I'm shortening my overlong chapters but they now look too short to me. They're ranging between 4 and 15 pages double-spaced and my instinct is to join some of them back together again. My chapters were previously 30-50 pages each and I know that is too long, but to be so short seems wrong. Help!
Well my shortest chapter is aprox...500 words. Because that was what was needed, and the very brevity itself has implications.
I don't think you should fret too much about page/word count per chapter-providing it's not too long!-but rather how it works within the greater narrative.
Douglas Adams wrote a chapter in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that was just one paragraph.
Doesn't a chapter end when it feels like it should? Either on a cliffhanger, some kind of hook for the next chapter, or a natural break in the story, such as the end of a day.
I tried to combine some of my shorter chapters and it just doesn't work. Rather than going at it with a hacksaw it's time to adjust the pace.