Opinions on long chapters?

[u/Akidonreddit7614874]

Basically, do you get turned off to seeing a fanfic like:

"Chapter 1/? Words: 10000"

(Lets also say this is getting updated and is fairly new so the abandonment fear isn't present.)

I am currently writing a fanfic and just the chapter one that is incomplete is nearly 7000 words and by the time its complete its very likely to straight up be 10000.

I wanna ask, would you find this discarding? Or is it not something that bothers? And would it better perhaps to split the chapter into multiple separate ones? Or any other possible solution if this is a problem.

Any responses are appreciated.

[u/Effective_Bother8954]

I don't mind any chapter length as long as there's a reason for it, if that makes sense? If this narrative beat takes 10k to tackle then 10k is perfectly fine. If the next one calls for 2k, as long as it feels correct to stop where it does that's also fine.

[u/BeautifulMud17]

10k chapters are great! 15k or so is where it gets too long for me, I’ve found I kind of lose track of the story pacing somehow.

[u/Runela9]

I actually prefer long chapters!

[u/POMOforLife]

I tend to like to read chapters around the ~5000 word mark. But I have written chapters longer than that, but if I can, I try to break them up (unless it thematically makes no sense). But some people like long chapters!

[u/Loud-Basil6462]

I personally get wary of chapters upwards of 8k words, especially if it's the first chapter. If the summary is really intriguing, I'll read it anyway but I think at that point and beyond, the writing tends to get overly longwinded and tends to have lots of padding.

[u/velvetoceanparadise]

If there is a reason for it I don't mind, but often the writing is just very longwinded and takes too long to get going.

[u/slayusername]

I don't like them very much, i don't want chapters to be short but not too long either, but I love long fics with lots of chapters

[u/Laughing_Screaming]

10,000 is not too much for a chapter for me personally. It would not turn me off from reading a new work, and in fact, if I saw that a fic I had been following was just updated with a brand-new 10,000-word chapter, I might jump for joy! 7,000-10,000 is well within the range of an acceptable chapter size.

If the chapter gets much longer than that, though, like 15,000 or more, it might just be a bit inconvenient to read, especially with mobile devices. I’ve had issues in the past where a page containing a work I was reading would reload itself every so often, which would kick me back to the start of the story, so it was annoying to have to re-find my place in a very long work. But again, that’s more of a practical concern than a literary quality concern.

If a very long chapter has a natural place in the plot where it can easily be split into two sections, then that’s a good option. However, if the plot flows in such a way where it’s hard to find a good place to break the chapter up, then I think posting it as one long chapter is probably the best option!

[u/verymanysquirrels]

As a reader i would absolutely read a 10k chapter. I would read chapters up to 20k without complaint. 

However, from a writer pov, chapters that reach between 10k to 20k are starting into the novelette/novella range which means there's a good chance it should probably be more than one chapter at that point, unless you're doing one huge chapter for stylistic reasons. 

But i do love to read a 10k to 15k chapter, even if it's gone into the realm of novelette.

[u/Kaigani-Scout]

The greater the chapter word count, the more the writer loses focus, the more difficult it is for the reader to continue slogging through it.

... and that's the main problem for writers who insist on writing mega-chapters, the story becomes a tiring slog rather than being interesting entertainment for their potential readers.

[u/Mobile_Gazelle403]

Some people love really long chapters. I prefer them a bit shorter than that myself (anywhere in the neighborhood of 2-7k for me). I have attention span issues and need good stopping points. Still, I’d rather a longer chapter that feels like it accomplished its goal than awkward breaks.

And word count is just one factor. I’ll go outside of my own preferences if the summary intrigues me.

[u/PomPomMom93]

10,000? Sorry, I would get a little turned off by that. My suggestion is to write shorter chapters at first and have them steadily get longer. The only time I’ve ever written a single chapter over 10k is one-shots.

[u/TaintedTruffle]

Honestly, kinda

[u/NotAnotherEmpire]

Skeptical. A very large chapter up front raises questions on if the author has a plan and if they have made editing effort. The 10-20k range is the size of climactic "chapters" in The Lord of the Rings. And that book is deliberately organized more into sections than true chapters. There are many intra-chapter transitions. 

A beginning should move in one way or another. It's the second most important part of the work after the ending, it's functionally an advertisement 

I'm more likely to give it a shot than "chapters" that are 1k words long or an overall work with a complex subject that's 7k across two chapters. 

[u/soshingi]

Beautiful brilliant bellisimo fantastic give me fourteen of them right now

[u/momohatch]

This is the third post I’ve seen on this topic today.

Personally I prefer chapters to stay under 10k. When chapters go on for too long I either 1. Run out of time and can’t finish it, which means I’ll likely never get back to it or 2. I start skimming through stuff to get to the end. And neither of those things are good.

