forum What do you consider the 'ideal' chapter length?

Started September 29, 2018 by @Paperok

tune

?

20 pages max.
5 pages minimal.

For me personally…
Maybe… 20~25 pages, ish. It kinda depends on when a chapter is needed. I’d say minimum of five pages (used sparsely), maximum of… 40~50 (used VERY sparsely)(Kinda depends how long the book is overall)

15-20 pages

5 pages is bare minimum, but the typical low should be more like 10. 15-20 is ideal. 30 is maximum. Anything above 40 is difficult to read. It's nice to have a lot of stopping points, especially when you're a person who doesn't have a lot of time to read.

Sometimes longer chapters are better, like in Harry Potter where you're cramming anywhere from a few minutes to a month-ish length of time in a chapter. Other times short chapters are better, like in The Hunger Games, where short chapters add to the fast, edge-of-your-seat pacing of the book.

When I'm reading I feel like 10 pages is usually good. In my own writing they tend to be much shorter, but I'm trying to work on that a bit.

Other times short chapters are better, like in The Hunger Games, where short chapters add to the fast, edge-of-your-seat pacing of the book.

Yeah, that's also true. Idk if anyone here has read anything by James Patterson, but the longest chapters in his books tend to be like 2-3 pages. When I was reading the Maximum Ride books I'd be like "I'll put it down after this chapter," but then you realize the next chapter is only like a page long and you're like "Ok fine, one more." And then next thing I knew I'd gone through like half the book in a day.

You can always write your book and add chapters later where you feel there is a natural pause. But I agree with everyone else 5-35 pages.

Depends on the writer's style though. I've read some books where the chapters are only 2 to 3 pages long, but it went along well with the type of story they were writing (I believe someone mentioned James Patterson earlier). I've read other books where there are barely any chapters at all, but it also went along perfectly with the style of writing, actually emphasizing the story as a result.

Think of chapters like scenes in a movie. There are some movies which have short scenes knitted together to form different story points rather quickly, allowing the observer more knowledge than the characters while keeping track of different events happening at the same time. Then there are some movies which have really long scenes, allowing the observer to know much of what the characters know, but not much foresight as to what might happen, which provides the observer time to ponder and theorize about what may happen next.

So really it depends on the story and the style. But ideal for the reader would most likely be average length as everyone else has already said before.