With these genres, i would say 100,000 115,000 is an excellent range. No strict rules are guiding the breaking down of novels into chapters. Some novels contain 50 or more and some extremely rarely contain none. The longer the chapters the more likely we are going to look at the clock and say crap i have to get ready for work in three hours.
As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and nonfiction genres. There are no rules on how many chapters should be in a book. They can vary in length between just a couple of pages and 50 or 60. Otherwise 110120k would be about average, unless my eyes are deceiving me every. That being said, the chapters in the book i am working on are 10k words long on average with the shortest being over 7. In chapter 2, well meet the protagonists love interest.
Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity hacker. Many readers use chapter breaks as an opportunity to break away and do something else. Shes looking for a broad range of captivating fiction and nonfiction. A novella is a work of narrative prose fiction, longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. In other wordsthe book might look like a doorstop but its never a slog of a read. Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. However, paranormal and ya fantasy books appear to remain largely in the 80120,000 range, with books targeted at children or younger teenagers sometimes dipping to 5070,000. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. The last unicorn has a chapter that is 23,000 words long. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of pages.
The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. How many chapters would a standard 350400 page book have. If you have ever read faulkners as i lay dying or many stephen king novels, then youll realise that a chapter. If you are writing a novel for the first time, youll need to know when and how to end a chapter.
But instead of seeing that as liberating, most beginners see it as terrifying. The book has 192 pages so the chapters average less than two pages in length. Shorter chapters keep the reader engaged and give them a. When it was eventually published, it would win patterson the edgar award for crime fiction. Some have dozens of short chapters, some have a few huge chapters often called parts or books, and some have no chapters at all. You are welcome to share 65 bestselling word counts with other writers.
Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. So i am currently writing a fantasy trilogy and am finding that a fair portion of my book is in fact dialogue. How many chapters will you need before you reach your target word count. Would this be a problem as i am told novels should be primarily narration, but as the main character is also the narrator it works out that he is talking for most of the book.
Not counting the epilogue, the shortest chapter is book 3, chapter 20 the dementors kiss at 2,018 words. What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. The title with the shortest chapters, on average, was. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. Another interesting way to find a good chapter length i think, would be to sit down and read a book from the first chapter, for about 510 minutes, or however long you wish your chapters to be, and see how many words you have read in that amount of time. James patterson the mostselling author in the world is famous for his tiny chapter of a page and a half around 250500 words. How long are the chapters in books by famous authors. A chapter book for lower middlegraders has a format that looks adult, with a longer text, often a lot of illustrations, and with mediumlarge print. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. First of all, about average is a book that shows how kids struggle to find their identities in school. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. If you revise and extend your ebook and not the print version, you may need to email amazon to fix your page count. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. There are no rules at all stipulating the rudimentary patterns of splitting a book into chapters.
Upper middle grade can hit in the 50k word count range possibly longer, if its something really special. Writing towards a word count might not work for everybody, but having a rough goal in mind certainly helps me when im sketching out chapters and undertaking my first draft. Lengthy chapters can make readers want to give up on reading a story. Im 14 and so far my book is 4 chapters and im about to write my 5th chapter im. Ive read a lot of ya in the last few years and chapters generally feel longer than that. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Count the pages in each chapter and divide by 250 to get an answer for what is the average number of words per chapter. While many agents say they wont reject a book solely based on length. Anything above 70k but less than 115k science fiction and fantasy tend to run up around 100k115k words.
Sep 18, 2017 in comparison, the database gives an average length of 89,000 words for adult fiction excluding fantasy, smack in the middle of the commonlycited range of 80,000100,000. Jan 08, 2018 ultimately, the ideal book length for a fantasy could vary from reader to reader, sub genre to sub genre, agent to agent, and publisher to publisher but looking at it from all angles, i personally think a fantasy book in roughly the 90120,000 word range would be well placed on all fronts perhaps with allowance for up to 150,000 for. Many times ive onemorechaptered myself all the way to the end at 2 a. Ill walk along published may 12, 2011 has an average chapter length of 1,021. With fun, lighthearted, simple middle grade youll want to stay around the 20k30k word count range.
The trick with structuring a fantasy novel is to weave in the exposition with a very light hand, so it always feels as if the action is moving things along. If you are wondering how many chapters in a novel is ideal, there isnt a. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000. How long a chapter should be fantasy authors handbook. You may find that leaving chapters out of your novel actually adds to the mood. The dragon reborn was rightskewed, which means there was a heavy distribution of exceedingly long chapters. Joe abercrombie, while not my thing, is very good at this. Some readers like to stop reading at the end of a chapter. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Most of the data ill be using throughout this article was sourced from writers digest and the manuscript appraisal agency, with any differences split to find the average.
