Who does the talking?

[hrj]

In working on Daughter of Mystery I'd recently been getting the sneaking sensation that Barbara was getting substantially more POV time and that it meant I considered her the more interesting character at some subconscious level. So I added a rough word-count to my current outline-skeleton. (Not an outline in the sense of planning out the details of what is to come, but more in keeping track of what's been covered in what order, whose POV is involved, and getting a sense of the overall shape of where I'm going.) At this point, Barbara has 35,450 words and Margerit has 35,950. (Rounded to the nearest 50 in each POV section.) Huh. Guess I'm more even-handed than I thought! In fact, while Barbara gets about 15% more stage time than Margerit in Part I, in Part II (which is what my sneaking sensation was based on) it's Margerit that comes out ahead. So much for subjective perception.

Another item I hadn't noticed consciously before is that while my POV-sections (I'm not sure yet whether I want to use that as the definition of chapters or not) generally range from 900-3500 words**, the lengths of paired sections for the two characters are generally similar with a pair of shorter sections being followed by a pair of longer sections.

**In this range I'm not counting several 400-500 word sections that are explicitly noted to need expansion and I'm not counting the outlier pair of sections of 6750 words each which, I'll still note, come right next to each other.

So, fellow writers, what are your thoughts on consistency of chapter length in fiction? Do you think it's better to try to aim for chapters of relatively consistent length throughout your novel or should chapters find their own natural length? If you've done something with two (or more) alternating POVs, do you tend to segregate them to their own chapters? Does it depend entirely on the length of the POV sections?

My inclination in this work is to let the POVs guide chapter breaks and to let the chapters find their own natural lengths, but I still find myself uncomfortable with very short chapters and suspect I might feel tempted to plump them up with more exposition. (The POV alternation is mostly driven by who I want to filter the main action through, so that aspect doesn't feel as easy to manipulate.)

Comments

[karinfromnosund.livejournal.com]

900 to 3500 is about the range I usually get, and I think that's perfectly reasonable. There's nothing wrong with chapters of different length (or short ones).

That said, having chapters of similar length in pairs sounds like a interesting feature in a novel. If you can make it work. I wouldn't worry too much at this stage, though. Keep track of your words if you want to, but don't let them get in the way of your work.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The paired chapter lengths was purely coincidental -- I wasn't even aware of it until I started filling in the counts against my outline. But I'm definitely not worrying too much about it for the first draft. And now that I've confirmed that I'm not favoring one character over the other significantly, I may not bother updating the counts. Nah, once I've played with some numbers I can't leave them alone.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I've found every book different. Chapters of vastly different lengths would feel a bit jarring, I think - so 5K vs 15K would feel off. If they are shorter anyway, variation will feel more natural. For me, the 900-3.5K sounds more like my scene length; and that depends so much on the nature of the story and what's going on right now and what kind of scene I'm writing. (I tend to find that 2-3 scenes make a chapter for me, a logical unit of sorts, but mileage will definitely vary for this.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely on the "mileage will vary" thing. And I don't plan to try to artificially change the length of the units during the first draft. But it's something where I'm thinking ahead to the revision process. The variable length of the "units" (whatever they end up being) is probably going to remain a feature because of the specific way I'm using the alternation to advance the story and to provide the reader with specific pieces of information while keeping the focus very tight. (And also because I'm trying to avoid too much temporal backtracking when switching POV. I do a tiny bit on occasion, but my goal is to describe each event only once, from the POV that provides the specific information and effect I'm looking for.)

[kareina.livejournal.com]

As a reader I like chapters to find their own natural length. Especially when I am so busy I tell myself in advance that I can read *one* chapter before returning to work. It can be fun to have it be short and sweet, giving me a quick break. It is also fun when it turns out to be a longer chapter than normal, so I can indulge my need to read for longer. Both are good.

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

I recently read a book that was told from two differing points of view. Chapter lengths varied, although they were generally on the short side.

One device I hadn't seen before that helped me keep straight who was talking/thinking in a particular chapter is that each character had her own typeface (serif vs non-serif). (They lived in the same building, which made it harder to make that distinction.)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Well, the typography thing would not be something to count on (and wouldn't really feel right for my story anyway). Out of curiosity, was that story told in first person? Since mine is in third, there are plenty of overt cues as to whose POV you're in at the moment.

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

Each of the two main characters was written to be in the first person, and each chapter wasn't necessarily switching over to the other character, so the typography kept it from being overly confusing.

It was my first experience with a story written in this fashion, so it took me a couple of chapters to catch on to the methodology.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I'd go for "natural lengths" and I don't see any special advantage in keeping the sizes consistent. Some of my favourite stories have almost random POV changes and sometimes very small vignettes interspersed with longer chapters.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to add a "me too!" to this. Allowing the scenes or chapters to find their natural length sounds like the best option to me.

[gunnora.livejournal.com]

As a reader, I'm not sure chapters have much relevance to my reading. I suspect them as an artifact of ancient book manufacturing and hand-prepared documents.

For a writer, chapters seem to be a tidy way of compartmentalizing, and as such, I would say that there is no functional reason to worry about the length. If the tale you are telling needs a longer chapter, then it needs a longer chapter.

I would consider your publisher, however. Some publishers like shorter chapters, they seem to feel that readers get bored if chapters are longer. To which I personally reply "WTF?" because I don't consume books by the chapter, I read until I have no more time to read if the book is good.