Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt. Becoming an author can change your lifenot to mention give you the ability to impact thousands, even millions, of people. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. Read the material and take note of the of the highlights of the story. Yes, you can invest in dedicated book writing programs. Finally, develop your writers instincts by immersing yourself in the art.
Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. The study found the average chapter length in fantasy novels ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 words. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. For nines to 12s, you have enormous freedom with regard to length, subject and. The elements of storytelling are the same for young adult fiction and adult fiction, but writers of young adult fiction must come at those elements with a wholly different mindset. Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. The hard part of writing a book isnt getting published. Youre writing your first novel, and you know you must shoot for around 80 to 95 thousand words.
Heres what you need to know about this often overlooked. A dialogue heavy writing with many word breaks, or use of large words versus small words, can change the amount a lot. Learning to write a book for the first time is a challenge. Theyre very short in terms of manuscript length 1,500 words max but are broken up into either chapters or vignettes that will give the reader the feeling of reading a book. Common mistakes made when writing a book in microsoft word. It should cover the authors main ideas, themes of the plot, setting, characters, etc. Book report writing guide thorough academic tips and. Grant has published two books on writing and has been published in the new york times and writers digest.
The title with the shortest chapters, on average, was whirlwind in the thorn tree, averaging just 2,900 words each. When youre writing fiction, its natural to wonder about childrens book manuscript chapter length. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is. There isnt one secret to learning how to write a chapter of a book there are many. I am writing fiction and found the above advise helpful. What will happen in each chapter, and how much has to happen before you move on to the. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im. I like chapters to be no longer than 10 pages each, with one scene per. Regardless of genre, there is no hard and fast rule about how many pages or words each chapter should contain or how many chapters should be in a book. How to write chapter after chapter until you have a book. Over the past few years, ive written a threepart series of books about writing.
Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. How long are the chapters in books by famous authors. Know what readers expect in terms of your genres word count even if the reader isnt aware of their expectations when it comes to how long a book is. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. Before writing a chapter summary, you must first thoroughly understand what you have read. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter depending on the writing genre, word count in book. The last unicorn has a chapter that is 23,000 words long. This is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by using a word count feature in your writing tool. Still, it can be hard to tell the difference since both easy readers and chapter books. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words.
In order to write well, you need to be a voracious reader, too. Im working on a series and have most of one book written thats about 100,000 words now. Heres what authors need to know about writing chapters because writing a book is more than putting words to the page. Dos and donts in writing a chapter summary examples.
Readers are a lot less likely to finish reading a chapter or especially a book if they have to fight their way through it. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. The authors had sold between 10 copies and 2 million copies of their chapter books. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. There are plenty of books that exceed the 5000 words per chapter barrier. Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it varies. Easy reader books for ages 5 to 9 generally have up to 2,000 words. Scott fitzgerald, published in 1920, has an average of 8,100 words per chapter. I shoot for an average of 2500 words per scene, so if i were writing your book, id probably have two scenes for most chapters. Chapter books may have multilayered plots and problems, and even subplots.
Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this, but again, that number should neither be a goal, nor a constraint. You dont have to, but staying within 500 words of the other chapters tends to result in a reader. This article gives you a stepbystep process to make writing your book far easier. Obviously books at the younger end tend to be shorter. Word count varied from 5,000 words to 40,000 words, with an average mean of 17,200 and a median word count of 8,500. Once you know what your book will be about, its time to start planning the structure of the story. Discover the sweet spot for your chapters word count in this post. Start a website on wordpress or tumblr and use it to write your book a chapter or scene at a time. Some chapter book authors have chosen to lengthen each chapter book they write in a given series, with the idea that the readers comprehension ability and attention span will increase with every reading. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. When writing my novel, whats a good average word count. If youre averaging 1800 words per chapter and the next one is 4200, consider breaking it into two parts. However, there are some general guidelines in this article that may help you determine the page count and chapter length needed for your book.
Never write a chapter longer than 4,000 words bookfox. Aiming for arbitrary blocks of writing with breaks at, say, every 4000 words would. My problem is to have exactly 25 lines per page and approx 250 words per page. The best average overall word count for the whole book will vary by genre. What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. Guidelines for writing childrens books pen and the pad. The basic guidelines of the whole how to write a book report debacle are simple. Grant faulkner is the executive director of national novel writing month nanowrimo and the cofounder of 100 word story, a literary magazine. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. But again as a surprise to me, dune was a close second, averaging just 3,800 words per chapter. I myself write about 2000 words per chapter, it seems just right for me. The average words from 60,000 words to 200,000 or more words in a whole novel. In todays market, most chapter books are about 15,00020,000 words.
It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. 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. Writing young adult fiction for dummies cheat sheet. On a scale of one bad to ten excellent, chapter books rate their agents overall as an 8.
Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words. If you want to write a book, youll need book writing software thats up to the task. Click here to download a free guide with all 20 steps. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. In this article, i offer 10 steps for writing a book along with 10 bonus steps. If youd like some guidelines, you can assume that the average nonfiction book is 50k words, and that they have 12 chapters, so around 4k words would be an average chapter length. As a 21time new york times bestselling author, i can tell you. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.