Forum: Author Hangout

There is nothing hindering the author to post a short chapter together with a second short or normal sized one.

I think that doesn't take account of how some authors work.

It's easy for some to turn a chapter with one significant plot-furthering sentence into a 20,000 word bloat. But when you're working from a first draft or writing as you go, 1000 words might be as much as you can write, edit and proof in one day or whatever time you have available.

However some time ago Laz changed his software and longer chapters don't get broken into pages anymore.

That's a change I personally would be happy to see reversed. I sometimes postpone a serial when I don't have time to read a whole 20,000 word chapter, and sometimes I end up never resuming :-(

AJ

Here on SOL most authors break the stories in roughly equal sized chunks and call these chunks 'Chapters'.

Historically, almost all serialized stories were/are published in installments of roughly equal length. The way serials work, this makes sense both for readers and publishers, if not necessarily writers. It's only with publication of an entire story in a whole, such as a book, that you generally find more range in the sizes of sections/chapters, organically matching story beats. Or maybe I should say, having story beats that come organically, rather than coming at regular, predictable intervals.

My chapters range from about 2500(*) to about 9000, but recently I've mostly stayed in the 6000 to 6800 range.

(*) Some 'interlude' chapters are much shorter, but they're dream sequences only.

Lol, that you were Joe.

Keep in mind, a lot of us have the book available on BA for people to purchase. Then you don't have to wait for the next installment.

I'm still a Luddite is some regards.

As a reader, I like chapters which function as good stopping points. 10-15 minutes is more useful that way than 30-40 minutes.

I do understand the serialization issue, and I can probably get away with it because I'm posting 3x/week instead of once a week. But, if a writer can only generate one 3,000 word chapter per week, that's probably one 6,000 word chapter every other week, or 9,000 every three weeks - which is just as bad for serialization.

My weekly goal is around 11,000 words a week. Most weeks I meet it. Some weeks I don't; some I go well over it. Having something to work towards, and tracking it, helps me, though.

Well said. I enjoy my scrambled eggs light and fluffy, glued together with gooey cheese and mixed with diced jalapeños.

But please - serve it to me while I rest upon a filthy mattress. No sheets required.

If the story is finished it really doesn't matter how long the chapters are. My comment above was in regard to chapter to chapter posting in serial fashion. If I have to wait a week for the next chapter, I wish to be entertained for more than ten minutes.

Currently I'm reading "A Well Lived Life" and I'm about 90 chapters in and only 10 or 15 million words to go, so it's irrelevant in that case.

If the story is finished it really doesn't matter how long the chapters are. My comment above was in regard to chapter to chapter posting in serial fashion. If I have to wait a week for the next chapter, I wish to be entertained for more than ten minutes.

That's why this keeps coming up.

People aren't complaining about short chapters. They're complaining about a story that isn't available in its entirety and they want more with each posting.

If the entire story was there, they wouldn't care how short the chapters were. They would just begin reading the next chapter if they wanted more.

That's the way I see it.

2,500 to 7,000 words, depending on the chapter. I write these with full books in mind for the end product, not chapter by chapter posting. 3k to 4k is the average length of most fiction chapters, according to Publishers Weekly. So I'm right in that pocket.

those Publisher Dudes just make those rules to annoy us readers.

Those are statistics, not publishers' rules. I've read books where complete chapters fit on a single-sided page (James Patterson) and other books where the chapters are almost long enough to satisfy Dominion's Son (Adrian Tchaikovsky).

AJ

Taking Lumpy's genre(s) into consideration, his chapter lengths would come out as longer than average.

This might seem hypocritical but as a reader I'd like to see longer chapters from him if it didn't impact his frequency of posting. But that's a reflection on how well written his stories are and how engrossing I find them.

AJ

Yes, that's the problem with serial writing. I posted a new chapter last week and have started on the next (I have an outline of all the expected scenes and chapters to the end) but I can't always find the time to push other stuff out of my head to ponder and visualize what's happening and then write it down. I've got some good quotes but still have to fill it out.

I view each chapter as a story arc. I usually have 2 or 3 scenes to a chapter and prefer to end with some kind of crisis so that the reader will want to turn the page to the next chapter to see what happened.

Most importantly, readers are going to expect consistency in your chapter style. This does not mean that chapters need to be the same length, but rather that the reason for the chapter breaks should be somewhat consistent.

I will probably have to do a complete rewrite of my 2 major stories. I started them when SOL automatically created additional pages beyond 55,000 characters, or some 10,000 words.

