• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

How many pages long are your chapters normally?

Orange_Flaaffy

Jello Pokéballs
I thought I would bring back this little topic since we have a few more writers here now :). My chapters are normally six to eleven pages long before they start to make 'I want to end here' sounds :).
 

Verity

Well-Known Member
Mm, I think mine usually end up to be about six pages single-spaced, although I go more by word count. I like to aim for 2000+ words per chapter.
 

PokemonHero

I can see the future
I'm still fairly new to writing fanfics, so my chapters are anywhere between 3 to 6 pages at the moment. I'm trying to extend them longer.
 

The Big Al

I just keeping Octo
In my current fic chapters are 10-17 pages long. Though it's a novel and so they don't contain a complete story.
 

duncan

Well-Known Member
Mine tend to vary quite a bit, but lately mine have been in between 6-13 pages. Ironically, I used to write much larger chapters, but as my writing improved he length of my chapters shortened.
 

Manchee

extra toasty
Mine are always at least 7 pages minimum, and never longer than 15 pages. I don't know why, but I think that when I write longe chapters my writing "skill/ability" decreases.
 

Astinus

Well-Known Member
For my Pokemon fics, my chapters are anywhere between seven to ten pages. For my Digimon fics, they tend to get from thirteen to thirty-one pages. But the reason for that is that there's a lot less action in my Digimon fics, and more internal character monologue.
 

Synthetic

Well-Known Member
I tend to aim for 3 - 6 chapters in word, before posting it. I always felt that number of pages was adequate, but it seems people are used to them being longer. It seems with all the 'web-structuring', that is, editing the chapter for better viewing in a post, it gets extended long enough for me to scroll several times before I reach the end. So I think that's long enough. Mind you, it could have a lot to do with the size of my screen. :p
 

xXPorygonXx

Sort of active
Currently, my chapters aren't that long, only about 10 pages max. Eventually I hope to have them way up in page count.
 

CrystalSaurTower

Well-Known Member
In Microsoft Word, about 15-23 pages. : p I like to put a decent chunk of plot into my chapters, and that ends up making me search for a way to adequately manage all these events while still retaining my descriptive writing style.
 
Last edited:

Copie

Nothing Special
My fic only just started, and so I can only comment on the three chapters I've completed. My first chapter, which was a pretty simple introduction, was only six pages. My past two chapters have been pushing into 9. Honestly though, that's the size I want. It's long enough that you can accomplish some things in the plot, but short enough that someone doesn't need to set aside a point in their schedule to read my chapters. I like the idea that someone who is looking to kill fifteen minutes can read through one of my chapters no problem, and still feel like the plot moved forward.
 

Dragonfree

Just me
I calculated the average length of chapters in The Quest for the Legends a while ago and came to the conclusion it was somewhere between eight and nine pages. However, since then I've posted the longest chapter of the fic so far and such, so I think it's lengthened some since.

Ah, what the heck. I'll calculate it again. Chapters one to 39 of the ILCOE are 399 pages in Word total; that makes an average of roughly 10,23 pages per chapter. Chapter 40, which I'm writing right now, is 14 pages so far and going to become a lot longer than that, so that will bring the average up more.

So to make a long story short, my chapters get longer as I go on. Of the first twenty chapters, many of them are four, five or six pages, and all but three are ten pages or less. The shortest I've done since the four-page chapter sixteen, however, is a few six-page chapters, with an ever-increasing number of 'long chapters' that are more than twelve pages in length. Just to take since chapter 30, chapter 31 is 13 pages, chapter 32 is 26, chapter 33 is 10, chapter 34 is 20, chapter 35 is 8, chapter 36 is 12, chapter 37 is 27 (longest chapter yet), chapter 38 is 12, and chapter 39 is 7. That's an average of fifteen pages per chapter, with chapter forty, as I said, about to be longer than that too. Granted, there's been a lot more epic battles in chapters 3x than in most other parts of the fic, past and future, but it's still a visible trend towards getting longer.

Part of it, I think, is just that I feel like more stuff belongs in one chapter now than I used to. Today I'd combine a lot of those older, shorter chapters, I think. Another large part of it is that my battles have grown a lot longer - my longest battle ever is thirteen pages of just battling and is in chapter 37, while in earlier chapters I'd do a full six-on-six battle like that within the space of maybe four or five pages at the most. I got some complaints about the brevity of my battles, although not on this forum.

Generally, though, I have three classes of chapters in that fic. There's the "short chapters", which are ten pages or less; there's the "long chapters", which are something between twelve and twenty pages; and then there's the "ultralong chapters", which are more than twenty-five pages. I've never written a chapter that was eleven pages or anything between twenty and twenty-five, funnily enough.

Now, Morphic is another story (figuratively and literally). There my six chapters so far have all been around six pages, with the shortest being five and the longest eight. I don't see that changing very much, mostly because that story has no battles in it (not that I've planned, anyway) and really, battles are the most page-consuming thing in The Quest for the Legends by far.
 
Right now, they're about 10 pages. None have toped 11 (except 8, witch is currently 12 and I'm still not done with it). I just expect them to get longer after a while when I deal with the actual plot, witch is just natural progression, I guess.

Chapters with battles are slightly longer than pure talking chapters, or even just talk heavy chapters. As much as I enjoy developing my chareters, battles are just alot more fun for me to write. I don't skimp on that though. Most length comes from details.
 

Jonouchi

Chibi-cario
Usually either 6 Pages or 2000 words. Usually what I can imagine for what seems to be (in my head) 30 minute episodes on TV. I sometimes write longer than that, though, mostly because I can shove a bit more if I feel it's too short and quick.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
Mine recently have been around the 12-14 range... my chapters started short and have been getting longer on average ever since.
 

purple_drake

E/GL obsessed
Usually my policy is to stick between 10 and 15 pages, mostly because the character count in a post is 50,000 words and 15 is about as high as you can go (before adding bold/italics/etc tags) without having to split it between posts.

More recently, though, my chapters have just... gotten longer. Usually they're between 15 to 20 nowadays, especially if there's a battle involved. Apparently I take a long time to say things. ^.^;; Or I'm just detailed. Either way.
 

latioslegends

Well-Known Member
Well I tend to keep it at 12-15 pages currently for me, but I might go over the my limit if I can't describe everything, or just want to include more :D.
 

FlamingRuby

The magic of Pokemon
They can be anywhere from 2 pages to 14 pages, depending on my mood. Usually, they come out to 3-6 pages.

My resoning for this being I don't want to ramble too much (since I am known to ramble sometimes). However, what seems like a short scene when written in story is inadvertantly lengthened to at least 2 pages when written in script, so my script work tends to be longer. The record? Episode 16 of "Kochou and the Beautiflies" ("Beautiflies and Dolls"), which ran 14 pages and took the better part of an afternoon to write.
 
Top