Heid

I was wondering what an acceptable number of chapters is for a novel. I'm currently planning out my first book and appear to be past the half way stage despite only having 9 chapters so far. I read somewhere that the average number is about 20, but some books I've read surpass that many times.

Any thoughts / advice?

lisajane

Heid, I wouldn't bother with the specifics to how many chapters you should have. I mean, my own novel is four, might be three (I'm in no. 3 now, just over halfway). The Bride Stripped Bare has 138.

Just write, and don't be too concerned about chapters, is my advice.

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Heid

It's not that I'm overly concerned I just wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna have publishers / agents turning me down saying things like "Not enough chapters to constitute a novel, blah blah blah".

Sound advice

Cheers

mammamaia

heid...
some successful writers are prone to very short chapters and some to the opposite... the number of chapters isn't as important as how you have the work structured... fewer chapters are ok if you have enough 'sections' within them, since readers need breaks and switches of scene/characters/pov now and then, to keep from getting bogged down or bored...

just make sure your chapters have good reason to BE chapters and that the writing is compelling enough to hold the reader's interest... if the division you've structured doesn't work, the editor will suggest something else... but, if your writing and story are good enough, what you start out with chapter-wise won't matter...

hope this helps settle your worries... hugs, maia

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Sareth

David Weber, one of the most popular authors for Baen publishing, just put out a novel that is 1... yes O.N.E. chapter... 500+ pages.

Heid

Wow! good responses.

Cheers to all who replied. I'd buy you all a round but I don't get paid till Friday

Verago

Don't worry about it. Say what you have to say, and say it well. Don't worry about the editors and publishers. It's not your job to please them, you just have to write the story, and if they don't like the way it is, they'll ask you to change some things. I doubt the number of chapters is an important factor in getting published.

Hakeem

I say that you just write, don't worry about anything else except the writing, then at the end you can seperate your work by making chapters and sections and such.

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PsychoticallySaneWriter

It's really about the length of the chapters rather than number. You shouldn't really think much about it anyway. Do what ever feels right. It's what makes your novel unique. But try to avoid 30 five-page chapters.

Chris

Oracle

Actually, I enjoy books with short chapters. It gives me good opportunities to go for snack breaks.

But some of the books I've read recently have done something interesting. They'll have very long chapters, but the chapters themselves are divided into sections.

Example:

Chapter 1:

I

blah blah blee blee bloo. (for a few pages)

II

blah bloo blee blah blah blee (for a few pages)

III

blah blee bloo, bloo blee blah (for a few pages)

IV

bubble mcfubble blah blee bloo (for a few pages)

Chapter 2:

I

etc...

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PsychoticallySaneWriter

I like that reasoning.

Some short chapters are good. But some of them can be really boring and rushed. I've read a few novels like this. You got a simple event, next chapter, simple event, next chapter, and on, and on. It's boring. Incredibly.

Anidazen

Amazed that nobody's said this already.

Terry Pratchett, I believe the bestselling fiction author behind J.K Rowling, (not sure on this?) rarely uses chapters. At all.

Most of his very popular Discworld series don't use chapters at all. Some do, noteably his newest; Going Postal, but apart from that there's just none. He had a review quote printed on the front of one of his bestsellers, from the Times or something: "A complete amateur, doesn't even write in chapters..." - actually probably earned him quite a few sales, heh.

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Verago

Hey, that's what I'm doing!

mammamaia

i've never seen such a thing in a book by an established author... what IS often done, is to break the book up into 'parts' or 'books' and then have chapters within each of those... but i've never seen 'chapters' broken into numbered parts... who are the writers that do this?...

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mswietek

Stephen King did it in his Dark Tower series (only books 1 and 2, I believe). He is the only one I can think of at the moment.

Michael

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