How long is too long?

[Sam Wyer]

Yes, OK, insert your own joke here and lets get it over with  

 

I'm currently posting an old story of mine (Cal) which I wrote a year or two ago, and each chapter is usually ~4000 words.  I've noticed that many stories posted here have shorter chapters than this, which is interesting only because stories I am working on more recently (and yes, they will be posted on GA I promise) are tending to have even longer chapters.

 

So my question is essentially; as a reader, do you care how long a chapter is?

 

Sam

Edited August 28, 2017 by Sam Wyer

[Valkyrie]

I've read 10k word chapters that felt like 1k and some  3k chapters that felt like 20k, if that makes sense.  So, in other words, as long as you convey what the chapter is meant to in a concise manner, then the length doesn't matter.  So it's not the size, it's what you do with it.  

[Sam Wyer]

5 minutes ago, Valkyrie said:

I've read 10k word chapters that felt like 1k and some  3k chapters that felt like 20k, if that makes sense.  So, in other words, as long as you convey what the chapter is meant to in a concise manner, then the length doesn't matter.  So it's not the size, it's what you do with it.  

I guess that's what I was hoping to hear.

[mogwhy]

24 minutes ago, Sam Wyer said:

 

So my question is essentially; as a reader, do you care how long a chapter is?

 

Sam

 

the short answer i no....

but like @Valkyrie said; some chapter seem short even if the are 2000+ long, whereas some short ones drag. as long as the story is advancing length doesn't matter. there are a few stories that i've read that avg 6500+ per chapter. then the longest was over 17,000. others are under 900. i read them all, as long as the story is interesting  

[Kitt]

I agree, it is the clarity and quality of the writing, not the length.

[Parker Owens]

5 minutes ago, Kitt said:

I agree, it is the clarity and quality of the writing, not the length.

 

Kitt has spoken wisely. I have written honking great chapters which I unadvisedly chopped in pieces.

[Former Member]

I have a problem when an author writes frequent, very short chapters. It’s sometimes difficult to remember important details like ancillary character names and situations. And there are times when a minor cliffhanger is less important than the continuity of the story itself. If I’m finding a story, its characters, and situations interesting, I don’t need tricks to keep me reading future chapters.

[Raphael Farmer]

I think as long as the chapter keeps me hooked, I'll keep reading.

 

It depends on the content rather than the length.

 

I can read a 3,000 or 6,000 word chapter with the same interest if the story is interesting enough. Whereas a 1,000 word chapter can be a chore if I can barely get past a couple of lines without tuning out. 

[MrM]

I think a chapter will be as long as it needs to be.

 

If you read it to yourself and you find it getting tedious then you need to take out your scissors and start cutting unnecessary clutter. I wrote a 23,000 word chapter as a whole short story once and I found that I can read it from beginniing to end without stopping because I left enough hooks in it to keep the reader wanting more.

Edited August 30, 2017 by MrM

[William King]

On 28/08/2017 at 10:32 PM, Sam Wyer said:

 

So my question is essentially; as a reader, do you care how long a chapter is?

 

Sam

 

YES - and it has nothing to do with the quality, but all to do with bookmarking. I have not found anyway to bookmark where you have read to, you know like with a printed book you can insert a bookmark or turn the corner of the page. So if it is a long chapter and you need to come back to it, then it is kind of a pain looking for where you got to. That's why short chapters work for online stories and long are not so good. The size? Ideally between 2000 and 4000 words.

Edited August 30, 2017 by William King

[Former Member]

23 minutes ago, William King said:

YES - and it has nothing to do with the quality, but all to do with bookmarking. I have not found anyway to bookmark where you have read to, you know like with a printed book you can insert a bookmark or turn the corner of the page. So if it is a long chapter and you need to come back to it, then it is kind of a pain looking for where you got to. That's why short chapters work for online stories and long are not so good. The size? Ideally between 2000 and 4000 words.

If you ‘print’ or save the chapter as a pdf, you can open it in the Kindle app. I used to do that in order to read the stories in a nicer format. These days, I find the Reader View in Safari (also available in Firefox, it cleans up what you see by removing extraneous junk) gives me most of that with less work.

[William King]

@droughtquake  Nothing in life is free and converting to PDF comes with a subscription to Adobe - at least that's what it says when I try to do it! 

If anyone has a recommendation for Android let me know.

[Former Member]

1 minute ago, William King said:

@droughtquake  Nothing in life is free and converting to PDF comes with a subscription to Adobe - at least that's what it says when I try to do it! 

If anyone has a recommendation for Android let me know.

I’ve never tried doing it on my Android phone. Postscript (one of the technologies under pdf) is built into the foundation of MacOS X and doesn’t require using any Adobe products to use. Unless the application prevents it for some reason, the built-in support allows pdfs to be ‘printed’ from any appropriate documents.

 

I’m sure there are free alternatives on Android for pdf creation. But I’m not sure about the security of using them. Unlike Apple, Google doesn’t test or vet anything on its app store. I don’t know if the Amazon app store is any better.

 

 

Google believes in free – it refused to pay license fees for the Java technology it stole to create Android.