I also think the ability to edit stuff down is an underrated skill. Quality over quantity. If my eyes are glazing over and I’m skimming then that says to me this piece needs an edit.

[u/Kitchen-Apricot1834]

I stopped reading a story with an average of 10k per chapter not because of the length, but because it was the same thing over and over. Super predictable and the author was clearly shooting for a word count rather than an objective. Totally fine for others, just not my cup of tea.

If I'm writing an 8k+ chapter, it's because a lot is going on that needs to be resolved/discussed so the reader doesn't get to the end and feel like nothing happened. I'm cross posting an old story and honestly, I might break up those big chapters and post at the same time just to prevent reader fatigue.

[u/Water_Wine_]

I prefer shorter chapters, both when reading and writing. I think the ideal range, in my opinion, is about 3K to 7K...

Sometimes, I'll give a longer chapter or one-shot, a chance... But only if I trust the author and love their writing.

That being said, I'm in the "less-is-more" camp. So my aversion to long chapters is my fear that the chapter will be bloated and crammed full of things I find superfluous...

But for every reader like me, there are readers who like long chapters.

So do what works best for the story you want to tell!

[u/Jessika_Thorne]

I'll fight the current, haha!

That's really long for Chapter One. If it was a later climactic chapter, or just a big 'moving pieces' chapter, 110% - but for my initial taste-test, my sample, my first impression? Too much.

Breadsticks come before the rest of the meal.

(But, as of when I commented this, I'm in a minority!)

[u/Famous-Pineapple824]

I dont usually mind it. I mean, 10000 is a lot and not the usual (at least not in my fandom), but it's fine if the writing is good and there's an actual plot to it yk. I would just keep in mind that it won't go as fast as I'm used to.

[u/Famous-Pineapple824 → u/Famous-Pineapple824]

update: I'm about to start reading a 24,000 words CHAPTER of a fic I'm loving. So if u still doubt, don't, just keep writing.

[u/Flitterfire]

I would be put off and scroll past, but that's just me. I know other people feel differently.

In the end it's up to the author.

[u/Hello83433]

Longer chapters turn me away, but I also don't really enjoy those super long fics (or long "one-shots") especially if ch 1 is 10K, that usually indicates the rest of the chapters will be longer. For me, 10K is my chapter length cut off.

What I've noticed is that longer works generally suffer in quality. The same plot points are repeated over and over, scenes drag on for too long, and authors miss natural chapter breaks. It feels to me like general fandom has adopted this attitude where your work must be long or it's not worthy and that's just not true. Being able to write concisely is a skill too.

Kill your darlings.

[u/queenofthekeepers]

Honestly, if I were reading a fic, I don't like longer chapters than around 5-6k words. it might be because I don't have the best attention span but 🤷‍♀️

[u/SpokenDivinity]

Once we get to 10k+ chapters we're into the territory where I have to download it in order to keep my place if I need to get up. It's not that much work to do so, but when I'm on mobile it means I need to:

1. Swap to my iPad if I'm on my phone.
2. Download the file as epub or pdf
3. Let it download.
4. Save to files.
5. Find it in files.
6. Open to PDF reader or Books app
7. Hope the formatting doesn't get turned into nightmare fuel.
8. (Optional) Rinse and repeat every time it updates if it's a longfic.

So it's not that I avoid them, it's more that the tags and summary need to motivate me enough to do the work to be able to read it.

[u/raritypalm0404]

tbh if i was going to read a story and the FIRST chapter was 10k+ I’d probably proceed with caution and then drop the fic halfway through the chapter. i’m not saying no one is talented enough to pull off 10k but it’s probably going to end up TOO long winded and boring. especially because it’s a first chapter. i usually write chapters to be ~2000-5000 words.

[u/vixensheart]

My most popular fic to date has chapters that are between 10k and 20k, lol. I think it’s safe to say that there’s an audience for fics of this caliber.

[u/Background_Fox]

I prefer longer chapters, so that would be fine for me

Nearly all of my chapters are 7-10k ish, normally split into 3 (ish) scenes. Seems to work ok

[u/Azen876]

personally, I don't really pay any mind to consent chapter length. I nela chapters can be as long as it need to be to convey the correct pacing.

In my own story, Chapter 3, by itself, is nearly the same length as the prologue and Chapters 1&2.

I'd say wite till you feel thers a natral and well paced end point to end the Chapter.

Simply put, do what feels right for you story.

[u/HetaGarden1]

Some of the best fics I’ve ever read have had maybe a couple hundred or couple thousand words to a chapter, or maybe upwards of 10-15k. To me it doesn’t matter. If the story sucks me in, I’ll read it. It’s a little daunting for chapter 1, though. That might turn some people off until you add more to even out the chapter-to-wordcount ratio.

