It takes all kinds
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to formatting a novel. Margaret James looks at the options
Margaret James
‘How long should my chapters be?’ asked one of my creative writing students recently. ‘I’d suggest somewhere between about 400 and 4,000 words,’ I replied.
‘But those figures aren’t set in stone, and don’t forget that although novels are often written in chapter-bychapter format, there’s no law saying you must do it that way.’
Of course it’s fine to write novels in chapters and, if you do choose this format, you should probably try to ensure these chapters are of more or less equal length.
This is because a mix of long and short chapters can make the reading experience somewhat awkward, akin to climbing a flight of stairs in which the risers are of different heights.
It’s also good practice to end each chapter with a cliffhanger or question because then the reader will be encouraged to turn the page, as opposed to put the book down at the convenient end of a chapter, maybe never to pick it up again.
What if you don’t wish to use the traditional chapter format?
These days (and in the past), plenty of novels are (and have been) written as continuous narratives, usually with plenty of line breaks in the text, which is just as well because most readers do appreciate some occasional white space. Or they’re divided into sections, perhaps headed up with the name of a character, so the effect is rather like a relay race in which these characters take turns to write from their individual points of view in either the first or the third person.
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June 2018
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