Writers, help! How long are chapters meant to be?

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Write (pun!), so I'm writing a non-fiction book at present aimed at teens and adults.

How long are chapters, usually? As in how many words? Anyone got any advice?

I don't intend it to be a huge book, maybe 200-300 pages or so I would hope. But informative nonetheless. I just don't think my chapters are entirely long enough. <scratches head>

they're as long as they need to be.... Usually, I'd think they correspond to a scene in a film or play, a given setting, or a measurable chunk of plot or character development. About 20-30 pages; though I've seen 2-paragraph chapters. It's how you pace the story that matters.

chapters are as long as the story arc within them require them to be. Decide how many arcs and events relevant to the drama of the story you have and devote a chapter to them. Usually you should have between 10 and 25, depending on size. decide how many words you want your story to be, rather than pages, as pages fluctuate in word count.

Well, it's basically set out as each chapter is about a particular topic related to the bigger picture that the book is about. There isn't an over-riding story, as such; it's not a novel or story, more a straight-forward non-fiction book.

I'm writing it in MS Word so word counts are a bit more applicable - anyone got any idea how many words a 5 or 6 page chapter would be??

There is no correct answer. Chapters can be as long or short as you like. Within any genre of fiction, you will find great variety in chapter length. It is a matter of personal style and personal opinion.

That said, longer chapters are more traditional, even old-fashioned. There seems to be a trend towards shorter chapters. Some people think that shorter chapters are better suited to shorter attention spans.

Some writers break their chapters into sections (sub-chapters?). Other writers group their chapters into large sections (traditionally called "books"). The latter is commonly found in literature from the beginning of the twentieth century and earlier.

I think most writers would agree that the length of a chapter is of secondary importance to the way in which it begins and ends. Each chapter should be able to stand alone as a single idea or section of the plot. Traditionally speaking, at least.

There isn't any story though, it's all non-fiction.

How many words would be in a 5 or 6-page chapter??

I have written for newspapers. I have written texts and maintenance manuals. I have written operators manuals. Therefore I have a little background on writing non-fiction.

However, those are written to pass specific information and facts in an orderly fashion. Thus, the chapter length is determined by the fact(s) which must be laid out in that particular chapter.

If your chapters are about people and relate a particular situation and how a particular person(s) reacted to that situation, then that chapter will finish when that story is finished.

As has been said, there is no hard and fast rule. That is why we use editors. Even though I am a trained editor, I cannpt properly edit my own work. It just doesn't work that way.

Be very aware that you will have discussions, disagreements and down-right arguments with your editors, if they are any good at their job. Some you will lose and discover after publication that your were right, after all. Some you will win and discover that the editor was right. Most of the time, the two of you will work together to produce beter work.

The important thing is to write. Rewriting two, three and more times is not unusual and generally produces a better read than if you attempt to get it "right" the first time. I can remember spending large amounts of time on the first and second drafts and then throwing the whole thing away to write that part completely differently. Don't be afraid to be tough on yourself AFTER YOU HAVE WRITTEN IT THE FIRST TIME. Writing it the first time is the hard part.

Pops

Thanks for that. "Kill your babies" is the first rule I was ever taught, back when I started high school - one of the things I've always followed.

I'm actually a journalist and as such have been published for the past decade or so (I'm an editor myself now at 21). I've just never written beyond the limits of a two-page feature or 750-word piece, and given that most of it is for magazines with the occasional newspaper, I can't really hazard much of a guess as to how long things are beyond that. So trying to ascertain what word count will figure into x number of pages is a little daunting. I just don't want things to be too short is all. Knowing me the entire thing will change at least four times before I send it off though...

Depends on your font

Like everyone said, there's no right answer on this. I've seen chapters in fiction that were two sentences long. I've seen non-fiction books that were divided into two 250 page chapters

I'm sure you've got an outline already (or something approaching it). Just count up the number of chapters you're planning on writing, divide 250 by that number, and you've got your rough page count per chapter. Then treat each chapter as an individual and see whether you think it needs more than that number or less.

Haha, I keep thinking of chapters to add... so it's ever growing.

At this point it's skinny; each one has only about 1700 words. Though I guess the number of chapters will probably make up for that, plus introductions and background etc.