Are my chapters too short?

[authordaeygur]

NVM I'm going to edit them. Lol

I have no idea how to delete this.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

There's no minimum or maximum length a chapter needs to be. Do whatever works for you.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

There's no ... maximum length

1) That's what she- *OW*

2) Cries in Keyboard

That's only halfway where it needs to be.

 

[placeintime]

yeah, it doesn't matter if your chapters are too short or too long. There are many ways to set up how you want to post your chapters; you could do it like short chapters in the 500-600 range and post more frequently or something like 1000 words + yet posts more slowly.

But like what @K5Rakitan said, there's no minimum or maximum of how much you can write in a chapter. It's more about the quality rather than quantity; so try to figure out a preferred range that you can write every day, and if you can edit on that day as well.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

...There are many ways to set up how you want to post your chapters;
...
...there's no minimum or maximum of how much you can write in a chapter. It's more about the quality rather than quantity;...

To answer more seriously, I find just writing until I have a good stopping point seems to work ok, length be damned.
That said, I'm probably going to try splitting my likely to be 12k word chapter into two or three.

 

[Deleted member 29316]

It depends on you how much words per chapter you would put up, but if you're looking for the ideal nowadays, it's around 1k per chapter. 3k-4k words are kind of long for some readers.

I myself would churn out 5k-6k words per chapter. But I try my best to simplify my chapters since I tend to be 'wordy' and 'verbose', especially in my vomit drafts.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

I tend to be 'wordy' and 'verbose'

HI WORDY AND VERBOSE!

I'm DA- *OOWWWWW*

 

[Deleted member 29316]

HI WORDY AND VERBOSE!

I'm DA- *OOWWWWW*

Well, my brother (a journalist) and some other authors often advise me to keep my words simple and direct, but never to lose the 'feeling words' to it.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I myself would churn out 5k-6k words per chapter. But I try my best to simplify my chapters since I tend to be 'wordy' and 'verbose', especially in my vomit drafts.

But I try my best to simplify my chapters since I tend to be 'wordy' and 'verbose', especially in my vomit drafts.

'wordy' and 'verbose'

Here's an excerpt of something a description I gave to a park:

Shiro found the park to be adequately sized yet at the same time, absolutely expansive and infinite. The fields of grass and paved gravel breathed a sense of calming intimacy within its tiny landscape. The roads were well-maintained and easy to Shiro’s feet; the grass so evenly trimmed that it seemed like a soft mattress to lie across, with the soft, light blue blanketing the sky, radiating a soothing warmth as it carried an eternal scent of spring. Trees grew sporadically across the grounds, standing tall with its top held high as the leaves flourished among the reaching branches, casting soft shades to the bushes and hedges sprouting across the side of the pathway. Dried leaves crunched under his toes as it sent spiking satisfaction tingling down his inner childhood’s spine with every step he took.

Yeah that makes two of us

 

[Deleted member 29316]

Here's an excerpt of something a description I gave to a park:

Shiro found the park to be adequately sized yet at the same time, absolutely expansive and infinite. The fields of grass and paved gravel breathed a sense of calming intimacy within its tiny landscape. The roads were well-maintained and easy to Shiro’s feet; the grass so evenly trimmed that it seemed like a soft mattress to lie across, with the soft, light blue blanketing the sky, radiating a soothing warmth as it carried an eternal scent of spring. Trees grew sporadically across the grounds, standing tall with its top held high as the leaves flourished among the reaching branches, casting soft shades to the bushes and hedges sprouting across the side of the pathway. Dried leaves crunched under his toes as it sent spiking satisfaction tingling down his inner childhood’s spine with every step he took.

Yeah that makes two of us

Yep, easier to understand, yet the 'feeling' is not lost.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

Hah. You want long and rambly.

This ENTIRE BIT, is simply the description of one room and some of it's occupants.

Spoiler: Story Excerpt: Room Description, Ch. 11 Emerald Eyes [v11-08-20.3]

The woman seems to be running out of energy and is not able to struggle as hard as she was previously. The man in the dark longcoat leaves her with the other man and goes to open the iron door. As I scurry toward it, I begin to hear some noises and chatter, it almost sounds like a party or event of some sort.

As the door opens and I run in along the ceiling, I hear some music too, it sounds more like something I’d have expected to hear back on earth, than... well, here. The sounds of more traditional instruments mixed and warped in such a way that they sound somewhat akin to modern electronic dance music, but in a distinctly more analog way. Melded together like one of those weird fusions of styles I recall from earth, like classical music and heavy metal.

I follow the man in the dark long coat down the hall, looking back I see the other man, with the dirty tan cloak, is waiting by the door of iron bars, still holding onto the woman in green, she doesn’t seem to be struggling anymore. I turn back around and catch back up to the long coat man, the hallway we’re walking down has empty cells with iron barred doors along it, most seem to be used as storage, as well as a few rooms with solid wooden doors as we near the end of the hallway.

