Thursday, September 11, 2008

Chapter Length


Playing on iTunes right now: "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse

As I write this book, I am trying to figure out what the ideal chapter length is. I understand that not all young adults are bibliofiles, so most get a little ancy in their pantsy wondering when the next chapter will start. Right now, my chapter's are running about 10-12 pages long. I have them broken up into scenes which are about 4 to 5 pages long. That wouldn't seem so bad, except when you make each scene an individual chapter, I am already on Chapter 14. I still have a lot to say!! And that count means that the book will be about 40-50 chapters long. Even I know that is a bit much. I was hoping for around 25. *sigh* I hate math. I will eventually figure it out. I think I am aiming for a page count of about 300. I am on page 67 right now. If I keep on with my chapters the way I am, I am going to have a 21 chapter book.

Wait....that's not bad. Oh good! My math was, apparently, slightly off. I guess I just needed to have it in writing. See the wonders of "the word"? It makes sense of everything, even arithmetic. :)

Right, I am on to Chapter 7: Scene 1 tomorrow night. I think I need to start setting an entire day aside for editing. I only have one chapter fully edited (not counting the final thousand edits before it is sent to the agency), so it seems I have a lot to do. On that note, I better get to work...or sleep, I haven't decided yet. Wish me luck on both!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm working on a book right now and dealing with the same problem.

I have come to the conclusion that I prefer to read books with chapters less than 15 pages long, so I'm following that rule, which results in my chapters being 2-3k words, which I'm okay with.