[William King]

It is a bit laborious, but the following process works: COPY the online chapter text, PASTE to Word, CONVERT to PDF format online, DOWNLOAD and READ using PDF viewer/reader which allows you to bookmark.

 

Phew! Better idea would be an online PDF version, don't think I can be bothered to do all that for every chapter, including renaming, filing the chapters, and filling up my storage... but it does provide for nice bookmarking 😁

[Sam Wyer]

1 hour ago, William King said:

 

YES - and it has nothing to do with the quality, but all to do with bookmarking. I have not found anyway to bookmark where you have read to, you know like with a printed book you can insert a bookmark or turn the corner of the page. So if it is a long chapter and you need to come back to it, then it is kind of a pain looking for where you got to. That's why short chapters work for online stories and long are not so good. The size? Ideally between 2000 and 4000 words.

Ignoring your questionable 'corner folding' actions  this is a GA specific factor that I hadn't considered.

[Kitt]

5 hours ago, William King said:

 

YES - and it has nothing to do with the quality, but all to do with bookmarking. I have not found anyway to bookmark where you have read to, you know like with a printed book you can insert a bookmark or turn the corner of the page. So if it is a long chapter and you need to come back to it, then it is kind of a pain looking for where you got to. That's why short chapters work for online stories and long are not so good. The size? Ideally between 2000 and 4000 words.

Why not just open a new tab for the longer chapters?  You can cruise the sight in the first tab, leave the device you are reading on, even close access to the net ( on my Android phone ) and come back to exactly where you left off.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Kitt

[JayT]

I think a chapter should be as long as it needs to be as long as everything contained in that chapter is all related. Some examples would be: events happening on the same day, things happening at one location (once the characters leave that location end the chapter since the action has ended) , an encounter between two or more characters (end the chapter when all characters leave the situation...Think of the chapter as a scene in a movie. Each new scene should be a new chapter. 

[JayT]

1 minute ago, JayT said:

I think a chapter should be as long as it needs to be as long as everything contained in that chapter is all related. Some examples would be: events happening on the same day, things happening at one location (once the characters leave that location end the chapter since the action has ended) , an encounter between two or more characters (end the chapter when all characters leave the situation...Think of the chapter as a scene in a movie. Each new scene should be a new chapter. 

The exception to this would be an epilogue. An epilogue can sometimes be seen as a stand-alone story. 

[Former Member]

4 hours ago, Sam Wyer said:

Ignoring your questionable 'corner folding' actions

Corner Folding is not as bad as breaking the spine of a book! I made the mistake of loaning a book to a coworker who took a paperback that was so gently read that it still looked brand new and returned it with the spine broken in several places along with creases in the cover! I never loaned him any other books after that.

[JayT]

Just now, droughtquake said:

Corner Folding is not as bad as breaking the spine of a book! I made the mistake of loaning a book to a coworker who took a paperback that was so gently read that it still looked brand new and returned it with the spine broken in several places along with creases in the cover! I never loaned him any other books after that.

it's been so long since I've held an actual physical book in my hands and read it, it's not even funny. I read everything on my Kindle or my computer. kinda sad huh? 

[Former Member]

10 minutes ago, JayT said:

it's been so long since I've held an actual physical book in my hands and read it, it's not even funny. I read everything on my Kindle or my computer. kinda sad huh? 

Well, that incident took place in the ‘90s around the time Apple introduced the first iMac…

[Sam Wyer]

2 hours ago, droughtquake said:

Corner Folding is not as bad as breaking the spine of a book! I made the mistake of loaning a book to a coworker who took a paperback that was so gently read that it still looked brand new and returned it with the spine broken in several places along with creases in the cover! I never loaned him any other books after that.

What kind of monster would do such a thing!?

[MrM]

2 hours ago, JayT said:

it's been so long since I've held an actual physical book in my hands and read it, it's not even funny. I read everything on my Kindle or my computer. kinda sad huh? 

 

What do you read when you take a long bubble bath then?

 

[JayT]

35 minutes ago, MrM said:

 

What do you read when you take a long bubble bath then?

 

I have my Kindle in my hands (hanging over the side) or I have my laptop set up on the toilet and read on that hehehe

[William King]

3 hours ago, JayT said:

I think a chapter should be as long as it needs to be as long as everything contained in that chapter is all related. Some examples would be: events happening on the same day, things happening at one location (once the characters leave that location end the chapter since the action has ended) , an encounter between two or more characters (end the chapter when all characters leave the situation...Think of the chapter as a scene in a movie. Each new scene should be a new chapter. 

 

Okay, I understand the logic, but I don't agree. I like to divide chapters into sections, and the sections are each a scene. I might jump about in time and space with those scenes, but they all stay in the same chapter. The chapter is defined by reaching a certain point in the story that is a natural break. It could be arriving somewhere, it could be having resolved an issue. The chapters are also to some extent defined by length - maybe that comes from too much TV, but I like my chapters to be roughly equal in length, they are my episodes in the series.

 

Oh and be careful about mixing water and electric - You could get a shock!

 

Edited August 30, 2017 by William King