When writing a Novel, how long should the chapters be? What is the norm?

Chapters?

Notes from the underground is 200+ pages and has two chapters

A novel should be about 80,000 words due to market considerations. (60,000-100,000 words at the outside.)

Like all events and objects a novel should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A novel should have 3 acts. The 2nd act should be as long as act 1 and 2 combined. So really there are 4 parts of equal length, 1, 2A, 2B, and 3.

Dividing 80,000 by 4 yields 4 parts of 20,000 words each.

Each part should have its own 3-act structure in itself. Each of these sub-acts should be a chapter. Dividing 20,000 by 4 tells us our ideal chapter length.

So each chapter should be around 5,000 words, which coincidentally is perfectly comfortable to read in a single sitting to give the reader the maximum impact, though of course a reader can be expected to read several chapters, having the choice to terminate a sitting at several natural points provided by chapter breaks. A variation of 50% to either side for each chapter due to the natural ebb and flow of prose is acceptable. So chapters should range from 2,500 to 7,500 words.

I'd err toward 6,000 as a maximum though because people these days are rather busy and appreciate having more options of when to put the book down at a natural spot.

You should vary your chapter lengths to provide interest and tailor them to their content. A single extremely short chapter toward the end for example could be a surprise, but overplaying this technique would be most ill advised.

Stay within the above guidelines and you will find yourself with a well formed novel and a happy readership.

>tfw so many great novels simply couldnt be made in todays meme tier market conditions

>tfw so many great novels simply couldn't be made in today's market conditions because they are mostly cliche.

so basically too intelligent

480

Doesn't matter, just throw in a scene break every few thousand words and you're golden

Terry pratchetts discworld novels don't habe chapters at all

lies

At Swim-Two-Birds has one chapter. At the beginning it says Chapter One, but there's never any Chapter Two. Fucked me up first time I read it

And yesterdays market would have no use for short, fast-paced stuff. Everyone in the past had far more time yet a lot less to do so what would be 3 paragraphs of prose now is just half a sentence so we can cut straight to the hot porn.

There's plenty brisk and clean short stories from "yesterdays market", who the fuck do you think Chekov is

The point of a chapter is to separate the story into individual parts. If you don't want to do that, then don't use chapters. The length is based on how large or small you want to make each part of the story.

For the most part, it really doesn't matter.

However... if you look at published books in the genre you're writing in, you can get a vague idea. I'm writing a middle-grade historical novel and I planned my chapters to be about 2500 words long. It would take someone in my target audience approx 15 minutes to read a chapter.

Chapters can influence pacing, suspence, and structure. Use the chapter. Don't let it use you.

>The 2nd act should be as long as act 1 and 2 combined
>tfw infinity loop book

This is way funnier than it should be.

No

The longer your book is, the more respected it will be by the literary establishment.

It doesn't even have to be good, so don't worry about what you're gonna write. Just make it long.

When writing a Nobel*

Not necessary. Publisher bitched about Hugo too but still shut the fuck up and gave him money.

Guidelines give people an idea how the general situation is, if you know what you're doing and your product is great, you can break as many as you like. Most people are obviously nowhere near that level and would be better off playing safe.

You ALMOST had me there, fucking nice going user

Here, have a Beckett

Pretty good post sans the shilling for 3-act-structure. 5 or 7 are obviously superior.

I prefer short chapters. It's one of the many things that made Moby Dick great.
Makes it more suitable for reading on the can as well.

Chapters are what users use to decide when to stop reading.

If it's 3 am and I'm reading your novel and the next chapter is only three pages long I could decide to keep reading. However if it's twenty or so pages long its more likely that I'll decide to put it down.

Chapters are essentially arbitrary and you don't have to give them literary meaning if you don't want to

It's*

I'd recommend asking someone in the publishing business what the standard length would be for the genre you're aiming at. Don't try to break convention unless you have a very good reason to. Remember, great, convention-defying masterpieces aren't great because they defy conventions. They get away with defying conventions because they're great.

Scottys sidekick from star trek?

>round three thousand
Don't thread your own post fag

Woops meant 1 and 3

one page

No

Are you writing a novel for the sole purpose of selling it?
>20 pages for normal chapter, 40 pages for chapter in which major plot event happens

Or are you writing a novel because you have something to say?
>as long as they need to be, Lolita has a chapter that's two paragraphs long and it accomplishes exactly what it needs to without feeling lacking

Dumbass that thinks his stream-of-consciousness "novel" is worth anything?
>just write

is it okay to have variable lengths of chapters? I started with shorter ones 1500 - 3000 words, then ramped up to 5k words, and for the conclusion I want to bring it back down to short lengths.

You could follow James Patterson's formula. Alex Cross, Run was just over 300 pages and had 110 chapters because people need breaks.

You can't /thread yourself, faggot.

>not being able to read more than 2 pages without needing a break

Depends on the book. Some have super dense writing styles where even a 90 pager will take you a while.

~10 pages if the prose is dense and the book is long
see: Pynchon, Melville, etc.