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Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1474
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 11:06 pm: |   |
I asked this question a few months ago, about the appropriate length of a chapter. I can't find the old post, and really am in need of some sort of reasoning here.
Now that I am reviewing books, and the last few I have purchased brought me to this question. What is the reason that chapters are only 1 to 4 pages maximun lately? Is it because the average reader can't sit still and bury themselves in a chapter of say 10 - 15 pages, like was common when I was growing up and reading all those wonderful books that I read. To me it is really disconserting to have a chapter end on the 2nd page, it ruins my train of thought, it takes me out of the book for even a few brief stances, or minute involvements and lets the outside world filter in when I have to turn the page to go to a new chapter every other page.
Am I the only one who feels this is becoming a problem to readers and also to writers. It seems like everything has to be quick and non-involving. You can't get deep into a story or realm of caring about the people in the story if you always have to go to a new chapter. Who thought this up? Where did it come from and when did it start? It seems to me that children's YA books have more in-depth chapters now, than do adult books. I don't mind some short chapters in a book, but one that I am just reviewing is 274 pages and has 63 chapters, you do the math; and the other one that I just got finished with was 443 pages and 116 chapters. Where did the attention span of the average American people go???? Is this going to be the norm from now on? If it is, pretty soon, we will be having a chapter a page. In the 443 page book, there were only approx 400 pages that were printed on. I just worry about all of us getting the attention span of a gnat.
Is it me and I am whacked, or am I thinking something valid about all this?
Claudia |
Jennifer Lynn
Unity Member
Post Number:
1337
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 11:34 pm: | |
I think some people don't know how to make a scene break without starting a new chapter. I'm reading a novel right now by a prominent NY author, and I'm finding the same thing. Really short chapters that are driving me crazy.
J
Jennifer Lynn
www.jenniferlynn.ca |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1475
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 11:39 pm: | |
Jenn,
I liked both books and the other one that I wrote about a while back, but it was really hard to concentrate on the story. Like you said, drove me crazy.....
Claudia |
Harry Simenon
Wandering Member
Post Number:
252
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 04:17 am: | |
Oops, I'm old-fashioned. I have an average of about 15 pages. I start a new chapter when I think it is appropriate. Sometimes 10 sometimes 20, it all depends. I wouldn't worry too much about the latest chapter fashion. Maybe 2 chapters a page in the future? |
F.E. Mazur (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: dialup-4.131.54.25.dial1.cincinnati1.level3.net
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 04:55 am: | |
I'm not sure how much what you describe about many short chapters is spreading, but the practice may be taking its cue from the success of The Da Vinci Code. Just a little more than 400 pages in that novel and about 115 chapters. I wrote a review of the book on Amazon in which I was critical of this aspect because it struck me as a literary attempt to duplicate the quick-cut of film that is now so common. I thought it was an attempt to create action and fast pace by crimping a technique from an altogether different medium rather than by story. With me it failed. I am in the minority with those who did not think the book was well crafted. |
Todd Hunter
Unity Member
Post Number:
1679
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 05:00 am: | |
I guess I must be a person that doesn't mind writing in short chapters...
Personally, I use them to keep the reader reading, by making them short, sweet, and end them with some suspense (hopefully). If the reader looks and says 'Oh, there's only another four pages left in this chapter...I could finish those before I go to bed/go to dinner/go to work/etc.", then they keep reading...
A reader is more prone to stop reading at chapter breaks, and if those chapters are 15-20 pages long, they'll most likely do so...
But then that's probably just me...
Harry, I think I've actually seen books where that's been the case...if not 2 per page, then a few short chapters on separate pages, where everything ends up taking half a page...I can't remember where I saw them, but...... |
Dennis Collins
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
980
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 05:14 am: | |
I think it's a matter of style and statement. Herman Melville wrote sentences that are longer than some of the chapters I've seen. My chapters vary from about eight or nine pages to less than one. If the story calls for a break, I end the chapter. If the declaration is strong enough and important enough, a couple of paragraphs might be exactly right. I've heard discussions on the subject that seemed to say that seven to ten pages is about normal.