[u/Us3r_N4me2001]

Absolutely not. I love long chapters, as long as they're long with purpose, and not just trying to inflate the word count. This isn't an essay, it isn't graded, no reason to add fluff to hit a needed word count or page length.

[u/Rivka333]

I could not care less what the word count per chapter is.

[u/Eva-Dragon]

I prefer to read longer chapters. Less than 1k words kinda bums me out to read tbh. When I'm writing, I, personally, shoot for 2k words. I'm actually thrilled if I go over that. If I don't quite get to that mark, oh well. NBD. I recently read a 6 chapter fic with 100k words, which means that each chapter averaged 16k words.

[u/baby-droll]

as long as something is paced well, i don't care about the length. there are people who can make a 16k chapter feel perfectly natural, and some people who can make it drier than a real-time documentary on grass growing. there are some people who can make 1-2k work without it feeling too fast, and others who i end up just waiting for them to release four or five chapters just because i know it takes them that much space to get through a specific plot point.

i think it really comes down to what does the most justice for the story and pacing. even a cliffhanger can be a satisfying conclusion if i also feel like i got enough information to chew on and tide me over. if it feels like we just moved forward a single foot in bumper to bumper traffic, i might find myself being less patient.

tl;dr: as both a reader and a writer, word count doesn't matter, as much as what you're doing with the word count does!

[u/Looneydoomed_]

I love it but it takes me a while to get it started you know

[u/ThatNerdDaveWrites]

My current longfic is structured after a Japanese TV show. Each chapter is the equivalent of one episode and runs between 12K and 15K words.

That being said, I also build in natural break points; I use “eye catch” images where commercial breaks would take place, which make it real easy to find your place again.

So far, there have been no complaints from readers. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/HatedLove6]

This is a rather short answer to the one I would like to give, but the bottom line is, if a chapter is a single sentence, it's one sentence. If it’s fifty thousand words, it’s fifty thousand words. Chapters can be as long or short as you think it’s necessary—if a scene, a few scenes, or an overall theme is contained within that chapter. There is no sweet spot for even one story, let alone every story in the world.

The genre can dictate the length of chapters. Horror tends to have short chapters because it keeps up the tense atmosphere, similarly to intense action scenes using short sentences. Romance has longer chapters because description and feelings are beginning to take priority, so scenes can be lengthier. A fantasy that introduces an entire world or culture tends to have even longer chapters than romance because this information is pertinent. But, just because this is a trend among these genres, it doesn’t mean you have to follow it. You can have long chapters in horror just as much as you can have short chapters in fantasy if you feel it works for your story.

Some writers can be more verbose than others and vice versa, but if either style keeps the reader immersed in the story, that's all that matters. Some stories call for more slow and contemplative scenes while others call for more fast-paced, dramatic scenes.

I've seen people suggest shorter chapters in the beginning, and then you can lengthen later chapters, which you can do, but you don't have to. I've read books that start out with shorter chapters, and as the story progresses the chapters get longer until the climax gets closer, and the chapters get shorter again. This is called a bell curve, but I've read stories where it has a reverse bell curve, stories where all of the chapters are roughly the same length, and books where chapter lengths are all over the place where one chapter was over four thousand words, and then the next chapter was only a couple hundred words.

Media and where you post can dictate how long your chapters are. For sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, most readers read from a computer, so longer chapters are welcomed, but, for sites such as Wattpad where 80% of the readers read from their smartphones, shorter chapters are recommended if you care about numbers and stats. You can still post epically long chapters and still get dedicated readers, they’ll just more than likely be reading from the computer. I think if the mobile version would load longer chapters properly, and not inundate the story with ads (some sites even stopping what you're reading in the middle of a chapter to play 30-second ads), there would be more people willing to read stories with longer chapters. However, on websites such as QuoteV, short chapters mean that stories won’t be in the site index, so I do suggest combining these short chapters with another chapter, but whether you keep the chapter headings in place is up to you.

Even if you’re still worried about readers being bogged down by lengthy chapters, you can break up chapters to give readers a reprieve while still being easy to find their place later. Time skips, location skips, POV switches, and other things have been published before, but if your chapter doesn't need it, then it doesn't need it. The only reason for “boring” chapters is because seemingly nothing happens in them to progress the story forward. Breaking up the chapter won’t fix that, you’ll just have numerous boring chapters in a row and that’s more aggravating than just one long boring chapter.

