How often do you chapter pages in a Novel ?

Question

After every what ?

Answer 1

You mean, how long is a chapter? However long it needs to be. I never count pages and start a new chapter after a certain number.

Your chapter breaks should serve the story.

Answer 2

A chapter could be anywhere from one sentence to an entire book. James Patterson's chapters are often less than a page or two in length. Cormac Mc Carthy's Pulitzer Prize winning The Road is one long chapter. I was taught by a very well known NY Times bestselling author of mysteries to vary my length for variety. But basically, when a scene is done - the chapter is done and I start another. Sometimes you need a very short chapter to "bridge" the action between two longer chapters.

There is no set answer. Mc Carthy chose one long chapter because he wanted to show the long and diffuclt journey of the father and son and how it was relentless with no breaks in it. Patterson is a different story. I do believe he uses short chapters to make his books look longer. It allows for a lot of blank space inside the book - since new chapters generally start on the right side of a book. (He also uses a larger font to stretch out outrageously short novels!)

Pax - C

Answer 3

We assume the question is, how does the prudent author know when to end a chapter and begin a new one?

Answer: As often as the author wishes to receive payment from a parsimonious old publisher who pays his writers only on receipt of the next literary installment as per the great British novelist Charles Dickens
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=1889#1889, who made his fortune writing serials. In truth, the coolest thing about his books is that most were never intended initially, anyway, as books at all but as the far more profitable precursors to the modern-day soap opera. That said, aside from monetary considerations, the decision to begin and end chapters is a matter usually left to the discretion of the author or a trusted editor. The purpose is, of course, to get the reader to keep turning the page.

Answer 4

It could be a page, a paragraph, or fifty pages or more. Learn more about "Scene and Structure" and that will help you decide when to end. Look at each chapter as a specific series of events. When there's a switch in subject or a change in the direction of the plot, you might want to start a new chapter.

http://amazon.com/Scene-Structure-Elements-Fiction-Writing/dp/0898795516

Answer 5

7-10 pages on average for me.

In the case of one book I'm writing, it's on a 15-page average. (I'm only on Chapter 6.)

Answer 6

Depends, if I'm into a book it'll be after every 50-100 but if i'm not enjoying it every 10.

Answer 7

after a type of conclusion to something or at a high point in one group you can switch to another group