by James Johnson

Created on: March 21, 2009

How long should a chapter be? As long as necessary, of course. This is a simplistic answer, but the correct one. Include everything that needs to be there and leave out anything that doesn't. Clear as mud!

To my way of thinking, a chapter is an account of what happened when you collected one item on your scavenger hunt list or list of recipe ingredients or list of instructions for assembling a lawn mower. The chapter is the account of what happened, for each step of the way.

Use whatever analogy that works best for you, say, mountain climbing or escaping from Alcatraz Island. Every chapter chronicles each significant step along the way. That is, the plot-points. And every plot-point is a door marked NEVER MORE, a bell that can't be unrung.

Let's say your book is a travel adventure story. The first chapter might embrace the circumstances that require the trip plus whatever conflicts the trip creates. You plan to drive to Omaha to meet your new internet chatroom honey, and your boss drops a trip to the Amazon jungle in your lap. And you deal with it, somehow, but leave the conflict unresolved. Maybe your sweetie will wait for your return, maybe your plane will crash 10,000 miles from nowhere. At the conclusion of the chapter your reader needs to be thinking, "And then what happened? But first a potty break!"

Don't let the answer to the Where do we go from here?" question be, "Color me gone!"

Thinking of the story as a serial list eliminates the middle' problem most writers collide with. But when your story takes the form of: Snidely Whiplash kidnapped Nelle, took her to the railroad track, tied her up, placed her across the rails, the train came along, Dudley Doright saved Nelle, and Snidely went to jail, there can be no middle problem because each chapter is an increment of the whole story and advances your tale logically.

Now! The last chapter is different. It should follow the climax and transport the main character back to the beginning. If your tale were CASTAWAY, the Tom Hanks movie, the last chapter would begin where Tom leave's his fiance's home, after he discovers she's married and they have a good cry. You still need to answer the question, What happened next?" And so you send him back to work and he meets a cute artist when he delivers a package to her house. End of old story, start of new story.

How long depends on what you need to get from point A to point B. It varies.

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