《Writer's Guide》How To Write Long Chapters
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When reading a story, whether it be fan fiction or just fiction, I find really short chapters to be annoying. Everything just happens so quick, or it's spread out over multiple chapters and that bugs me, especially when the author is not a frequent updater. Like, if you only update once a month or something, at least make the wait worth it. Don't give us some shitty two page chapter!
Writing a long chapter can be a difficult task if you're like me and just struggle to write sometimes. It also depends on what you consider to be a long chapter. Five pages on a word document could be long to one person, and eight pages on a word document can be long to someone else. But, your chapter could be eight pages, but they could consist of mostly dialogue and short paragraphs, which makes it easier.
How many words can also be taken into consideration. If I'm writing a short chapter, it has to have at least 1K words. Chapters with less than 1K bug me. A friend of mine is writing an original story on here and I think she said her chapters are less than 1K which bugs me. I want my chapters to be over 1K though, so if a chapter is short, I try to make it at least close to 2K words.
Whether you use the number of pages or the number of words to determine how long you want your chapter to be (I use both), here are a few tips that can sort of help you make your chapters longer.
Lots of dialogue can increase the number of pages your chapters are. Since you have to start a new line every time a different character speaks, this increases the number of spaces after each paragraph. You know what I mean?
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Writing lots of character thoughts not only makes your writing look better because readers are able to see what the character(s) is/are thinking, therefore developing your character(s), but it also helps make your chapter longer. You can write paragraph upon paragraph of just character thoughts.
I didn't know what else to call this. Basically, I mean that when you're writing, if you make a reference to something that happened in the character's past, if it hadn't happened in the book, then you can explain it so the readers get what you're talking about. Here is an example of how it could go:
Camellia was shocked with his question. This man – who she barely knew – was asking her out. It was strange and very sudden and Camellia wasn't sure how to react. She wasn't used to being asked out by...well, anyone. The one time she was asked out was in grade nine when her school was having a dance. The boys were instructed to ask the girls out and a boy named Freddy Limbowski asked her out. He dressed like a stereotypical geek and everyone made fun of him for it. Freddy had seemed nice at the time, so Camellia had agreed to go with him. The night of the dance, he barely talked to her and forced her to stand in the corner by herself. She learned later that night that he had asked her out as a last resort. She left the dance feeling embarrassed, and she hadn't been asked out since. - Dark Side of the Moon
This is pretty self-explanatory. You can just talk about things your characters do in the chapter, and maybe include thoughts in it as well. I don't know. I don't really have to explain this.
Whether it be a character's personality or appearance, the scenery/setting, or anything else, being descriptive helps make chapters longer. It also makes your writing look better. If a character is going to a place for the first time, describe it in detail so the readers can picture it. Even in familiar environments, describing them to the readers the first time the character is in that place lets the readers picture it more. If you're describing what a character looks like, go into a bit more detail. You can do this with probably anything.
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That's all I can really think of for now. I hope this helps you somewhat :)
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