Words

[Nekouni]

Is 1000-1200 words good enough for a chapter when writing?

I always have this problem mostly because, if the chapter too long, it will make me harder to remember what i was writing before but if the chapter were too long, it's gonna be much harder for me to end the chapter.

So my question was, what is average or suitable number of words for each chapter?

 

[Lorelliad]

Before you write a chapter, think of the goal you want to achieve during it. If you manage to achieve that goal in 1000 words, good. 1500 words? Even better.

But I believe agreed minimum word count for chapters here is around 1000 words.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Depends on your story, intent, and your style actually.

1k words are the usual length of 'phone' novels, with reason being, people 'on the go' would always burn some of their idle time (i.e. riding in trains) reading something. Inkitt and Tapas encourage this word count.

Most agree that 1.5k to 2k is the tolerable length for chapters in online publishing.

I use 2k to 3k in my non-fantasy/low fantasy stories, while 4k to 4.5k is my main chapter length for my high fantasy work. My reason is, my novel is meant to read while relaxing, so I do it long. (Not to mention, I do proper build ups before climax, so it gets quite wordy.)

A colleague once told me that anything that reaches 5k and up is tedious to read and intimidates readers, though I did write 6k-6.7k chapters and my audience is fine with it.

Oh and yeah, if you want to end a chapter, better end it with cliffhangers (especially of you're in the middle of your manuscript). As for the end chapters, it depends on you whether to wrap it up or end with a cliffhanger. If you intend those last parts to resolve the characters' problems, wrap it up. If you intend to continue on (applicable if you do your novel by volume/arc), answer some issues, and end with a cliffhanger.

If you're having difficulty of keeping track of your story, you can always do a plot on what's going on. Better yet, backread on your previous chapters, but plotting is much efficient than having to go through the entirety of your work.

 

[Nekouni]

Depends on your story, intent, and your style actually.

1k words are the usual length of 'phone' novels, with reason being, people 'on the go' would always burn some of their idle time (i.e. riding in trains) reading something. Inkitt and Tapas encourage this word count.

Most agree that 1.5k to 2k is the tolerable length for chapters in online publishing.

I use 2k to 3k in my non-fantasy/low fantasy stories, while 4k to 4.5k is my main chapter length for my high fantasy work. My reason is, my novel is meant to read while relaxing, so I do it long. (Not to mention, I do proper build ups before climax, so it gets quite wordy.)

A colleague once told me that anything that reaches 5k and up is tedious to read and intimidates readers, though I did write 6k-6.7k chapters and my audience is fine with it.

Could you tell me writing style mean?

There are many stuff I'm still unfamiliar with writing like this, I came from Mangtoon, on there I'm more use writing in chat story where a Chracter will talking with each others while you as a writer would explain the story, like how you are chatting on discord and etc.

But it's limited my writing and in order to get your Story on mangatoon actually pretty hard and most of popular genre there aren't what I like to write.

Before you write a chapter, think of the goal you want to achieve during it. If you manage to achieve that goal in 1000 words, good. 1500 words? Even better.

But I believe agreed minimum word count for chapters here is around 1000 words.

I see, what you mean are find where I'm comfortable with?

I mostly gonna write something like light novel that people could just read anywhere like waiting for you food order to arrived and etc.

 

[Octopal]

3-4 pages long is good for short chapter

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Could you tell me writing style mean?

There are many stuff I'm still unfamiliar with writing like this, I came from Mangtoon, on there I'm more use writing in chat story where a Chracter will talking with each others while you as a writer would explain the story, like how you are chatting on discord and etc.

But it's limited my writing and in order to get your Story on mangatoon actually pretty hard and most of popular genre there aren't what I like to write.

Writing style, like how you do/present your story.

For example, my writing style (relative to matters of word count) is to have my characters converse like in real life. As such, I use filler words (which some don't recommend) to portray this reality. This adds to the word count per chapter.

My intent is to portray life-like conversations and reactions for my characters.

