I am working on my newest Magus story, Sovereign Magus, and the chapter I'm currently struggling with is short. As in less than 1,000 words. The other chapters vary from 2,500 to over 4,000 words. I can usually find something else to pad the numbers, but not this time. Any suggestions?
Turn the question around. If a chapter is only 1000 words, then that chapter must be one hell of an explosion/plot twist. Short and abrupt means "pay attention because you are about to be slapped." If you can pull it off, you can add another skillset to your fictitious resume of esteemed writer.
You can have a scene break and add the next chapter as the second scene.
Or when you post the chapter, don't post it by itself. Post it with either the previous one or the next one. You can post 2 chapters at the same time.
If the chapter is 1,000 words, then it's 1,000 words.
If you want more meat when you publish it, write the next chapter before you post it, then post both chapters at the same time.
Frankly, that makes the most sense. Though again, why is it only 1,000 words? Was there nothing else to say, was it that profound/impactful, were you afraid of inducing heart attacks? Or did you simply not have enough time to dedicate to it?
Either's valid, though there's no telling how readers may respond to it.
I think it's Stephen King's It, he has these long, long chapters, dozen's of pages to a hundred long some of them, and then one chapter that is half a page.
Longer does not mean better by default. Usually the opposite is true, because things are tighter and cleaner and more focused.
A chapter is an idea that moves the story forward, in theory. Some ideas take several scenes to write, some take one. Maybe one idea is a man tracking someone down and he has to visit several places and talk to several people and it takes a dozen pages to get down, but each place and person he talks to are put into one chapter because they aren't important enough or strong enough to stand on their own, or breaking them up would ruin the rhythm of that idea.
Then the next chapter is a pivotal conversation between that man and the person he tracked down and that only takes two pages to write but those pages need to stand on their own so nothing else interferes with the importance of that conversation.
For instance, in my story That's Big Brother to You, the story is 116,630 words and 48 chapters long. The shortest chapter is 233 words and the longest is 5,239 words. No one has ever complained to me about the length of the chapters, but most importantly, neither did the man who commissioned the story.
Why not just attach the next, regular-length chapter to it. There's nothing that says each chapter needs to be the same day/time.
However, a chapter that short is likely is annoy readers, who'll think of it as a tease.
Over the years, my chapters have gone from 35K words to 1.5K (recently averaging around 3,500.
But again, every chapter needs to be precisely as long as it needs to be, not a word more, not a word less. Make of that what you will. ;)
I've posted several stories here that are less than 1,000 words long. Some may argue that they aren't actual stories, but just scenes or character sketches, but they have a beginning and an end.
I've posted several stories here that are less than 1,000 words long. Some may argue that they aren't actual stories, but just scenes or character sketches, but they have a beginning and an end.
That's flash fiction.
The hardest story I ever wrote was flash fiction. Don't believe me? Try to write a real story that short.
It was for a magazine contest that limited me to 750 words. I didn't think the story ("Coming Home") would be accepted by SOL readers but I posted it here anyway. I'm pleased with the current 7.25 score.
My suggestion is to double down. Post the thousand word chapter and immediately start writing the next one. Type the words, "my mother is a fish" and just ship it. If it was good enough for Faulkner, it's good enough for your readers.