The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. There are no hardandfast rules on how long or short a chapter needs to be. And a typical howto nonfiction book might need between 7 and 12 chapters to do this. At 250 words per page using times roman 12 and oneinch margins, that means theyre usually six to eight pages long. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think. I shoot for an average of 2500 words per scene, so if i were writing your book. So the length of these affects the pacing of your story, and the way the. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Everything you need to know about book chapters scribe writing.
The average chapter length in my book is roughly nine pages. Average number of chapters in a manga is 410 chapters about 8 per book. This translates into just 20,000 to 25,000 words for a 100 page book, 30,000 to 42,500 words for a 150page book, perhaps just 40,000 words for a 200page book. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Each chapter in your book tells a ministory that forwards your overall plot. With upper middle grade, you can aim for 40,000 55,000 words. In any case, to see how authors use this tactic to set their pacing, we also mapped out the word count of every chapter in four famous books. And as you can see, it varies, depending on the story. This trim size is good for only 200 to 250 words per printed book page. The average number of episodes in an anime are asked in history of the philippines, jose rizal.
If you take the advice on book length, then a 50,000 word book might break nicely into ten chapters about 5,000 words per chapter. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. I myself write about 2000 words per chapter, it seems just right for me. These are books that resemble young adult in matter and storytelling. Well, youll put the book down when you get to the end of this chapter, you reason. You shouldnt set manuscript guidelines for yourself on chapter length. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. One of the questions that a new writer often asks is how long should my book be. James patterson the mostselling author in the world is famous for his tiny chapter of a page and a half around 250500 words.
If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Many books have 40, 50 or sometimes 60 chapters, all varying in length. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it varies. The hunger games uses 3,700word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts.
In any of these books, some chapters are longer than others. So, whats the sweet spot for an average chapters word count and why. This number was significantly different from the average we had seen for the estimated print length that had been given in the product details of each books amazon sales page. Again, like novel length, chapter length is dictated by what is happening in the story, not by the law of averages and applied mathematics. Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Ive been aiming for about 2,000 words per chapter but now i see that it doesnt matter. What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable.
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