: Re: How many pages long should a chapter book be? I have recently started writing a chapter book, which is "a story book intended for intermediate readers generally between 7-10 years old". The

@Moriarity138

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You've made the same mistake I did. You've picked up a book and realised that it has 500+ pages of text, you've started writing and got to the end and realised you're 475 shy of writing the next epic novel.

You're approaching the task backwards and there are a few things to realise very early on.

A good story starts and ends when it should. How many films have been inflated/shortened past when it's enjoyable!? Your plot and your story determines the length your book should be not an arbitrary page number.
Writing 500 pages of high quality fiction takes time... a LOT of time!

With that in mind if you want to write a book you need to plan a story which will fill a book. That's not to say your plot for One With Water is no good, it may make a fantastic short story... or it may be the starting point for a much more complex piece of fiction!

This answer discusses appropriate classifications of story and the rough word counts associated with each.

My suggestion would be to either finish, pat yourself on the back and consider it a good Short Story or really get into it and work out where the plot can go. Is there more in there you've not explored? Can your short story form the plan/introduction for a larger piece?

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