From the point of view of a reader, it is preferable to have longer chapters instead of more chapters. For those who use auto scrolling, by the time you establish the most comfortable speed, the chapter has ended and you need to reset.
Just my thoughts.
I honestly don't care. And the most important reason for that is the feature SOL has over any other site I visited so far: It gives me a library that automatically remembers which chapter I let off, while also setting a cookie remembering where on the page I was on.
That's just convenience in its purest form.
A lot will depend on genre, writing style, and how the author uses chapters. I can give examples of published (dead tree) authors with chapters as short as 2-3 pages or as long as 40-50 pages and both work very well for the style of novel.
It's worth noting that a lot of writing websites have minimum and maximum chapter rules for various reasons. A lot of early stories on SOL have short chapters not because that was what the author wanted, but because either the site or the earlier posting method (eg, usenet) required it.
From the point of view of a reader, it is preferable to have longer chapters instead of more chapters.
There's a story by StangStar06 that's high on my reading list, but every time I get to it I give it a miss because I won't be able to finish it in one session and it has no chapters.
From the point of view of a reader, it is preferable to have chapter breaks every few pages rather than having to navigate a wall of text.
AJ
From the point of view of an overworked IT engineer, extremely busy Dad, and amateur author; if I only have time to write and edit two pages per week, I can only publish two pages a week.
If you have the luxury of choosing chapter length, I generally prefer 5 to 8 pages when I read.
From the point of view of a reader, it is preferable to have longer chapters
The point of view of this reader is different. I prefer reading short chapters.
I'm a slow reader and don't like to stop reading in the middle of a chapter. I remember countless times fanning the pages of a book to see how long the next chapter was to decide if I should start reading it or go to sleep.
Also, as a reader, I'm a fan of the thriller genre so I expect and appreciate short chapters.
As a writer, I also prefer short chapters. Part of it is the influence of thrillers. When I'm writing, sometimes something happens that just makes a great chapter ending even if it's in the middle of a scene. Call it a cliffhanger, or better a page-turner or an "omigod!"
Also as a writer, I prefer short chapters because when I return to an unfinished chapter, I read it from the beginning and start writing where I had left off. As I said, I'm a slow reader so if the chapter is long, I may never get to where I need to continue writing.
And I'm an edit freak. When I'm editing a chapter, it's less daunting to begin if the chapter is short. For me it's extra important because I usually edit a story many, many times. I mean scores if not hundreds.
And I'm an edit freak. When I'm editing a chapter, it's less daunting to begin if the chapter is short.
Absolutely, particularly if you go through the sentences in reverse order to stop yourself from skimming as you work your way through looking for typos.
AJ
Just my approach and opinion, take with a large handful of salt -
I don't get paid for writing, and if readers complain it's not the worst thing in my world.
I give my stories two quick re-reads and edits, sometimes three, before I post them.
I'd rather use my limited free time writing five "not bad" stories with a few mistakes each, than write a single story that's nearly perfect.
I know I'm not the next Isaac Asimov or Stephen King, and I'll never make money as a writer, so why waste the time and effort to edit more than that?
But that's just me.
I'd rather use my limited free time writing five "not bad" stories with a few mistakes each, than write a single story that's nearly perfect.
My editing is much more than fixing typos or punctuation. It's everything from sentence structure to choosing the "perfect" word (typically the verb) to what's a paragraph. That's where I get most of my enjoyment — to me, it's not editing, but writing composition, the crafting part.
I could probably whip out a story every week if I chose to (not edited the way I like). Whereas, it takes me over a year to write a novel. If I were doing it for the money, that wouldn't be the way to do it. You need volume to earn anything decent.
As a reader, I prefer relatively short chapters, somewhere in the 25 - 50KB range. There is a new story posted today that is 444KB and is only 1 chapter. Looking at the synopsis, I might have read it, but 444KB is too long to read in one sitting, and I would lose my place shifting from a desktop computer in my office, to a laptop computer in the TV room, to a tablet everywhere else, as I move around the house or out to Dr's waiting rooms, a lot of those at 77 years old. Since I clear cookies when I shut down, they don't help even if I return to the same computer. Hope this helps.
I prefer relatively short chapters, somewhere in the 25 - 50KB range
Assuming you mean 5-10K words, those are not short chapters. They're medium verging on long. 6x10K words is into novel territory.
AJ
Not words, KB. Here's one that is 10 chapters.
Size: 353KB | 72,019 words
That averages out to 35KB or 7,202 words per chapter.
That averages out to 35KB or 7,202 words per chapter.
That's still a long chapter.
Average length is 1,500–5,000 words for a novel with the typical average between 2,000 and 4,000 words. Of course it's often genre dependent with Fantasy up to 10,000 words while thrillers tend to be short.
Very approximately, to convert from KB to K words, divide by 5. It's usually a little more than 5, depending on whether the author uses 100 dollar words.
In your 10 chapter example, the author probably uses simpler language than many.
I've done a fair bit of reading today - many of the SOL series I'm following had updates. Most had chapters in the 2k - 4.5K word range. Probably the longest was Michael Loucks's 6.5K words or so.
AJ
