Is it too long for each chapter of a 12-15 chapter novel to be around 10k words in length?
I'm writing my first novel and I wanted to try and write around 12-15 chapters about 10k-ish (give or take a thousand or two) words each. The idea behind it being each chapter covers a very large arc in the story. Should I split this into more smaller chapters? Or is it okay to go big like this?
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1 answer
That is not particularly "big", and it is fine. (--added-- for what it is worth, chapters are generally 3000 to 5000 words long, but it is not a rule. The link goes into more details and examples.)
A chapter is usually related to a setting, (which may be moving; e.g. two people walking somewhere, or people on a train). Or is about a particular form of character interaction, a meeting or joint action of some sort. Then that chapter concludes, and the next chapter is a different setting, different set of characters interacting (even if the MC is in all of them), different goals.
Depending on how you write, they can be long or short.
Chapters can have arcs, I am not sure what you mean by "covers a large arc in the story". Typically chapters would not have overlapping time lines, that would be a difficult novel to follow. For example, if CH-1 covers 1980-1987 for a character, and CH-2 covers 1981-1984 for another, etc. It would be hard to remember what was going on in 1981 in CH-1 when we are reading about 1981 in CH-2. Most novels, chapters appear in chronological order without overlap.
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