I tend to pace my stories with the length of the chapters and may be doing it all wrong. When I'm in an action segment, I shorten things up. I do the same with sentence length in dialogue.
I had a long conversation with Loren Estleman about this and he says that sometimes he purposely slows down the story to provide a break point for the reader. |
Frederick A. Babb
Awareness Member
Post Number:
22
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 05:22 am: | |
It depends on the content of the chapter. Some writers feel that quick hitting chapters keep the reader hooked as the contantly change scenarios. Others can take those 3-4 page chapters and expand on them to make 14-15 pages easy. But that would call for some additional work, dedication, and, in some cases, make a book that is 400 pages drift into the War & Peace world.
I was always taught that when a change in the story is absolutely nessecary is when the chapter break should occur. I average between 10-15 pages per chapter with a few exceptions up or down as the story calls for it.
Frederick A. Babb
Preview books: http://frederickbabb.bravehost.com |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
3194
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 06:13 am: | |
If the story is holding my interest, I like the longer chapters. If not, I get bored with it when the chapter goes on and on. I recently read a book where the first chapter was more than fifty pages long, and it was a less than 140 page book. I almost pulled my hair out.
For my own writing, I don't follow any particular rule on chapter length. Length of chapter is not a plan when Iwrite. When the particular chapter ends, I go to another. |
Nancy Marie
Unity Member
Post Number:
1810
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 07:07 am: | |
For the novel that I am currently working on, I stick with about 10 pages for each chapter, and end each chapter with a "cliff-hanger" so that the reader will want to continue reading.
I'm not sure why I'm doing it this way, it's just the way I think the book should be written.
blessings, Kitty |
Kevin Yarbrough
Wandering Member
Post Number:
196
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 08:29 am: | |
In our ever quickening world the American attention span is getting shorter. Free time is almost non-existant to most Americans and short chapters will allow them to read a bit. If thy do a chapter a day then they feel they have accomplished something.
I think short chapters are the rage because they are trying to take after movies. Quick scene changes will keep the reader involved , just like in movies. The literary world has to do something, it has been losing readers since the invention of tv. This just might be a fad and will vanish in time.
Kevin |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1476
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 08:37 am: | |
Frank,
The other book that started my comment on this particular phenom was The Da Vinci Code. When I read it, I was really taken back by the page count and chapter length and asked here about it then. Didn't get too much back at the time, though.
I just have this really sickening feeling that it seems this is the way the editors and publishers want a story to play out and all the newer books that I have picked up and thumbed through are seemingly the same. Maybe it is like you said about the scenes in a movie or tv segment, chopping from one place to another and this is the literary equivalent. If that is the case, I do hope it reverts back, for I truly think that the pendulum has swung too far and too wide to promote interest in the story/character and leads more to abandonment of the book in the process before it is finished. I know that it takes a great deal of effort for me to keep on reading when I have to look up every few minutes to a new chapter. It just seems like the thought process when you are reading a book as opposed to watching a movie or tv show are a bit different and should be capitalized on more instead of less in the name of conservation of time.
Personally, I like a 12-15 page count on a per chapter basis, and you can intersperse a short even, 1-2 page chapter in every once in a while to let the reader take a break, but keep the readers interest overall by the longer chapters. And it goes without saying that the chapter length should depend on the story changes and plot differences that come from thought processes also. I just think that the story should dictate the length of the chapter rather than the length of the chapter dictating the story.
Same with paragraphs, many you see today are only a sentence or two, and boom, you are off to another thought. I would tend to think that this promotes a disorganized clip array of meaningless randome thoughts. Fine if you are shooting a movie but not so fine if you are reading a book. Kind of like a clipboard on your computer gets filled up with meaningless stuff and that is all you have for the paragraph, but you turn it into a several paragraphs and then into one or more chapters.
