What is a good word count for a single chapter?

[Skalugsuak_Hakarl]

My prologue was 1.7K words but my first chapter is much longer. Is it fine to release it in chunks? I work full time and don't have the time two write long chapters every week.

 

[SailusGebel]

Yes.

 

[greyblob]

yes and avg chapter length is 2k

 

[Paul_Tromba]

1k - 5k words.

 

[RaizarP]

My prologue was 1.7K words but my first chapter is much longer. Is it fine to release it in chunks? I work full time and don't have the time two write long chapters every week.

yes, it is fine

 

[ChubbyLiv]

1.5k words is ideal for me. Any more than that and I start to lose focus if the novel I'm reading is just meh. I start to fast read and skip many details. I believe your eyes needs a break, which the next chapter button offers.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

My prologue was 1.7K words but my first chapter is much longer. Is it fine to release it in chunks? I work full time and don't have the time two write long chapters every week.

2k is the ideal for me, a bit more or less depending on the actual content of the story, the progression. I like to stop the chapter where i find it most appropriate. ALmost like cliffhangers, but not with intention of creating suspense so much as i feel its a natural end point

i remember a prologue i made that was almost 9k words long. Cant remember how or why, but yeah. Weird i made it so long since i personally don't like prologues anyway and almost never make them. Prologues are little preludes to the main story and are mainly meant to set up events or prepare the reader's mindset to adapt to certain themes easier. BUt all the fucking prologues I've seen with online novels are rife with FUCKING SPOILERS.

Like no, i don't give a fuck that the MC will EVENTUALLY become some great and respected general or king with throngs of women at his feet, I wanna SEE THAT JOURNEY HAPPEN.

Now your ass just wanting to get to that later part instead. Its like with boruto. Fucking baited us with that cool battle scene at the very start, getting us hyped, only to present us with his younger self whom i now don't care about at all since he's just whining about his dad all the time instead of respecting the mf who saved literally the entire world.

1k - 5k words.

buddy, if anyone has me waiting for several days or even weeks just for a 1k word long chapter i will drive my fist through my screen and pluck out the eyeballs of that shit author.

I've done that sorta thing myself, and had that happen to me. Had to wait MONTHS for another pair

 

[Skalugsuak_Hakarl]

Yes.

yes and avg chapter length is 2k

yes, it is fine

Ah, good. I'd go through my buffer far sooner otherwise.

buddy, if anyone has me waiting for several days or even weeks just for a 1k word long chapter i will drive my fist through my screen and pluck out the eyeballs of that shit author.

I've done that sorta thing myself, and had that happen to me. Had to wait MONTHS for another pair

Thanks. I'll take that into account

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I'm experimenting with something. I'm working on three books at once that I update one chapter each a day, starting Oct 1st, So I'm sticking to needing about 1k to 3k words a day to maintain this level of output. I'm caught up to Oct 18th. I figure if I stick to this it'll work well.

 

[Shard]

From what I've seen, most go with 1k-2.5k chapters, though my favorites go well beyond that quite often. In the end, a good word count is simply what works for you. I'd say just write until you feel you hit a good stopping point, and if you get more/less than usual, that is fine. But I may be completely wrong, so...

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

For me, it goes something like 1.2 to 3 thousand. Less than the minimum usually feels like an empty chapter while more than the maximum usually feels like too much in one go.

 

[Colinllama]

I keep it to between 1k and 2k. My average is about 1400 words. I did have one chapter that went well beyond 2k, so I cut it in half and did a slight rewrite to make it into two decent chapters.

 

[Gryphon]

I usually try and average around 2.5k per chapter. There are certain chapters that go longer(my longest chapter being around 9k words) so I sometimes have to split into parts.

 

[Thekherham]

My chapters vary considerably, from as low as 800+ words to almost 3K and everything inbetween.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

The average word count per chapter in most of my works is around 3k words. The range for the chapter lengths of two of my stories on here is 2k to 7k words, depending on what's happening in the story.

 

[Alfir]

According to my research which the same standard I follow. A lightnovel per volume is between 40k to 60k. Their are some 70ish k.

Following this standard, I aim to write atleast 1k per chapter if I were to aim the midpoint of 50k words. It's a good way to maximize your chances for more to people to see.

Honestly, when I started... 500 words is kind of a breakthrough for me. Reaching 2k isn't exactly easy, it depends on your mood and state of mind.

Well, atleast, that's for me. I wrote 5k words in one sitting once, and it worked. I tried 10k forcefully, and my... head... ugh... migraine-inducing.

Of course, I can't guarantee that this will also work for you.

I recall this novel, just to increase word count, it's freaking extending its dialouges pointlessly that it's becoming boring. Just be careful not to make your story boring I guess.

 

[MajorKerina]

My rule of thumb is that a chapter must present, escalate, and then resolve an idea postulated within the confines of the chapter. Those chapters each add up to a collective accomplishment for the characters in the story and whatever else but the chapter must sort of have an animating thesis. Example one in particular I wrote which actually ran a little long began with a character recollecting on an abusive relationship they had with a friend in their group and they had moved on from them they felt but there was lingering baggage. So they sought them out and they learned information in dealing with that meet up and from all that the character came to a certain determination about where they are in relation to this person who had hurt them and letting go of the drama. And then at the very end the story introduced an interesting new location and tease for the next chapter.

 

[PeacefulMyst]

10k. anything below is rookie numbers

 

[Jet]

It surprises me that everyone got such short chapters. Mine range from 7k to 14k. The longest one is at 19k, but I'm considering dividing it into two. I break the chapters into subchapters. Something that Scribblehub tought me to do. The subchapters range from 1k to 3k. Subchapters represent a scene. While chapters relay a theme. Like a chapter would depict the whole day. And a subchapter could portray a single dialogue, waking up in the morning of the said day or taking a stroll in the garden for example. Quite frankly, not even subchapters can be digested in a sitting in our low attention span times, but I don't think it's worth it to try dividing even more. i'd rather make a whooping 4k words long subchapter instead of cutting a single seamless scene into two.

 

[WinterTimeCrime]

I like to form digestible chapters that leave on either a cliffhanger or a semi-resolved ending with around 1k to 1.5k words. However, everyone's book and preferences are different.

The two guys above me are crazy, though.