Also, 8,000 to 10,000 words was about as much as I could self edit, and review what my proofreader sent back in a week.

I hope to be settled from my move in another 90 days. I may have a local volunteer proofreader, too. I have been rewriting what is already up on SOL, as well as new stuff.

Chapters is something I have already considered doing differently on Bookapy, once I complete my story.

Also, 8,000 to 10,000 words was about as much as I could self edit, and review what my proofreader sent back in a week.

Paladin, it's not just you. I'm picking on you though because you're such a 'good' example of something MANY readers complain about. I keep seeing things that come down to "this is only an issue because I'm posting as I write". If you can grit your teeth and actually finish a story before you start posting it, this sort of thing will go away. I liked what I saw of Portal and Falls but there's no point in reading another chapter if one ever comes out! I no longer hold any hope of living long enough to see the end.
I don't write much any more, prefer to read. I've got two completed 1mb volumes of a 4-part saga sitting on disk instead of on the net because I haven't finished books 3 and 4. Please read my old blog about the reader survey on unfinished stories. To the readers, a story that they know has an ending trumps all the quibbles about chapter length.

Thus endeth today's cranky old man rant.
-ZM

And a lot of writers let the readers know that this is a completed story. The next chapter WILL be posted on Monday/Wednesday/Friday/whatever because the whole story has actually already been written. That's what I do. (did?) Try it. All, well, most of the chapter length complaints will go away if the readers have a warm fuzzy feeling that there will be another chapter coming soon.
This website even has submission software to automate this. I spend a lot of time working someplace with poor net access. My chapters still got posted on time because I set it all up before I went, 30 chapters in advance. The key to the whole thing was to write before posting. Write the whole story before posting any of it.
As has been said elsewhere, doing this also allows a lot of problems to be fixed before your readers see them. A minor comment in chapter 4 breaks something in chapter 7. If you write the whole thing first, you can fix it before posting.
-ZM

All, well, most of the chapter length complaints will go away if the readers have a warm fuzzy feeling that there will be another chapter coming soon.

Nope.

If you can grit your teeth and actually finish a story before you start posting it, this sort of thing will go away.

Not true. I always finish a story before posting it and the "problem" is there.

Why? Because even though the story is finished, I don't post the entire story at once (unless it's a short story). So the "problem" isn't that the story isn't completed, but that it's not all posted at once.

Your mileage may vary. I can't remember ever getting that complaint. Didn't like it, didn't like your writing style, that's not the way I wanted it to go, can you post more often, why did it have to end it was great, sure. I don't think I have ever gotten "Your chapters are too long/short". Surely not everyone thinks my chapter sizes are perfect. These complaints you are getting are masking another issue.
-ZM

I don't think I have ever gotten "Your chapters are too long/short". … These complaints you are getting are masking another issue.

My chapters are between 2,300–3,500 words. Sometimes I have a 6,000-word chapter and sometimes an 800-word chapter.

My writing style is influenced by the thriller genre so I end a lot of chapters with a page turner (not necessarily a cliffhanger). If the "too short" comment is masking an issue, it's that they wanted more and didn't want to be left hanging. That's why many buy the novel instead of waiting for the next chapter to be posted.

I've read short chapters on SOL where nothing happened. That's a sin. Those chapters shouldn't be made longer, they should be eliminated. But I've also read long chapters that went on and on and should have been edited and cut in half. Those are the boring ones.

I believe there's a limit to the number of stories a reader can read a day. When a short chapter counts as one of those reads, the reader feels cheated. They didn't get their money's worth.

I don't write thriller stuff like you, Switch Blayde

I don't only write thrillers, but that genre influenced my writing. So in "The Breeder," a Western which is not a thriller, I end Chapter 1 with:

"It was my mother's," Pete said. "Amanda, will you marry me?"

"Marry you?"

"Yes. We'll live on the ranch and always be together."

"Marry you?"

"Stop repeating that. You said you loved me. I'm asking you to be my wife and live with me on the ranch."

"I can't marry you."

"Why not?"

Amanda's eyes dropped. In a soft voice, she said, "There's someone else."

And I want to turn the page!

*smiling* That's the goal.

It doesn't matter that the stories are free. Time is a far more valuable resource than money is and it is one that is universally finite. The less free time someone has, the more they value it, and the more upset they are going to be when someone wastes it.

Please clean that up and have LJ post it on the authors' resource page. We write for our own reasons and then post here for different reasons, but the readers read for entertainment. If a reader doesn't get value for his/her/its investment, they will remember.
-ZM