I was taught that traditionally a chapter should be no more than ten pages. Lately, I see in these cheesy pulp novels (The kind you find in the grocery store) chapters are two-three pages long; some as short as a page and a half. What's up with that?
Of course, the final answer is that a chapter should be as long as it needs to be, but do publishers prefer two to three page chapters due to the public's shrinking attention span, or something? Also, who wants to read a book with 99 chapters in it, each two pages long?
i have always believed in the patch novel. by this i mean each major chapter is kind of it's own story (for a quick, dirty example, let's use fight club)
by this end, i believe in a chapter length the same as a functional short story, let's say 7-20 pages.
books with super short chapters bug me a little, because it always seems to me like at least some of them could have been combined, but that the author/editor felt they would be easier to digest in smaller nibbles. i dont know if im weird, but that kinda feels like being talked down to, to me.
I think publishers tend to look at long chapters as convoluted or unnecessary. It's disgusting, but the majority of readers are looking for Twilight-esque novels: they want an easy read that would quickly numb their mind. Publishers look for novels that will sell.
In my personal opinion, long chapters are far superior to short chapters, but you can never put a rule to something like this. If I say a chapter should generally run twelve pages, I'm ignoring the fact that it could be more effective in some cases to separate the action into three chapters (for example, an action novel would get weighed down by one extremely long chapter and it would make more sense to directly immerse the reader in the fast-paced world in which the characters live.)
Really, I think I agree with Charles on this -- would your chapter stand alone as a short story? If not, you probably don't have a formidable scene and should combine it. I definitely feel like the author is being condescending if a scene lasts more than two chapters.
What about books without chapters? One of the past book club novels for Lit Reactor, The Marriage Plot, didn't have chapters, but was separated into sections. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series doesn't even have that, there's just the book.
Clutch, I'm glad you've asked this question; it's something I've also wondered about. As a kid I always assumed that writers just wrote the entire book and divided it up into chapters later.
Awesome. You two feel the same as I do. Each chapter should be able to stand as its own short story. My chapters are doing just that, but they're running about 15-16 pages now in the first draft (I'm wordy).
I'm chopping them down to around 11-12 pp, 9-10 if possible.
Was just wondering if y'all thought publishers today preferred the 1-2 pp chapters.
Another good one is Franny and Zooey. "Franny" was a short story and Zooey was a novella, and neither are really separated into distinct chapters. Once they were published together as a novel, they were basically broken down into four conversations. It's almost entirely dialogue. Raelyn, I thought the same thing; I had an image in my mind of authors taking huge 100 lb manuscripts and going through with a highlighter, underlining passages for chapter breaks. Now that I'm writing, I tend to jump around and organize into breaks later.
Clutch, what exactly are you writing? I'd say if you aren't writing something pandering or for the lowest common denominator, almost any length is excusable. I feel you on the wordiness, though. I have trouble keeping my thoughts in line and tend to use my second draft specifically to weed out unnecessary passages and sentences. I think run-of-the-mill publishers tend to prefer 1-2 pp chapters, maybe 3-5 if it's something like Da Vinci Code (isn't there a scene in Family Guy where they specifically make fun of that novel for having such short chapters or was it another Dan Brown?), but creative or adventurous publishers tend to value writing as much as the authors do. I think it's entirely a matter of finding the correct outlet for your work -- if you're going commercial, go for a typical publisher. If it's writing for writing's sake, go for someone more edgy and artistic.
