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!
Chapter? What's a Chapter?
Surely it is only a mode of construction? (Or something like that).
I write in blocks - these may be the length of a work session - or several work sessions. Sometimes these blocks will naturally have complete seperations in them (which I might only see later) - so these may become two (more-or-less) attached blocks.
Given the overall size of the pile of material I have scribbled I have divided the whole up into "books". Within those there are what I suppose might be called "Sections" - maybe these are like the "acts" of a play? And then there are "scenes" within the acts... Does that make any sense?
As a logisitical method to divide things up and keep track of what is where it works for me - even if I can't explain it very well.
Basically I originally write each block as a seperate word document with its own unique title. These get shuffled into Folders. Several folders can go into a "book". Perhaps, one year, they will represent chapters. Who know?
The really fun part is deciding what belongs where and checking that the continuity remains constant.
Length? I think that I might be suggesting that "chapter" is only a way of describing how we cut-up / divide a book/story.
Perhaps one thing to consider would be whether some material should be regarded as "sub-chapters"? I divide these by ****
I don't know if these thoughts will be any help to any one???
David
PS - it all sorts itself out in the editing and revision... :-)
Damien, my sympathies. My first chapter used to be 57 pages double-spaced but in 10 point TNR. It was a monster! It's been hacked back to 30 pages in 12 point so it's probably less than half the number of words and still too big.
You want it in word count, Jonathan? I can do that. My old chapter one comes in at 8900 words. The other chapters are all between 7000 and 15000 words. I accept that's too many and that's why I'm working on dividing them again. Short chapters don't come naturally to me but I think I've found the solution.
Thanks for the input, everyone.
Page counts can be deceptive because of font size and spacings. Word count is a better guide to reading speed, IMO.
I tend to keep chapters to around 3000 words: in fact I plan the story that way. Okay, I end up with the odd chapter at 6k or 2k but that helps with pacing and variation of the same, which you do need to avoid a degree of monotony.
An 8 page prologue is a bit much, don't you think?
Adrian - '...Chapters should have a dramatic opening. A landmark signpost and end with a cliff-hanger or a hook.' Yup - we'd all love that. But in the real world you can rarely engineer the three things together, more's the pity. Even the best writers can't. And if they did, we're back to the monotony thing again :)