I recently discovered something about myself. I used to think I wrote 20 page chapters–give or take. But recently when I was working on proposals and really pushing myself to crank out pages, they were shorter–like 12 or 15. Now I’m working on a new project, something I’m taking my time with, and yep, I’m back to long chapters.
How long are your chapters? Do they seem to always fall about the same place? And how do you know when it is time to start a new chapter? I usually have an event or line in mind that I am working toward. For example, in the book I’m working on now I planned on introducing two rather important characters, and ending the chapter after the second one. I was doing this because the second one will come with an important revelation. The first one has one too, but the reader won’t know it for quite some time. However, I’m getting close to 20 pages and still haven’t introduced either character–that’s what got me to thinking about this. I absolutely don’t want my chapters to be longer than say 22 pages, so I’m going to probably have to think of a new ending.
How much planning do you do for this? Do you plan your whole book by chapters, or just wing it?
Till next time!
Lori
Remember to “fall back” tonight!
When using the standard ms format I end up with about 18-19 page chapters. If I’m using my publishers format I end up with 11 page chapters.
I really don’t plan the chapters, but I feel weird if they don’t fall within my range. And I also notice that the closer to the end of the book I get the shorter the chapters are.
by Teresa October 29th, 2005 at 7:50 pm