad that is a lot of text to scroll through in one sitting, no matter how fantastic of a writer you are.

There are people on here who will refuse to read a chapter that long. They don't mean to offend you, just like you don't mean to offend them! Just remember where you're posting. The Watty Awards. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more.

What is a normal length for a chapter? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 11 months ago. Active 1 year, 9 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Zayne S Halsall 2, 19 19 silver badges 33 33 bronze badges. StrixVaria StrixVaria 5, 2 2 gold badges 38 38 silver badges 44 44 bronze badges. I say let the story flow itself..

A story has it's own life, let it breadth for itself, let it think its way out and when everything will come in one piece you will know just how long it got before you become satisfied with its outcome. Plenty of answers already, so I just wanted to chuck my two cents in here: Peter F Hamilton has chapters so big I can read a quarter of a book before I hit chapter one but Alasastair Reynolds tends to do fifteen pages per chapter.

I think there is no right answer to this, it's really down to you which is not a super helpful answer I suppose — CLockeWork.

Try to keep the chapters roughly same size, if you have no special reasons not to. I remember my dad reading this book to me as a child, he had just finished this brilliant chapter and I begged him to read another.

Turns out the next chapter was only two words long and my dad wouldn't read the next one. I guess it really depends on the book and author, I try and aim for words per chapter. I've found that my chapters tend to average about 4, as well. It kinda just feels right. Ends up being about pages each. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. David Thornley David Thornley 1, 12 12 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. Instead of counting pages per chapter, you can simply divide the total number of pages in the book by its number of chapters.

Just an alternate way - not necessarily a better way - of accomplishing the same thing. This is why standard manuscript format is so useful; there are roughly words to a page when formatted correctly. That's the "beat" - the mental adjustment.

The pause. Nathan Fischer Nathan Fischer 2, 1 1 gold badge 15 15 silver badges 21 21 bronze badges. There are "beats" between sentences, between paragraphs, and between chapters or sections. The length of each of these pieces of the story can drive the pacing. The author who really taught me that was actually Michael Crichton.

His chapter lengths can very a huge amount - from thousands of words to half a page. They also tend to "tighten up" toward the end of his stories a lot of times, when the action is ramping up for a big finale. You can almost feel the rhythm in your fingers as you flip from page to page, chapter to chapter. I know not everyone is a Crichton fan, but I think he handles those chapter beats very well. House of Leaves is an interesting experimental novel that takes this concept to its extreme.

In one or two frantic sections, there are only a few words per page, so you're actually going through ten or twenty pages in a few seconds. HoL takes a lot of things to extremes :D I held it in my grubby paws and looked at a couple pages Among the more common reasons for beginning a new chapter are to: Show significant new action — While scenes might occur only a short length of time apart from one another or even occur concurrent with one another, a chapter signifies a major new action or movement in the story.

StrixVaria 5, 2 2 gold badges 38 38 silver badges 44 44 bronze badges. Mnementh Mnementh 2, 1 1 gold badge 22 22 silver badges 37 37 bronze badges.

I believe Cujo is the one without any chapters. Janissa Janissa 51 1 1 silver badge 2 2 bronze badges. Hi, Janissa! And welcome to Writers Stackexchange! Your advice of deciding on chapter length by how much you can read within a comfortable time frame is very interesting. Can you edit your answer to emphasize that? I did, please let me know what you think. But remember to add an empty line between each 2 paragraphs. See this. Tannalein Tannalein 5 5 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges.

A agree with you. I hate to refrain myself with such formatting issues. I guess the chapter should have the right size for what it contains, not to some pre-defined standards — Psicofrenia.

I myself write about words per chapter, it seems 'just right' for me. Axarydax Axarydax 1, 12 12 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. One Idea, event or decision that moves the plot.

In as many as I could, in my book, I wrote the Chapters so they can stand alone as little fables and tales of their own. At least ten pages per chapter. No idea how many words that might be, but I might go and check. And always at an interesting point so they'll hopefully keep reading. Not a cliffhanger often, because I find those personally annoying. It's all about pacing. Not word count. Scene breaks, yes. And chapter breaks, for sure.

Fuck statistics. Stop trying to make novelists confirm to 'formulaic' notions of writing. Your last paragraph is titled Guidelines, not rules, yet you managed to squeeze in a nugget about 'word count'. This is like claiming something is true in research before you've done the research, then doing the research and finding no support for your claim, but then concluding your claim is still true despite the evidence. Contradictory bullshit. You're absolutely right, it's all about pacing.

There is only so much you can write at the same pace… And yes, our last paragraph explains that these are merely guidelines. If you want to do it differently, all the more power to you. It's been a best-seller for so long, and the chapters are one and two pages. Any comments? We couldn't cover all the bestsellers, however we're working on expanding our data set for the infographic and will hopefully be able to include more of those.

All the Light We Cannot See is an interesting example though, so thanks for mentioning it! It seems like the takeaway is not to focus on trying to hit any standard measure, but to use chapter breaks deliberately for effect. This seems to be the case with most aspects of writing and art in general.

A chapter should be as long as it needs to be. A chapter can be broken up into sections; the passage of time or a change of venue divided by an extra paragraph break.

This, too, like a chapter ending, gives the reader a chance to put down the book, to come back later to continue reading. Best practices are far too concerned about manipulating and catering to the reader. As writers we all manipulate the reader. A two-paragraph chapter, used as a sort of cliff-hanger, is but one of many bells and whistles writers are encouraged to use to keep the reader turning pages.

Exquisite writing, the turn of a phrase, how a writer tells their story, can just as easily keep a reader immersed in the text. A book is only as good as what its words make happen inside the reader's head, and no two readers are alike. No number of best practices can save a poorly written story. When I read that, I thought it was strange! Is the author tired of the writing teachers emphasizing that so many bits of writing advice are guidelines, not rules?

Is this some kind of backlash? Is the author an uptight martinet? Arriving at the actual section, which of course is "Guidelines, Not Rules", I realized that no, it's none of the above. It's simply less-than-stellar proofreading.

You might want to fix that. Fixed, thank you for kindly letting us know about it. Hope this didn't detract you from the main message of the article. No, it didn't distract me from the main message. The article was informative and helpful. You can say that this stuff doesn't matter all you want, but it really does. I for one get super irritated with marathon chapters. If a book is plugging along at pages a chapter and then all of a sudden you throw in a 40 pager, I very well might stop reading.

A painter picks a canvas before painting and a writer makes decisions about pacing and length. Adhering to formulas or convention does not necessarily diminish art.

In fact, it can elevate it. Just look at classical music. And from what i have seen words per chapter is not a lot as i am on right now la little worried any advice thank you in advance.

I like the disclaimer at the end that these are guidelines, not rules. It's a very informative article. I write epic fantasy, which is more forgiving of meatier chapters I think.

I average about k words per chapter. One of the conclusions I came to was that fewer chapters in a book make it easier to format. So my formatter's hat always pushes me to write bigger chapters, lol. That said, I write the story and let the words fall where they will. I have short chapters and long ones. An story that uses words efficiently has more effect on readers holding onto that book.

Chapters are a tool of writing just like sentences and paragraph. As a new writer, this blog was tough to swallow.