: Re: Sizing of a chapter and how many should I use? This is basically a follow-up question I asked here: Scene switching and how to do it? I always considered it normal for a chapter to have

@Sent2472441

A chapter can be long or short, it can be longer or shorter than other chapters in your novel, you might have a novel with no chapters at all.

Think of it this way: a sentence isn't defined as 5-10 words. It is as long as it needs to be to express a small idea. Not letting it run over three lines is a sort of useful guideline, but sometimes you might ignore that guideline, and other times you have a sentence consisting of one word only.

Same with paragraphs - some are longer, some are shorter. You end a paragraph when you move to a new idea.

And it is the same with chapters: a chapter can be one page long, it can be one word long (though that extreme is rather rare). Or it can be 40 pages. When you move to a new place/time/character/idea/whatever, it might be a good idea to start a new chapter. It's an indicator to the reader that there's a "full stop" here. So you end a chapter where you want that "full stop".

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