How To Shorten

[Discount_Blade]

So, I typically write chapter that range from 4k to 6k, sometimes breaking into 7k words. I'm comfortable with this. I don't see any problem with it. I like description and I find short chapters, for example, 1k to 2k words, too short and I almost never read anything with chapters that short. However, while I dislike short chapters, I am also trying to learn/discover/figure out etc. how to shorten mine just a tiny bit.

I'm pretty sure there is no quick fix. No go-to method. I won't sacrifice description because I feel that if you can't describe a scene and/or character, than why are you writing/introducing them? But I would like to get any possible advice on how I could maybe drop from a 6k to perhaps a 3.5k-4.5k max words in chapter length.

Is there any possible advice available? I'll be honest when I say I can't imagine what could possibly be said to help besides "write write write & practice", but anything at all would be appreciated. I'm working on something that I hope to begin with shorter-ish chapters than my norm but I know I'm going to struggle with suppressing my normal length.

 

[LostLibrarian]

I would say the three main reasons for long chapters are:
(a) Too much description (obvious)
(b) Too much happening in one chapter (e.g. multiple scenes worth).
(c) Too much fluff/filler

I come from the other end of the spectrum, writing rather short chapters (~1.5k words), mostly because my writing speed is slow. And while I have a problem with not enough description/active writing and I work on it, I also actively try to keep my chapters short. And here are some of the points I take:
(1) I concentrate on one key event/scene/theme in the chapter. If I write a chapter about buying food on the market, I'll write a chapter about buying food on the market. Not a chapter where I introduce two new characters, have lots of dialogue, and a fight. The extreme examples would be some JP LNs who take complete story lines and group them as one chapter with multiple parts. So if I want to have a shopping trip on the market, where a thief attacks them and they fight, that would be 2 chapters. One chapter of shopping (and maybe description of the later "arena"). And one chapter of the actual fight between the thief and the group. So 2 short chapters with a clear topic instead of one long chapter.
(2) I ask myself: Is this new/important information to the reader? If not, I skip it. Starting with the usual smalltalk in dialogues, overly descriptive actions (he grabbed the doorknob, he opened the door, he walked trough the door, he closed the door --> he left the room). The same goes for descriptions and introductions. Will the character be important in the future? If not, I don't give him a detailed description, maybe not even a name. Describing the city guard can be a good way to show a city's wealth and power. Describing the guard's family and daily troubles is overkill, if it never plays into the story.
(3) Cut repetition: I don't describe multiple skill usages in battle, talking to multiple people asking the same stuff (e.g. while searching someone/something), tasks or daily routines that are the same over and over. Short description of one time, followed by "the other times it was the same" or something like that.


As I said, I'm coming from the opposite end and I try to throw in more description, but I think my underlying thought is always the question "Will this information have any effect outside this chapter?". It can make a scene really lively to describe a beautiful apple tree (and I'm envious of the people who can pull that of in an entertaining way), but those are "filler words" if the apple tree or something in the description won't influence the story. Based on that, I try to go for the most "story/words" and add from there.

So while my second draft would be all about adding more description and character, yours would probably more about cutting the stuff that doesn't matter...

 

[OvidLemma]

My chapters are a similar length - they probably average 5.5-6k words. Now, my narrative style might be different from yours, but I tend to split my chapters up into sub-chapters of about a thousand words where there's a break in the narrative but it's much smaller and without the thematic jump seen between chapters. In my most recent release, I've decided to just lop the bigger chapters in half and rename them as if they were separate. And despite my initial concerns, the difference between "real" and "fake" chapter breaks isn't especially jarring. It just means some of my chapters end at scene breaks rather than act breaks. So my advice is: chop those chapters up where it's vaguely reasonable to do so and add a sentence or two to bridge the transition (in case somebody pauses reading there).

 

[Maple-Leaf]

I’m no author. In fact, the only story I’ve made decent progress on is still unpublished. I’m not particularly proud of my writing, but hey everyone’s gotta start somewhere right? My chapter lengths are all over the place. Sometimes they’re incredibly short and when I check the word count I’m like woah wtf I suck. Then other times they’re average sizes. I’m not a good writer so I try to put one chunk of event(s) all in one chapter, and hope it works out. Sometimes I feel like I’m all over the place, and what just happened wasn’t described well, or the characters are two dimensional or overall the story is uninteresting. With this in mind, I have no idea why I’m here. I’m probably the worst person to give advice on this subject.

So I guess I’m just here to steal the advice people give you.

 

[ConTroll]

I usually chop long chapters up into several parts. They don't necessarily need to all be the same length.

Good places to divide chapters are where you do transitions or scene changes.

Since applying this method, I've come to publish chapters between 1500 and 3000 words.

Sometimes long chapters are necessary. Sometimes they aren't. It all depends on the context, content, and scene you want to tell your audience.