Surinderjit

Fr the first section of a book, that is almost 1,000 words long... Would it be okay to end the first chapter there, or should there be more action going on?

Basically it's a type of -in the middle of doing something - pondering - return home -wake up - decide to finally do some action that could not be done when the story starts... and the action is described in the second chapter.

Sorry if thats hard to understand... please advise if you can...

thanks

littlegreenbob

Well you are the author. Is 1000 words long enough? I dontthink people count or care for that matter.

It may be a factor if you have varying chapter lengths such as 1000 for chpt 1, 8000 for chpt 2, etc...But then again it may not.

The importance of chapter 1 is to hook your reader in. If your chapter does that, then it is OK. If not,

.put some of the action at the end of chapter one
.start the story earlier or later
.or think about a prologue.

mollym

I agree, just get us interested. Keep in mind if someone reads the first chapter and doesn't like it, they are probably not going invest the time to read the rest. I like short chapters, though.

spider8

As long as it's good enough, you can end the chapter anywhere you like. If the chapter is very short though ( i.e. 500 or 1K words) you could end the section with an ellipsis or an asterix and then begin the next afresh, even though technically it's the same chapter. In The Da Vinci Code, there were sometimes new chapters every 2/3 pages which is too soon for my liking but 30M readers can't all be wrong...

IWriteUWrite

I think it depends on what genre it is. As a general rule I personally prefer shorter chapters. But it works as a nice tool if the book is, say, a thriller (ie. the aforementioned Da Vinci Code) because, since the book is action packed, the short chapters speed things up.

But it may not work as well for a romance. It all just depends on your style really. A chapter can be a page long if you say all you have to say.

Sam Winchester

Chapter size is entirely your choice. Tom Clancy's chapters are vast and encompass over thirty to forty pages at times. Jeffery Deaver's are short and amount to no more than ten to fifteen. You don't have to always follow a strict guideline - The first chapter can be five pages, the second fifteen, third twenty-five, and the fourth back to five. Usually, I take a chapter whenever my gut tells me to.

Sam.

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Blossom

I wouldn't think about it in terms of word count - think about it in terms of chapters. That is, ask yourself is the chapter finished, or is there more to add? Don't add just for the sake of increasing the word count. Only add if it's needed for the story.

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