Fic Talk > General Discussion
Questions to ponder part 11
Sakabelle:
I usually fail at having all my chapters the same length. "Important" ones for me usually come in about 1,000 words longer. So if you want to know where something comes to a head in one of my stories just look at the word counts LOL.
KeepThisSecret:
--- Quote from: mare on July 09, 2014, 08:10:41 AM ---As a reader, I prefer to read shorter chapters. I'm not really big on a whole lot of details unless they are completely relevant to the story. I'm not a big fan of "and her hair waved in the wind with each single strand flowing as if they were spaghetti in a pot of water...flowin g endlessly....n eedlessly....u ntil the timer goes off and they are drained and put in a bowl....a bowl of flowing hair......that's what her hair looked like to me....flowing. ...did I mention her hair was flowing...yes. ...flowing...l ike spaghetti in a bowl..." lol But I'm also not a huge fan of being told everything either. I like open endings.
--- End quote ---
:D ROTFL - This just made my morning.
I'm not a fan of unnecessary details either. Although, your ode to spaghetti has made me want to have pasta for lunch.
mare:
--- Quote from: Sakabelle on July 09, 2014, 08:52:35 AM ---I usually fail at having all my chapters the same length. "Important" ones for me usually come in about 1,000 words longer. So if you want to know where something comes to a head in one of my stories just look at the word counts LOL.
--- End quote ---
I'll have to keep that in mind! LOL
mare:
--- Quote from: KeepThisSecret on July 09, 2014, 09:49:24 AM --- :D ROTFL - This just made my morning.
I'm not a fan of unnecessary details either. Although, your ode to spaghetti has made me want to have pasta for lunch.
--- End quote ---
I was hungry when I wrote that! Maybe you should have some ooey, gooey marshmallows as soft and white as pillows made of baby bottoms and fairy dust. Round, circular, oval and gelatinous gobs of goodness! :) LOL sorry...I had to!
RokofAges75:
For me, it varies a lot from story to story how long my chapters are and how I choose to break them up. In the last few novels I've written, I've written from the perspectives of several different characters, alternating each chapter, which can be challenging as far as chapter length is concerned because I usually can't just cut the action off and finish it in the next chapter like I could if every chapter was about the same characters, written in the same perspective. Not that I would necessarily want to. I usually like every chapter to be about one "thing," whether it's in one long scene or several shorter scenes that go together. Because of that, I focus more on content than word count. I won't end a chapter in the middle of the action just because it's hit a certain length, unless it makes sense to leave a cliffhanger. So even though I do like my chapters to be similar in length across a whole story, I tend to have a wide range for what is acceptable. I'd say my average word count tends to be 2000-4000 words per chapter for most stories, but there are some stories where the chapters run on the shorter side and some where they're longer.
As a reader, I couldn't care less about word count. It's not something I usually look at, and the only time I notice it is for super short chapters (under 1000 words). Like Mare said, if a chapter is under 1000 words (other than a prologue or epilogue type chapter), it's usually lacking in something... like detail! Chapters that are mainly dialogue tend to be shorter than ones that have a lot of description in between the dialogue, and while I'm not into over-the-top descriptive passages like Mare's spaghetti hair example LOL, I do like some description in there. I don't want to feel like I'm reading a script (and even good scripts have more description than some stories I've seen... just saying! LOL). Long chapters don't scare me. The only time I would even notice that they're long is if I get bored reading them, and in that case, I wonder why I'm bothering to read that story anyway. As long as the writing is entertaining, I'll read chapters/stories of any length.
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