Or, a writer friend of mine (Assurbanipal_II) would have his narration or dialogues written as straight as it can be, thus minimizing his word count per chapter.

A2's intent is to minimize his word count.

Hence I told earlier to consider your intent whenever you write.

Thing is, with the proliferation of modern, online pop literature, the rules of writing blurs each day, as new authors, styles and techniques come up. My advice is, just write. Know the basics, like correct grammar, spelling and syntaxes, then write whatever and however you want. You'll hit an audience as long as you're consistent and careful with your work.

Wallow too much in technicalities, and you'll find yourself accomplishing nothing and despairing for perfection. Develop your writing as you write, instead.

 

[Nekouni]

3-4 pages long is good for short chapter

Then, I should be all right, I mostly write around there and update the each 1 chapter per day or something like that

 

[Yairy]

I think learning about work count per chapter was an overall negative in my writing. Write until the goal of the chapter is reached. Don't worry about word count.

 

[Nekouni]

Writing style, like how you do your story.

For example, my writing style is to have my characters converse like in real life. As such, I use filler words (which some don't recommend) to portray this reality. This adds to the word count per chapter.

Or, a writer friend of mine (Assurbanipal_II) would have his narration or dialogues written as straight as it can be, thus minimizing his word count per chapter.

Thing is, with the proliferation of modern, online pop literature, the rules of writing blurs each day, as new authors, styles and techniques come up. My advice is, just write. Know the basics, like correct grammar, spelling and syntaxes, then write whatever and however you want. You'll hit an audience as long as you're consistent and careful with your work.

Wallow too much in technicalities, and you'll find yourself accomplishing nothing and despairing for perfection. Develop your writing as you write, instead.

I see, just keep writing and find and stick with

I think learning about work count per chapter was an overall negative in my writing. Write until the goal of the chapter is reached. Don't worry about word count.

Fair enough, I always have this bad habit where I was worried if the chapter are too long and I stit unable to find where to end the chapter.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I see, just keep writing and find and stick with

Yep. Those advises are from my own experiences from writing, actually. I won't have 15 volumes/books done for my high fantasy/isekai story if I continued worrying on technical matters.

You can even check them online.

 

[BlackKnightX]

For me, the best chapter length is around 1,000 to 2,000 words. You can push to 3,000, but no further than that.

Don't worry about it too much, though. The only thing you should care about regarding the length of the chapter is the flow of the story. No matter how many words you write, if the flow is bad, the story might feel too short or too long. That's not good.

Make sure to have something happen—at least one interesting/attention-grabbing thing—in your chapter. End your chapter with a cliffhanger. (A lot of readers don't like this, but it's still the best tool in your arsenal to keep the reader's interest. The trick is to resolve whatever problem you've introduced in the chapter first before ending it with the introduction to another problem.)

 

[georgelee5786]

1k is good

 

[Paul_Tromba]

1k to 5k is optimal for a webnovel chapter depending on the pacing of the story.

 

[Rhaps]

1.5k to sometimes 3.5k, the length always fluctuates for me. As long as I convey my ideas.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

1000 word is GOOD.

People simply complain because they're used to 1500 words - 2500 words per chapter.

But it can always be solved by managing the amount of information and plot per chapter.

A chapter of story that are dense in content and have thick plots will feel satisfying even if they only contain 1000 words.

And I ask you to differentiate Details and Filler to increase your word count.

Minor Detail means it's important and relevant to the plot for the next 30-50 chapter, while Filler means its just another useless info that didn't affect plot at all.

 

[ElliePorter]

Is 1000-1200 words good enough for a chapter when writing?

I always have this problem mostly because, if the chapter too long, it will make me harder to remember what i was writing before but if the chapter were too long, it's gonna be much harder for me to end the chapter.

So my question was, what is average or suitable number of words for each chapter?

It is but tbh, the chapter can be long or short depending on the overall flow of the story.

You don't need to worry about it.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Do what works for you.