Just thought I'd say hello, introduce my novel and also post a question at the same time.... and they say men can't multitask!

I was looking over my work so far on my untitled fantasy novel, so far I've a prologue and 4 chapters written for a grand total of 6,746 words giving each section an average of 1300 words. It feels right to break the writing there, but are these too short?

The advantage to this is it gives the reader time to delve in and out on their lunch break etc. rather than finishing a chapter over 2-3 sittings. But I don't want my work to appear as being dumbed down. Any advice?

I'd appreciate any feedback that you guys could give me.

My rule of thumb is there are 350 words to a page (one side) so 1300 words a chapter = ~4 pages.

Personally I measure chapters in scenes, and aim for two and a alf to three scenes a chapter. Now if oyur chpaters are composed of a single scene, or maybe a scene and a half, there is scope to increase it.
Scenes are commonly separated by a gap or an asterix in a novel, and usually comes where there is a jump in time, eg, the character leaves work and the next the reader knows they're at home. It's not necessary to add the detail of the trip home, and neither is it necessary to start a new chapter at this point.
So have a look at your chapters and as yourself why oyu're ending/starting them at this point; are they ending on a hook that's going to encourage the reader to read on, or are they ending at a point where oyu've simply got to move the character from one position to another, and could that simply be represented by a gap in the text.


- NaomiM

<Added>

Just to add, if you've got more than one narrator (point of view main character) in the novel, then giving them separate chapters is fine.

Two and a half scenes?

For your edification, I give you half a scene from Humpty Dumpty:

The rotund man gazed longingly into the distance, where he could see all the kings horses and all the kings men. He would rather have died honourably with them than to live dishonourably watching from a distance and cursing his inadequacies.

But at least he had found a good vantage point to watch from. The solid wall beneath him had been built in the days when walls meant something. It was over three feet thick and had become as much a part of the landscape as the wild hills on the horizon.

He wondered whether he could see Joanne's turret from here. Cautiously, he stood up and turned around to look to the East where her castle lay.

<Added>

"all the King;s horses and all the King's men"
For shame.

<Added>

"King's"
For more shame.

<Added>

PS: More seriously, just write the damned thing. I tend to write in scenes and group them to gether as I see fit... which changes a a lot. Scene headings are for my benefit, not my readers.

Whether you write six 15,000 word chapters or seventy-two 1,200 word chapters in your first draft is a cosmetic irrelevance by the time you've reworked it into something you want to keep.

No point getting too het up with tying everything together and then becoming too frightened to untie it when you realise the second scene would be better in the fourth chapter.

<Added>

Hmm. "to gether" >> "together"
Unending shame.

"King's" For more shame.

Why? It's a perfectly good possessive: generally speaking, there's only one king at a time...

As the others have said, the best reason for a chapter break isn't length, it's what's going on with the book. Some writers don't write in chapter at all in early drafts, but put them in once they know how the book's working. Others plan from the beginning, so that the chapters are the bigger units of storytelling.

Emma

It's a perfectly good possessive

Sorry, the shame was too intense to quote the corrected as well as the correction. But, if you must see me humiliate myself further as I prostrate my unworthy form at the throne of criticism.

"all the King;s horses" should have been "all the King's horses"

Self-mutilation, flaggellation and ritual suicide is too good. Etc.

Gaius

Self-mutilation, flaggellation and ritual suicide

You're not writing a sequal to The Name of the Rose, or some other medival epic, are you?

Emma

I scorn such frivolous piffle.

My readers' souls shall be shriven. They shall retire as hermits to contemplate their sins till they have shrunken to the size of hedgehogs. Only then can they rise above their base natures and, potentially, become pope in the spirit of the Holy Sinner.

Regards,

Unaccountably Overtaken By Religious Zealotry of Dublin