I read a book about a girl who was raised by dolphins and was found by humans and reintegrated into human society. The chapters started out short. Like super short. Like one sentence sometimes. As the book went on, the chapters got longer, showing how she was gaining mental awareness and the ability to think about things in abstract and more complex ways. Pretty cool idea!
I didn't know chapters were usually between 2k and 5k, I Always thought my chapters were too short, but turns out I'm right on track. My word doc just makes everything look shorter
It depends on the writer. If you read books from various authors you'll see the differences in chapter length. There are even chapters of 3-4 Word pages in certain books. It just depends on the style you're going for. Just don't make them too short or too long.
I’m glad to see this comment because I was always worried i would over write so I would stick to 1.5k or 1k words each chapter until I found out how long a chapter should really be
@@Pumpkin0_0 yeah, in the vid she talks about a chapter being 50 pages..... well I guess those types are with fantasy novels where there has to be a lot of world building and the book is thicker then the Bible..... but I guess for an average book between 2-5k per chapter is indeed warranted. I'm probably closer between 2-3k.
Same. I once read a book called "I'll Give You The Sun" by Jandy Nelson. And she did the same thing. It didn't even break immersion. Just found it helpful.
@@FalloutUrMum I remember the first of James Paterson’s Michael Bennet books had first person for the hero, and third person for the villain. Well, Michael Ledwidge was the co-writer.
Just did a lil checklist for my own chapters based on your comment and was happy to find out that each of the 16 chapters I have written so far fits one or both of those! :)
I appreciate the wealth of knowledge you are sharing. The number of books you have finished is inspiring. I saw someone comment on one of your videos that you needed to slow down but I disagree. The amount of information you get across in each video is awesome. Thank you!!
@@thelatenightgamer2624 Yeah sure, once it gets published (hopefully in the next few years) I'll try to remember to post back here. :) I recently finished the full first draft. While there are many edits that will be needed (grammar, word choice, dialogue, etc.), I am extremely confident that my overall plot structure and pacing was perfect the first time through. :)
I really love the variety and intentionality that could be applied in such a way that I had not considered before. Always am impressed with how insightful and practical your advice is, thanks so much Shaelin!
I find the "Show, Don't Tell" slogan confusing. Great authors use both techniques as a more realistic way of telling a story. Making "showing" instead of "telling" a rule kills creativity especially for new writers of fiction short stories.
I read a book where 'show don't tell' was not applicable and that was the most beautiful book I have ever read. It was so emotionally engaging I never knew you can tell instead of show and nail it.
I've been noticing lately that the key is to notice the importance of the information. For example, in a romance you'll want to show the characters bonding and expressing emotions, but you'd want to tell the parts where they just "waited for the rain to stop, then went to the market", because the important thing here is the emotional aspect.
William Shatner's Tek War books are a futuristic film noir written like a 1950s movie serial, it works within the niche of the story where every chapter is a cliffhanger and often changes point of view, still it has short terse chapters and works I like my chapters a little more rounded most of the time
In my story, a couple is separated at the end of the first chapter. So, I have a part, made up of several chapters, where we follow the woman through her adventures until just before she is reunited with her man. Then, I go back to just after the first chapter and follow the man's adventures, several chapters, up to the same point. I'm trying for a rather pulp style, so it should be pretty cliff-hangery. I try to imagine that each chapter is published, about once a week, in a pulp magazine, so the chapters need to be similar in length and, again, mostly (but perhaps not all) cliff-hangers. Or at least that's the plan. I've written about a sixth of it, and that's taken a few years. Maybe it'll be published before I die. I need to authorize a sequel-writer in my will, yeesh.
Just subscribed. I find that writing notes on what you say as you say it really helps me think through things a lot better! You talk a little fast even for me but that's alright, I have the J key. Your background music in this video is also very quiet which is absolutely lovely and a nice change of pace.