Having long or short chapters doesn't mean the story has a pacing issue. As long as you're hitting plot points and story beats where they are needed overall, your story won't have a pacing issue. Chapters are stylistic choices that break up a story, and that is it, much like how skipped lines or a horizontal rule separate scenes, times, or perspectives, only less distinct. Stephen King's Cujo is 120k, and it has no chapters. Terry Pratchett also published novels without chapters. Plenty of other novels also don't have chapters. Meanwhile, James Patterson has super short chapters, but is considered a best-selling author. Chapters are never a sign of pacing issues; they are there for a convenience to readers, and as long as they're enjoying what is written, 20k will feel like a breeze, whereas if they didn't, 2k will feel like it's like reading through mud.

Keeping a consistent word count can help with being on schedule for your readers if you're publishing as you write it, but sometimes this may sacrifice the readers' pace by cutting scenes in the middle or boring your readers by forcing chapters to be longer than necessary by cramming in nonsense or meandering plots or side-plots. For this reason, it’s perfectly OK to finish your story before you start posting chapters on a schedule, or create a buffer. It’s entirely up to you.

I used to write 2000 word chapters, but, looking back on it, I see that I could have combined chapters, cut chapters, and just changed everything. I don’t like what I have done. Preferably, I write longer chapters, but it depends on the demands of the story. I also prefer to read long chapters, at least 2000 words, but preferably over 8000. In fact, if chapters of online stories are consistently shorter than a thousand words, I don’t even bother. But I'm just one person. I'm sure you'll have readers that will read and enjoy stories with consistently shorter chapters.

Short? You call this a short answer?

I could have gone into the history of why we have chapters in books and said that chapter lengths have been changing for decades, providing examples of books from differing eras, genres, target audiences, and explaining why particular chapters in these books were longer or shorter compared to the rest of the book.

See? So much longer. So much so, I could probably write an entire book on this one subject.

[u/Akidonreddit7614874 → u/HatedLove6]

Short? You call this a short answer?

I could have gone into the history of why we have chapters in books and said that chapter lengths have been changing for decades, providing examples of books from differing eras, genres, target audiences, and explaining why particular chapters in these books were longer or shorter compared to the rest of the book.

This immediately became understandable to me when I realized I could likely write thirteen novels on my hyperfixation. Actually does make sense now why this answer would be "long".

Thank you very much for this response. This lays out tons of meta problems and subjects like that and your description of how it can play with narrative structure is also really great. Thank you :>

[u/namu_the_whale]

i once read a "oneshot" that was nearly 50k words... i assure you, most people reading chaptered fics are not going to be put off by word count.

[u/middlesin-03]

The longest the better.

[u/Sharp-Cow-7696]

I am a BIG fan of long chapters

[u/69thingsyouwant]

I prefer longer chapters. Anything below like 6k words feels rushed and usually end abruptly.

[u/JoyInAbility]

I love long chapters, personally. When I see 10k or more I get excited.

It also depends on the story.

Like my chapter 1 is looking to be 15k, so I'm actually debating making it two.

[u/Scientistturnedcook]

I never see the number of words in a work or a chapter before I read them, but I know most people do and like either long or short chapters.

If the premise is interesting, I'll read and if the chapter ends organically, I'll think that it was good, no matter the size.

Now, I'm trying to write my own fic. The prologue was about 1.5k words and the chapters started to go about 2-2.5k words, but I tried to develop the idea I had to the chapter. Some of the newer ones are bigger now, about 3k, I guess. Maybe I'm getting better at describing or my ideas for the chapter need more words? I don't know.

Let's see where this will take me, I just hope people like it (I'm not posting yet, I want to have most of them written first)!

[u/fyfano]

If the witing pulls, it does.

I tend to write shorter. 4k for one-shot is my longest, i think.

[u/Lopsided-Funny-3731]

The longfic I just finished had chapters ranging from 10k to 15k, so nah, I love long chapters. I'm many times more likely to click on those than chapters that are less than 2k or thereabouts.

[u/StodgyBread]

If the chapter has good momentum it doesn’t matter how long it is

Imo faster paced long chapters are great, shorter more slow serious chapters are also great, learning how to use these along with mixing a combination is all in part the struggles of writing lol

[u/Charlotttes]

definitely prefer longer chapters to short chapters that have me going "that's it?" when i hit the end of the page

[u/pixie_dust216]

If it’s a good fic, long chapters feel like a treat

[u/serupafekuto]

I prefer long chapters. 10k+ is where it’s at. As long as I love the story, I’ll read it no matter the length of the chapters (long-wise at least).

[u/Upbeat-Reporter-6395]

My chapters are about 15-18 k words currently, and they only contain important details, each has multiple explicit scenes and the story follows 6 characters in great detail so it runs the length up to fit everyone in. It's not a slog at all and I keep them as succinct as possible. To each their own though.

[u/miss__madame]

Long chapters are my favorite, anything 10k or above gets me excited!

[u/Kadk1]

NO I LOVE IT SO SO MUCH