A dull light made of a mixture of various colors spills into the hallway as we reach the end and it opens into a large room with a high ceiling. The walls and ceiling look to be made of old worn stone, but the floor is covered in a soft looking maroon colored carpet, along with maroon colored curtains with gold trim lining the bottom half of the stone walls.

Magic lamps of various colors hang from the ceiling in even spacing, seemingly rotating, creating dark and light spots as shadows dance across the room. A small stage made of a dark, rich colored polished wood sits directly across from the hallway’s entrance. Upon it 5 people seem to be playing various instruments, seemingly with some magic as I can see various lights erupt from parts of their instruments as they play.

A woman is up front, as if she is singing into a microphone, but the sounds emanating from it remind me more of those people who can do things like beatbox with their mouth, only, distorted and changed in some way, as she plays with what look like buttons that line the upper third of the stand of her ‘microphone’ with accompanying small flashes of light.

Near the stage is a large round table, with a maroon cloth with golden patterns, and several people in very fancy looking clothes, what looks to be some bottles, an elevated tray that resembles a snack tray, except it is filled with indents that contain what look like long thin cigars, as long as a sparkler one might see during new years on earth.

The scent of a sweet and intoxicating smoke fills the air, as a visible cloud of it lingers just above the reach of the curtains lining the wall. The man in the longcoat passes by the other variously sized tables with different colors of cloth, making his way towards the large maroon and gold one near the stage.

I can’t easily follow him as the ceiling is so much taller, I fall behind as I climb quickly up the wall, the scent of the smoke strengthening significantly as I reach the ceiling and am enveloped in the cloud. It smells sweet, reminiscent of vanilla and cinnamon, and feels intoxicating and relaxing. I try to ignore the feeling and rush as quickly as I can toward the table.

As I enter the area above the table, I do my best to secure a good chunk of thread as an anchor, and slowly slide down through the air, to get near enough to easily use my telepathy. I try to focus on listening to the longcoat man and the one he appears to be addressing, a man dressed in fancy looking, but loose fitting clothes resembling something from the 1700s, colored maroon and black with golden trim and designs.

He is also wearing a hat that looks like a cross between a top hat and a baseball hat, the body of the hat resembles a top hat, but the brim is wide and flat in the front almost like a trapezoid, widest at the front and thinning significantly as it reaches the sides, and disappearing completely at the back. It is black with golden trim along the edge of the brim, finished off with a small maroon colored band near the bottom of the tophat part.

I begin to hear their conversation, the longcoat man is talking first, “...Freedwell. She caught and attacked us as we were planting Roulf Freedwell’s body for Humphrey to find, which we did as you requested, he is nailed to the kitchen door of his restaurant.”

A devious smile crossed the lips of the man in the weird hat, as I could hear his reply, “I must be a gratuitous host, then, please bring her in and give her one of those vials to calm her nerves. I want our guest to be able to relax. Have an attendant bring her a comfortable chair with some armrests.”

“Right away, sir Goodmond.” replied the longcoat man before he turned and walked away, stopping to speak to a waiter along the way.

As I hang there in the air, I look over the people on the table, there is a pretty woman in a white dress with a red sash, pale blonde almost white hair, with a wide brimmed hat with red trim that could be out of the 50s. She has elbow length white gloves and is sitting sideways in her seat casually puffing on one of the long thin cigar-like things. She’s facing a man in a dark blue suit with white accents that looks as if it could be straight out of the Victorian era.

Two more men wearing pinstripe suits reminiscent of something from a mobster movie, one black and white, another maroon and gold, sit across the table from the other three. The woman isn’t talking, but the other three men seem to be discussing some kind of auction planned for later that night. The one called Goodmond by the longcoat man is simply sitting there with a smug grin plastered across his face as if he’d won some game or bet.

I take a moment to look around the place, it appears most tables have 3 to 5 people, and there seem to be about a dozen tables, give or take, scattered across the room. Most people seem to be relaxed, chatting, and smoking those long thin cigar-like things. There are roughly equal amounts of men and women, as far as I can see.

I am the Rambling Queen!
No other may stand against my
ultimate word barrage attack!

Edit: P.S. that description of the park is really nice

 

[Typing...]

There is actually a preferred word count according to science. These days people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter to the point where people will lose interest before reaching 2,000 words. We however are lucky in that our audience tends to be the type who reads more often. In general the range depends on the target audience but the range according to various sources on the internet is 55,000-80,000 words for a young adult novel. With about 3,000-5,000 words per chapter.

Though that's only what market research suggests as the most optimal. They are however only guidelines, so if you want to make a 50,000 word chapter you do you.

Source1
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