How long are your chapters, usually?

[Legacy|iB]

Hey all, new guy here. I was recently pointed in the direction of this forum via a very kind review of one of my fics over at ff.net. By the way, I'd like to thank Dark Knight Gafgar for doing so. Nice reviews are always great.

I'm curious, assuming most of us use some type of word processing program along the lines of MS Word, how long do your chapters usually turn out to be? I ask this because I was looking back at my writing and I've realized that I've been averaging at least twenty pages for a chapter, my current longest being fifty-four pages. I've discovered that I've been consistently writing more than I was when I was younger.

So, how many pages does most of us end up writing?

 

[GenocideHeart]

Not sure how many pages, but my chapters seem to average 6000 or so words.... That's what I can tell you.

 

[Lord Raa]

My updates vary from 9 to 17 pages.

But the length of the update depends on how the content of the chapter.

Some updates are only 2.5k words, others are 5.5k, it all depends on what wants to come out at the right time.

 

[hawker_748]

However long as it takes to say what I want to say.

That being said, I have split chapters at times when one of them turned out to be much longer than the others...

 

[SimmyC]

Depends. My early stories were usually 1000-2000 words, topping off at 3000. Now? 5000 seems to be the average. With... 10000 now becoming quite common (Fallen Blade Chapter 1, Chapter 8 of ULSI, and *expected* Chapter 11 of FME have/will break the 10000 mark).

 

[Israfel]

I try and keep my chapters at arund 5000 words a pop and usually won't consider a chapter done until it's at least 4500 words long, I'l generally try and cut it off at about 10,000, at which point I'll split it into chapters. Oh, and, out of curiosity, could you give a link to your FF.net profile, I'd be interested to see what you've done, there has been a dearth of good stories for me lately so I'm hoping to find some good stuff.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't measure my work by length, either the number of words or pages. I focus instead on writing stuff that's good, both in terms of style and content. How long or short that turns out to be is an afterthought.

Of course, the above all sounds very good, until you consider that my chapters don't often break ten pages.

 

[Legacy|iB]

Interesting views, everybody.

For me, I just tend to set a certain area the chapter would focus on, and then write all of it regardless of length. However, I do believe my writing style is a bit wasteful. I tend to add a bit more, most of it irrelevent. If I was to cut donw on all those, I could shorten by a few pages, I think.

Oh, and for Israfel, the link to my profile is: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/342385/

I mainly write for Halo, but I recently started for Love Hina. My writing has been a bit all over the place lately, due to strange combinations of depression and stress.

 

[SimmyC]

It's true that great stories are great NOT because of length, but because of content. ^_^ But typically speaking, that should mean at least, chapters greater than 1000 words. I mean, 56 words is a little low even for a oneshot. <_<

 

[Israfel]

It's true that great stories are great NOT because of length, but because of content.? But typically speaking, that should mean at least, chapters greater than 1000 words. I mean, 56 words is a little low even for a oneshot.

Bah, no matter how good the writing I find that I just can't respect a story that doesn't keep a decent chapter size, if I see a chapter that's so short that you don't need to scroll to read all of it then I'm generally gone.

 

[Moshulel]

Heh, most of my chapters seem to have a problem at the 3000 words limit, but some of them take longer. Haven't actually kept this into account but except for prologues, my actuall chapters tend to always have a decent size.

? tongue.gif It's true that great stories are great NOT because of length, but because of content. happy.gif But typically speaking, that should mean at least, chapters greater than 1000 words. I mean, 56 words is a little low even for a oneshot. dry.gif

56 words... bah If one author here, take Simmy for example would split his storyes in 56 words updates it would flood ff.net.

Tsck' and those guys call themselves authors.

 

[Hawk]

Since I started chaptering my stories, which I never did before, it seems as if somewhere between 16-25kb's of pure .txt is the norm, with some exceptions.

Since I started to take note of that, I've started revising/adding to my chapters if I end one and find that it doesn't take up at least 16 kb's, as I myself think that's a pretty acceptable amount of text to get through in one sitting. More is better, but if one of the fics I follow is updated with an uber-short update, I'd get ticked as hell. So I try to refrain from making too short chapters.

 

[Perfect Psionic Soldier]

My lengths very.

For the most part, I am for like 20-40K a chap, exempting prologue and my RedMoon fic cause I am trying for a constant 10page of actual story per chapter =p

It may be a bit high, but then again I am just crazy.

 

[Israfel]

My lengths very.

For the most part, I am for like 20-40K a chap, exempting prologue and my RedMoon fic cause I am trying for a constant 10page of actual story per chapter =p

It may be a bit high, but then again I am just crazy.

Meh, we readers appreciate it, or at least I do, as I was a long time follower of your works, which is why I recruited you to come here in the first place. So the moral of the story kids is, never discount the potency of a long chapter, to me chapters should be a minimum of 4,500 words and a maximum (yes even I'll admit that sometimes a chapter is just too long) of about 30,000 words. I once read a 75,000 word story that was one chapter long, boy was that a doozy. Or a 300,000 word story that was 4 chapters long, those are pains to read, even if they are normally pretty good. I always actually wanted once to write out what would normally be a ten to fifteen chapter story and then post it all up as one massive chapter, Ultimate One-Shot no Jutsu! In some cases really long one-shots are good and can help a story, such as the case with Ruskbyte's 'Evil Be Thou My Good', I can't even imagine that being chaptered.

 

[Perfect Psionic Soldier]

Heh, its 20K-40K chapters of quality junk =P

But I am always happy when other people enjoy my fictional ramblins =D

My Avatar fic, successor for Red Howling, cause I am rather heavily dissatisfied with that fic, will have its chapter done in a different fashion. Each chapter will contain more or less one crossover theme per chapter. Or at least as close as possible =P

 

[Israfel]

Heh, its 20K-40K chapters of quality junk =P

But I am always happy when other people enjoy my fictional ramblins =D

My Avatar fic, successor for Red Howling, cause I am rather heavily dissatisfied with that fic, will have its chapter done in a different fashion. Each chapter will contain more or less one crossover theme per chapter. Or at least as close as possible =P

Meh, I don't mind so much, I just wish you'd finish your Zelda fic, or at least update it, as that was what got me interested in the Zelda fandom on a whole, because I found that in someone's favorites and thus read it, and then found the rest of your works in your profile.

 

[Wonderbee31]

Hmm, I guess I just write until I feel I've reached a comfortable stopping point. My stories average between 10-15 pages, though part 4 of FRanma went to about 25 pages, and Invader Ack!-Kane went up to around, 20 or so. Just what ever point feels good, and as long as I can get it al on without ending up rambling or going over stuff again and again.

 

[nuclear death frog]

I have trouble writing long chapters. And I have even more trouble updating in any reasonable amount of time.

This means my stories are not long, and generally stay that way.

It's not a good thing. But I want to get better.