How many breaks in a chapter are too annoying? Currently reading Acotar and there are many breaks. in my first chapter of my book i want the main character to fall asleep between half of the first chapter (which btw does anyone know how many pages in a word doc equal a chapter? I know it depends and varies, but like a general guide–or is the ratio pretty much one word doc page is one page of a book after being printed?)
I also want to give my book a light comedy aspect to it, despite the fact it may sound like a child wrote it. is something like this engaging/desired or does it just seem like a fluke? (I realize I should write for myself and not other people, but I also don’t want to write a book that others will laugh at in the bad way lol)
Here’s examples:
“Not again!” Keiran groaned, rising from the drool covered page he fell asleep on. The page crinkled at his movement and Keiran stumbled over the stack of books beside his seat. “This can’t be happening, Spook! Don’t you know today is the first ritual?”
Spooky, Keiran’s black cat, indeed did not know today was the first ritual. (and then explains what spooky is doing)
or
Much to his luck, the ritual would be taking place upon a large hill that sat north of their village. “Aw, come on.” He told himself twenty minutes later as he reached said hill. It was much larger than he’d expected, which meant it was more than a foot long.
These are just clips from the first chapter that I’m about to rewrite, but I just wanted to get feedback on this type of narration.
Furthermore, I’m always looking for writer friends to chat with and talk about our works or just encourage one another to work on them if any one is interested! Hope you all are doing great on your works!
I don’t think there’s a solid rule for this, but I’ve never seen a published chapter with more than two or three scenes in it, and I myself never put more than one or two scenes in a chapter. But maybe if they’re very short scenes, you could have more…? ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
As for your excerpts, they seem fine to me! They seem quirky and amusing, but don’t make me laugh in a bad way. (*＾-‘) 乃
I just wasn’t sure what was over annoying or anything in breaks. I don’t typically use them! and thankyou so much, i think im afraid of writing in that sense that it wont be accepted but then i realized it kinda doesn’t matter even if i do publish!
Honestly… that’s based on your own preferences. Some books have 1-3 breaks, others have 3-6. Some don’t have any.
I, personally, do anywhere from 0-4 scene breaks, depending on the chapter.
A chapter is as long or as short as you want it to be. There’s no right or wrong answer for that. It can be one word, it can be 10,000 words—and this will depend on your font size, font, and if you don’t skip lines. This could mean your chapter could be a single page or twenty pages on Word. Or more.
Personally, I use word counts as a guide to help figure out how long I want my chapter to be. My current novel has a range between 3,000-10,000 words, with an average around 4-6,000. This means that it’s about 6-10 pages.
In an actual physical book, again, it’ll depend on formats. They say that the average page is about 250 words. I’d probably range it about 200-350 per page in a physical copy.
If you think it’ll be funny, write it. Write whatever you want. You’ll never please everyone who reads it, so it’s no use trying. You’ll have people who hate it, people who love it. As long as you love it, you’ll find people who think the same, too.
I used to do about 10K word chapters, but more recently they fall between 2500 and 5500 words. That was back when I could sit and write full chapters in a matter of hours too, before I learned all the rules and recommendations and my brain goes too full on editor all the time.
As already mentioned it’s really up to the author.
I typically try to keep things to a single break in a chapter (if any) unless there’s a flashback scene (or dream sequence) or something, but lately those get put at the beginning of chapters to keep it down to that one page break.
IMHO too many breaks can be annoying because it feels like the story jumps around too much. If the time periods are close together I tend to find time transition words or phrases to bridge the gap without a hard break. I save hard breaks for changing POV’s or longer time intervals (Days/weeks/years/decades/centuries)
one word doc page only equals one page of a print book if your word doc is already formatted to match what it’s going to be as a print book. otherwise word docs are autoset to fill a4 paper with about a 1 inch margin (no gutter).
there is no way to calculate how many pages your chapters will have before you format because there are too many variables. even changing the font you use can effect your page count. the easier and more reliable way to keep track of how long your chapters are is by word count.
your preferred word count will depend on your genre, target audience, and writing style. generally the older the audience and the more speculative the genre, the longer the word count. i’d say with YA romance you’re probably comfortable around 1.5k-2k whereas with adult fantasy you’re more likely to be up around 5k.
chapter breaks don’t have a rule of thumb as far as i know, personal preference has some say but it mostly depends on how you’re using them.
because you don’t know how to transition smoothly to the next scene to switch POVs MID CHAPTER (what, do you hate your audience?)
because it’s a natural pause in the story ( VERY RARELY) for dramatic or artistic effect.
i say very rarely because (i’m a grouch) it’s not as dramatic if you do it consistently. law of diminishing returns babee
because you don’t know how to transition smoothly to the next scene
because it’s a natural pause in the story