Chapter Considerations

Not too long ago, I participated in an authors' panel where the audience asked questions. Among other questions, we were asked how we decided the length of our chapters and where to break them. As you can imagine, the answers varied among the six different authors on the panel.

One of the authors made each chapter a specific number of pages. Another said he broke them whenever the time seemed right according to what was happening in the story. Still another left a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter to keep the reader turning pages. 

I'm not that precise in dividing my chapters, but I have developed some guidelines. However, I might not always follow them if it seems better not to. Generally, I try to avoid extremely long chapters. I find that readers are more satisfied and feel a greater sense of accomplishment if the chapters are not massive. My husband recently read a book where the chapters were from forty to sixty pages long, and he complained about it. He found it hard to get to a good stopping place.

I like to occasionally end chapters with a cliffhanger, but I don't always try to do so. I find that it's sometimes hard to work those into the right places, and as a reader, I don't like a whole book that way. If I stay up too late reading, I always regret it the next day and don't view the book favorably.

I don't try to have the same exact number of pages in each chapter either. I don't see the point in that, and I try to balance the number of pages with what's happening in the story and where an ending seems natural. I always try to be flexible enough to choose what's best for that particular book.

The truth is, there's no right or wrong answer to the question. Authors have different writing styles just as readers have different preferences. The correct answer is whatever works for the author and their readers.

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