Is that the story of all of our lives just now, and is it going to pass, so that we can become more focused again, or will it stay that way forever.... ???
Oh, and I fully realize that some of you are groaning and saying 12-15 pages, here is the queen bee of the long chapters talking, and I know that I do get carried away with a thought many times and don't know where to end a thing, and you are saying yeah, right?? here she is talking about short chapters and paragraphs and she wants us to read her long diatribes all the time..... well, at least when you have read my long diatribe, you know what my thoughts are about a subject. Cause I can go on forever in a chapter or even in a paragraph, but you have a thorough knowledge of what I am talking/thinking about when it is finished. Right Frank? When I am on a roll, I tend to go on forever, and I am trying really hard to condense things, and make those thoughts more conforming to today's literary judgments, but sometimes it is really hard to read those fast clipped things called chapters, now...
Claudia |
F.E. Mazur (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: dialup-4.131.51.158.dial1.cincinnati1.level3.net
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 10:29 am: | |
Hey there, Claudia--
I read your post start to finish, how's that???
How long a chapter is is all feel in my case. I'm not sure how that works and just write it off to the creative process. Sometimes I see beforehand something I think will end the chapter nicely at the same time I see it beginning the next. In SPINE for example, a chapter ends with a student saying to the teacher, "How 'bout you, Mr. Lord? You got a bro?" The opening line of the following chapter is Yes, he had a bro. |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
3195
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 10:45 am: | |
I didn't read the DaVinci Code so that is why I did not answer your previous post.
It's rare for me to read anything other than a book for review. I have a writer friend who labors diligently to expand my horizons by sending me best sellers and classics of the 20th century to read, but otherwise most books I read are either poetry or not best sellers.
Good writing or an interesting premise is the only yard stick I use. Chapter length does not enter into the equation unless it is a long and boring one. |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1477
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 12:16 pm: | |
Why~~~ thank you kind sir!! I appreciate your reading about my perspectives and thoughts.
I think that the way you state it is about the same as I feel about it. It is all in what has to be said and however long it takes to say it right. That is the way I gauge what I opt to put down. And I most often try to lead the reader into the next chapter or paragraph with a tie in, also.
When reading a book, I really try to stay interested in the story from beginning to end, even if I take a break from it, because if you aren't going to stay with the story (mentally, if not all the time, physically) for the time it takes to read it, why read it in the first place? And when a book loses me by upping the ante all the time with blank pages to stretch it out and chapters with only a page and a half and then a blank page, well......, I tend to get out of the mood. It is sorta like sex play, if you or your partner use to much foreplay, or not enough time on one spot, sometimes you miss the whole reason for the game.
Anyway, thanks all for the input, and finding a few different points here. But, mostly we think the same in many areas. A good book must be savored like a fine wine, or person that we cherish in the bed. |
Harry Simenon
Wandering Member
Post Number:
254
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 12:48 pm: | |
If the scenes changes faster than a second I totally lose it. I wonder how writers will imitate that constant wobbling with the camera’s you often see on TV.
I wouldn’t like to follow the latest fashions all the time. I think you should if selling books is your sole purpose. |
Donna Brown
Hunger Member
Post Number:
70
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 26, 2004 - 02:32 pm: | |
My chapter lengths tend to vary widely. I have some chapters in my current ms. that are no longer than a paragraph (sorry to those who hate really short chapters). I don't know that I think about an average length when I am writing - some of mine may be 10-12 pages or longer, some, obviously, are shorter. I do think brevity is necessary at times -
Deej |
Joyce Scarbrough
Wandering Member
Post Number:
190
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 06:31 pm: | |
My chapter lengths vary depending on the action going on, but they generally run about 8-10 pages. I like to give readers only able to read a chapter at a time a satisfying read and leave them wanting to know what happens next without ending in the middle of a scene.
Toyce
True Blue Forever
Read the first chapter at http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
See the hunk at http://www.southernbelleauthor.com/joycepersonalpage
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