How long should the story and chapters be?

Agnetha

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I'm asking both writers and readers here, I'm cirrently trying to figure out how many chapters there should be in a book a post here and how long should each chapter be.

To writers, did your readers prefered a specific lenght for your chapters? How many chapters to you usually put in your books?

To readers, which lenght of chapters to you usually prefer? How many chapters does the book you usually read have? How many do you like them to have?
 

Hans.Trondheim

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I'm asking both writers and readers here, I'm cirrently trying to figure out how many chapters there should be in a book a post here and how long should each chapter be.

To writers, did your readers prefered a specific lenght for your chapters? How many chapters to you usually put in your books?

To readers, which lenght of chapters to you usually prefer? How many chapters does the book you usually read have? How many do you like them to have?
What do you mean length of chapter? The word count? Ideal is 1k to 2k, but I find it difficult to write in those counts, so my regular is 3k to 4.5k, which is already long for an average online reader.

As for chapters, as long as my plans were followed, I don't usually care about the number of chapters in a book.
 

CharlesEBrown

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Speaking as a writer, for both book and chapters, as long as they NEED to be to feel right.

Speaking as a reader, chapters should be anywhere between 1200 and 3000 words, inclusive, and the book should have 70-100 chapters, or maybe a few more.
 

foxes

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When I first started writing, I was writing about 5,000 words. I was using Overlord as a reference. But after I parsed it all down, I was able to distill the idea into a single 2,500-word chapter.
Now I'm trimming everything down to make the narrative more engaging. In the rough draft, the prologues and interludes are short, about 500 words each. The main sections and chapters are 1,500 each. I think they could still be fleshed out.
 

Juia_Darkcrest

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You should always shoot for a certain goal, but give yourself some wiggle room on either side of that number so you don't feel trapped.

I shoot for 2500, but give myself 500-600 words on either side. Sometimes I have written chapters with only 1800 words, other times I have pushed well over 6k... I think one of them pushed 10k once... I really should have broken that one up, but I was still really new to writing then.

For reading, if the chapters have consistently fewer than 1500 words, I get annoyed. If they are constantly below 1000 words, I usually drop them. The same goes for the other way. The odd chapter above 3-4k is fine, but if I need to read a novella for your chapter, it better have nice formatting, else I will get annoyed and drop it.
 

Daeron

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I'm asking both writers and readers here, I'm cirrently trying to figure out how many chapters there should be in a book a post here and how long should each chapter be.

To writers, did your readers prefered a specific lenght for your chapters? How many chapters to you usually put in your books?

To readers, which lenght of chapters to you usually prefer? How many chapters does the book you usually read have? How many do you like them to have?
I tried both 1k - 2k each chapter for my fantasy writing

And 2k - 3k for my dark psychological romance writing (originally it was 4.5k - 5.5k long each chapters)

And for some reason it deliver better. Compared my first upload.
 

TinaMigarlo

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I can't answer this one, as I bring my "paperback sensibilities" with me.
the prevalence of itty bitty chapters, and those annoying one, MAYbe two sentence chapters? I find personally annoying.
like I'm reading a pamphlet, not a real book.

so, you can't go by me.

I insist on writing, as if I'm writing a 1985 paperback pulp novel, for paper printing.
I'm slowly lowering my chapter word count, to keep it reasonable, and for me that's still on the upper end of things.
I got a lot of 5k word chapters.
I refuse to do one sentence paragraphs.

like I said, you can't go by me.
 

Nolff

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I'm asking both writers and readers here, I'm cirrently trying to figure out how many chapters there should be in a book a post here and how long should each chapter be.

To writers, did your readers prefered a specific lenght for your chapters? How many chapters to you usually put in your books?

To readers, which lenght of chapters to you usually prefer? How many chapters does the book you usually read have? How many do you like them to have?
As a writer? As much as it needs to and as long as it feels right. I'm @CharlesEBrown here.
As a reader? For me, as long as it's interesting, any length is okay.
 
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