As for chapter length, i cant help but feel that 1500 words is a bit short for ya. The english word novella derives from the italian novella, feminine of novello, which means new. The longest chapter is book 5, chapter detention with dolores at 9,001 words. May 12, 2012 you could say that you are on doing 2800 words on average per chapter, which is pretty good, but just remember to vary the length of your proceeding chapters if you make each one quite long, you will end up something thats touching 100k words. Aug 05, 2019 in outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. In comparison, the database gives an average length of 89,000 words for adult fiction excluding fantasy, smack in the middle of the commonlycited range of 80,000100,000. You dont have to pick a number like 80,000 and then divide it by 30 chapters to give you 2500 words a chapter average. When i got back home i checked and found that her latest book published april 1, 2014, ive got you under my skin, has an average chapter length of 768 words.
If you already know the average number of words you write per scene, use that figure. You end the book when you feel like it has come to a proper close. He wrote his first book on the side, called, the thomas berryman number in 1976, but it was turned down by over 30 publishers. Again, you are at liberty to introduce 10 or even 200 chapters in your book if you so wish.
The ideal number of chapters a novel should contain. This looks like a simple question, but you have to look at several factors before you can determine optimum length. It was very hard to read what should have been fun reading. Readers and chapters an author should think of the reader when creating chapters. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,00070,000 words. Jun 26, 2012 about average, is the title of the book that ive finished. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Word counts of popular ya books as i started drafting my new wip a ya scifi thriller i began wondering what word count i should aim for. Average number of chapters in a manga is 410 chapters about 8 per book. Cats cradle by kurt vonnegut has even shorter chapters.
A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. Half were in the first 20% of the book, but she still added another in the last chapter. Go to the library and look at the top you define top ya books similar to what you are writing. Childrens book manuscript chapter length consistency is what sort of keeps the engine of your pacing going. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. I have a friend who is writing a second in a series of police mysteries. At 2,500 words you get 40 chapters, at 5,000 words you get 20. There are not very many hard and fast rules in creative writing. The individual who said that fantasy of less than 100,000 words was preferred for first time authors in the us was misinformed. The average length of the novels we publish varies, but is almost. So that usually includes everything from chapter books, to middle grade, to young adult novels. As a result, it is not a difficult thing to define. There is a list on goodreads of books with short chapters.
What is the average chapter length in a young adult novel. Science fiction and fantasy are the big exceptions because these categories tend to run long. Every book is going to have different amounts of words and pages and chapters, and there is not set amount that each one has. The type of book you are referring to would be roughly in the 100,000 word category. You can do anything you want with subsequent books, if you sell a gazillion copies of the first book or two. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. So, whats the sweet spot for an average chapters word count and why. Danielle zigner joined lba books in 2014, after having spent a year working with a number of publishers and agencies, and has been since actively building her list. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Learn about chapter breaks and see examples of some from popular novels in the following excerpt from the book your first novel by ann rittenberg and laura whitcomb novels have all different styles of chapter breaks. If you plan to turn your ebook into a print book at some point, you might want to consider length.
This is a list of manga series by volume count of manga series that span at least 40 tankobon volumes. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. Longer word counts allowed for fantasy, scifi, historical. I would need to see your ms to be able to provide manuscriptspecific feedback. Somewhere around the 20page mark is about the average. Mar 20, 2020 is there a correct length for an ebook. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. Chapter books usually have chapters of five to seven manuscript pages, and the overall manuscript. And when im reading, i definitely notice, you know, with my editorial clients, i have manuscripts in front of me all the time. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. The plots of these books are often in episodes, where each chapter can almost stand on its own.
As for the question itself, there really is no answer. Is there a recommended length for chapters that i should follow by or just write until i feel content with the content. There are 165 manga series from which 92 series are completed and 73 series are in ongoing serialization. So back matter and sample chapters will not be considered in your count which is a good thing for readers.
And in that case, people always ask, you know, how long should my chapters be. If youre writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages. Well, youll put the book down when you get to the end of this chapter, you. How many times have you heard complaints about wheel of time and.
