More short chapters or less long chapters

[Penrow]

I just finished chapter 1 of Hyperion and got to thinking. Which do you prefer to read, books with more chapters that are shorter or books with fewer chapters that are much longer (like Hyperion)?

I prefer books with lots of chapters so I can set a goal of having a good stopping point.

I suppose for audiobooks it doesn't matter much. What are your thoughts?

Michael Penrow

[Agatha]

I don't really care either way, as long as short chapters don't break up the flow. Depends on how the book is set up. Hyperion really wouldn't work in shorter chapters, I don't think. You'd have to either have inconsistent chapter length or break up the specific stories which wouldn't be a very good idea flow-wise.

As I said, I don't really pay attention to chapter length as such. I'm reading Infected when I'm not reading Hyperion and it has very, very short chapters - but it works for Infected where it wouldn't work for Hyperion.

[Leon]

I usually comfortable with short chapters as this give me a breather ever end of the chapter

[Aloha]

I think a writer should be conscious of how a book is structured as related to how he wants the story to come across. Short or long chapters doesn't matter as long as it's effective with how he wants to tell the story.

[Micah]

Aloha wrote: "I think a writer should be conscious of how a book is structured as related to how he wants the story to come across. Short or long chapters doesn't matter as long as it's effective with how he wa..."

That's exactly what I was thinking too.

[[deleted user]]

I agree with Alex. Shorter chapters somehow make it easier to steal some time throughout the day to read while longer chapters mean I have to plan ahead to read.

Reading more than one book at a time means I can have a large chapter epic going but carry a small chapter book around with me.

I'm still reading on paper so size of book matters. I'm reading a Conan anthology at the moment which is ideal for reading in short bursts during the day but it is just too big to carry around.

[kvon]

I once picked up a James Patterson book, saw that the chapters were all three pages long, and put it down with a shudder.

I prefer to have chapters about twenty to thirty pages. But Pratchett manages just fine with no chapters (in most of his books). Scene breaks...yes, those are needed.

[Sean]

It all depends on what the writer is doing with those chapters. In a way, a chapter should be an act or an episode. If the chapter breaks are not strung together correctly, that affects the way the story itself plays out. I can deal with either a long or short chapters, just as long as it makes sense in the story's structure.