That's interesting. I've never thought about the concept of making sure that a chapter moves the story forward. I guess the reason I haven't is because I focus on every scene moving the story forward. If I can accomplish that, then the chapters move the story forward automatically, since chapters are made of scenes. But it's nice to have an alternative way to look at things. And focusing on what a chapter does might be a fresh way to regard things. I try to make my chapters a consistent length. If they get as short as under 2000 words, it feels like maybe there just hasn't been enough happen to warrant a chapter break, so that's about my low limit. If they get up around 3000 words, it feels like maybe a little too much for a reader to handle in one bite, so that's pretty much my high limit. I shoot for 2500-2600, with as little variance as possible. Potato chip size. Scenes will be however long or short as they need to be. There can't really be any arbitrary scene length guidelines, and my average scene length is about 1500 to 1600 words, a few as short as 700, a few as long as 4000 or 5000. So if we do the math, that means that only about 50% of my chapter breaks can coincide with scene endings, which is kind of what I've ended up with. Another 25% of them end up in what Sol Stein calls a 'push', or a mid-scene or end of scene mini cliffhanger, typically resolved in the next chapter. Those numbers seem to work well for structure. But that leaves the final 25%, where the scene must transition across the chapter break without a 'push'. That only seems to work if there is a minor change in focus in the scene, a minor change in the level of tension, a minor location change, or a minor gap in time. Sometimes just going from action or dialogue to narrative is enough, or to summary, which is often the resolution phase of a scene. So that's what works for me.
I like the way Adam Hall gives each chapter a one-word title, in his Quiller spy series. For writers, it summarizes the chapter, tells you the focus of the chapter. The list of chapters naturally becomes your story outline, making it easy to see an overview of the book.
I am just starting out and know zero about writing. So, I am still a little confused about structuring a chapter, but I am not giving up. I really want to be an author.
In my stories, each chapter is comprised of ten paragraphs. Though I prefer all paragraphs within a chapter to be roughly the same length, they seem to get longer as I go, going from a third of a page in length to just over a full page in length., so even though there are always ten paragraphs per chapter, no more, no less, the length of chapters can vary widely. I simply number my chapters, rather than using chapter titles.
When I use POV, I tend to say "Bloop" and then underneath ill put "Zuno POV: XXX" and throughout the chapter I may change Pov a couple times, but the first one is the one I usually deviate back to... My novel now isn't a serious one so I'm starting off with 1k+ words
I'm glad I found your channel. A little favor to ask, if you can speak a bit slower. It's hard to follow so many useful information when you're talking so fast. Otherwise, great info. Thanks!
This helps me. I'm a person who writes either too long or too short chapters. But it will help to ensure a plot or subplot point and some sort of resolution or discovery is made in the chapter, regardless of the length. Now, on to taking care of my 8,000-word and 800-word chapters. LOL. You think I'm joking, right?
Hi, I am writing a fiction novelette so I was wondering, how long my story should be because my goal around 14k-15k. According to you what would be an ideal word count?
Yup it's a good idea but take the pgs into 11000 more pages means the readers will get bored if u want to write more than 14000 pgs u should write an interesting story ThNk u
Once I easily did a Chapter with 3k words without even noticing it but now I'm struggling to reach 1k with this one Chapter Im writing lol. I need lecture
Hey it might be to late seen as this comment is from 4 weeks ago, but personally, (if your someone who can bery easily “See” the scene in your mind) by imagining the room,scene, etc, and describing it, don’t over explain, but describe the scene, and especially the senses, don’t just talk about sight and appearance, touch on smell,branches crunching under feet, larger people have louder footsteps, talk about bread being dry, the sun blocking vision, etc.
@@ironforged2329 I disagree with that advice. While it may be good to make scenes more descriptive, you don't want half of your entire word count being descriptive filler. I'd say to have that 1k word chapter be a scene at the end of the previous chapter or the beginning of the next chapter. If neither of those feel like valid options, whether it's because of pacing or because the chapter structures for the surrounding chapters are already perfect, then I would reconsider if your 1k chapter should be in the novel at all. I've had similar issues with my experience so far, and many times if I get stuck in the middle of the chapter or an entire chapter feels flat or forced, I'll learn that the direction I went in was entirely wrong and that what I wrote of the chapter so far, even if it was a full chapter, has to be scrapped completely. For my own novel, I have learned that whenever something should be a part of the final story, the chapter arcs will end up being excellent chapter structures all on their own. In other words, the chapters of my "real" story will be wrapped in a bow without any further intervention.