I definitely notice when a chapter is a lot shorter or a lot longer than sort of what has been established. Movie directors dont have this problem, but ive heard many writers get feedback from readers saying your book was so good i read. While 50,000 words is a fairly firm minimum, plenty of ya books reach up to 100,000 words, with a sweet spot at 75,00080,000. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. Its not the size of the chapters, but the quality of the story that makes the difference. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words. It has to do with all the descriptions and worldbuilding in the writing. You can see there is a lot of variation in word length, especially in epic high fantasy, where books can stretch beyond 200,000 words or sink as low as 50,000. The title with the shortest chapters, on average, was whirlwind in the thorn tree, averaging just 2,900 words each.
I agree that 20 or fewer is quite a manageable number of characters, most of them being unnamed tertiary characters. Rowling did it with her later harry potter books, but she stayed within the norm on the first several books she wrote. In chapter 4, well flash back to the protagonists childhood. Depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. However, the true word count depends on the category in which youre writing. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Novels have all different styles of chapter breaks. The hunger games uses 3,700word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts.
Dawnsinger and wayfarer, the first two books in my epic fantasy series, tales of faeraven. It takes a lot of time to go through the process, and thats even if the publishers like the book to begin with. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter. The da vinci code by dan brown was a global bestseller. But again as a surprise to me, dune was a close second, averaging just 3,800 words per chapter. In any of these books, some chapters are longer than others. Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. Oct 18, 2017 if youve ever felt this sinking feeling before, youve already got a sense of why sectioning word count should be so darn important to writers.
I told her it was far too many characters, but she disagreed because she was able to keep them all clear in her head. If your book has a print version, amazon will use that page count for your ebook. Plotting a novel by the numbers live write breathe. What is the recomended wordcount for a fantasyfiction book. Her first book had over 100 characters, not to mention named places. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. No matter how spellbinding it is, its pretty rare for the average reader to consume it all in one sitting. So, whats the sweet spot for an average chapters word count and why should it matter to you. On the fiction side danielle would love some quirky ya, as well as original fantasy and science fiction. If you ve decided to write that unique fantasy thriller, teen drama or. The average number of episodes in an anime are asked in history of the philippines, jose rizal. I will take these into account and hopefully be able to finish my novel soon.
In chapter 1, well be introduced to the protagonist. Oct 27, 2018 chapter length matters more than you think. I dont think a new author could get a fantasy novel of less than 100,000 words published in the us, unless it had vampires in it or was meant for ya readers. The average fantasy novel should have between 50,000 and 150,000 words. Eye of the world was one of the more normally distributed book in terms of chapter wordcount, which essentially means it had a mostcommon chapter length and a comparable number of chapters that were longer or shorter. This is especially rampant in epic fantasy and scifi. How to create chapters in your novel ny book editors. Jun 05, 2017 so childrens book manuscript chapter length is a big question that ive received many times about all sorts of childrens books that have chapters. Incidentally, you have probably already divided your novel into chapters using your instincts. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. In my own most recent book, the shortest chapter not counting the prologue and epilogue is just over 2000 words and the longest about 5500. What will happen in each chapter, and how much has to happen before you move on to the next chapter. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novellas word count to be between 15,000 and 40,000 words, although definitions vary.
The study found the average chapter length in fantasy novels ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 words. One thing in favor of short chapters is that readers are more likely to read just one more chapter when its midnight and they have to work in the morning, but theyre really into the book. I volunteered to do initial editing of the second book for her, unpaid, but now im worried since i think she went so far off the rails in her first of the series. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters. The eleven books of robert jordans wheel of time series average out to about. Statistics on harry potter chapter length science fiction. Many readers use chapter breaks as an opportunity to break. I am afraid for this genre it is not as hard and fast as offering a set word count limit for ya fantasy scifi.
As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. Thank you all for the great responses and the large amount of advice. Jun 27, 2019 fantasy and science fiction novels are known to be lengthier than other books. The fantasy genre requires authors to spend words describing items that to do not.
Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. How many words should there be per chapter in the average. Analyzing dialogue lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. If you have ever read faulkners as i lay dying or many stephen king novels, then youll realise that a chapter can be a. The average novel has a word count between 75,000 90,000 most publishers wont publish anything that exceeds 100,000 word count, unless it for a specific genre that has length exceptions like fantasy novels. That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels generally lies between 100,000 and 115,000. Average novels tend to be around 80,000 95,000 words, which is more easier for your readers. Sep 20, 2012 learn about chapter breaks and see examples of some from popular novels in the following excerpt from the book your first novel by ann rittenberg and laura whitcomb. One book might have 10 chapters, and another book beside it, in the same genre, and the same length, might have 72. They only wanted sample chapters, so i ignored the limit, thinking i might. If you dont know this number, write the first 50 pages of your book, then estimate the average number of words per scene. There is a basic method by which you compute an average it is standard math.