Howdy, I'm a new member, as you can probably tell, so I'll say 'G'day' and thanks up front to anyone who pitches in <3

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I've just started writing my own Fantasy / RPG / Reincarnation story "for the gigg's"  as the kids say, but was unsure about the length of my chapters. I try to keep each chapter as almost a mini-arc. It all links together in the main story, but I like having mini-drama's crop up in each chapter, such as a duel / meeting a minor protag / even just an emotional resolution such as a small revenge/ or the 'combination' of lovers after months apart. 

They aren't enough to stretch to stretch for multiple chapters, but are also still important to the character's development. Because of that, I chose to write the chapters as I have, with the mini-arc feeling.

The small drama will be (usually) resolved by the end of the chapter, completing it, but the small arcs affect the larger picture or character's.

I'm a native English speaker, but it's been so many years since I was at school... On top of that, this is also my first attempt at writing in 10+ years and my only real experience is from primary school (I wrote a sick MechWarrior short-story though!)


I've word checked the first few chapters to give more of an idea of the level of consistency (or lack thereof):


Chapter 1 is 700 words,  (3428 chars) but it's almost a self contained story by itself. It shows the MC's past life and end briefly.

Chapter 2 is 1400 words (7000 characters), which covers his reincarnation. (I just noticed, the numbers are so perfect, I mustn't change it...)

Chapter 3 is 2065 words (11471 characters) Events at age 6 - meet the family, world building.

Chapter 4 is 1940 words (10422 chars) Still age 6, meets main female char. Both chars are awkward. The drama revolves around them finally speaking to each other after a year of sitting near each other at the river quietly, every other day, wondering what to say.

Chapter 5 is 1390 words (7604 chars) Jumps to Age 8. Character discussion and background, histories partially revealed between characters.

Chapter 6 is 1103 words (5888 chars) and covers the main female char past, ends in MC's first battle.

Chapter 7 is 2370 words (12882 chars) and is a sort of "tease with information littered with more questions post-battle to unwind and introduce bigger concepts" chapter.

Chapter 7.5 is only 309 words (1658 chars) and is another POV switch to the heroine, mostly her reflections on the MC up to then. Includes some of the battle from her perspective, as well as short dream.

etc etc etc...


In total, I've written 41,279 words (228,986 chars) across 133 pages and have 26 chapters total.





So back to my actual question...

Is that ok? Should I be keeping my chapters to a slightly more consistent count? Or is it ok to keep the chapters relatively self contained, regardless of irregular lengths?

I've read it through a few times and it seems to read fine out loud, but again, I'm 100% a newbie.



PS - Oops, I've accidentally started another novel...

PPS - I'm still tossing up on if I should upload it yet. I have the basic plot down, the ending is written in my head, I just need to fill in the middle...

I would consider the following:

Do the chapters feel whole? You are telling a story, a scene, and you need to start and end, that's the idea of a chapter.
So, does it feel whole? There have been books with chapters of 1 word. It all depends on your own vision.

1 remark: Is the old life really that important to waste your first 700 words on it?
Will it grip and lock the reader into your story, or is it exposition that will easily distract and give the wrong information.
I'm not a fan of exposition and infodumps, chapters as yours, really are infodumps. Infordumps and bad exposition really hamper the readability and pace of your story.. any story.

So perhaps consider starting with the reincarnation and use the 700 words chapter as a a reference to use whenever you need to provide background information.

Not much to add, I'll just stress what LethalDogFart said.
Don't chain yourself too much with word counts. Chapters are supposed to be only as long as you need them to be. If your mini-arcs work the way they are then you don't have to change that.
Also, readers will feel it if a chapter is forcefully lenghtened. As said before, the chapter should feel whole. Sometimes you'll want to fuse two chapters together for some reason.
On the other hand, sometimes it's best to cut a chapter in two, for instance when you have the atmosphere of a scene changing drastically. Unless it adds to the brutality of a twist or tension or whatever else. I often do that when I found myself with half a chapter being comedic, and the other very dark or serious, without much connection. And it's okay if you end up having a chapter with 1500 words and another with 5000. As long as they work better on their own rather than together. Sometimes it forces you to cut a few things here and add a few there, making both chapters better.

Other than that, I would say even very inconsistent chapters aren't an issue when you have fast releases (and if there's a point to the inconsistency of course). But people will find it annoying when they have to wait a month without knowing if you'll give them 8000 or 1000 words...

Regarding the usual previous-life-telling-first-chapter/prologue, it's your call. I think it's the trend here to have a chapter of the sort at the beginning of a reincarnation story, but if it's indeed just an infodump or a memorydump, there's no point. I believe it's better to keep it for when you need to flesh out your character or drop hints. Or you can play it for laughs. Or you can just keep it because as the author you should do whatever you want !

Cheers for the comments!

You've pretty much touched on it exactly - It's nice to know that my chapter lengths won't cause too much stress then.

Good point on the expectations of the readers, Brostigno. I might have to consider that if I ever do release it while I'm still writing. Part of me is considering it, but then I'd have to work out how to slice it up and it'd be messier.

I guess that's something more to think about once I'm happier with my content.


As for the first chapter, it could be seen as an info dump, but I'm hoping that by the end of it, there will be a "oh, wait, what?" and they'll read on.

The chapter itself is the MC walking around during a single morning in the bush, doing some work, cooking breakfast, then 'the end' which comes slightly unexpectedly for the reader.

There is a literal 10 line information dump after that written as a quick flashback of his life while dying, but I've not been happy with the feeling of this part since I wrote it. The rest of the chapter feels ok to me though, so I may keep it and just remove the history dump and keep a bit of mystery about his past life instead of giving everything away.

I regret some of the earlier structure of my story so I think I'll advise you to reconsider the info dump as well (even though mine wasn't an info dump but still) Sometimes not explaining stuff can be more rewarding and lead to a better story, even though it seems counterintuitive for a writer and you may feel like you NEED to flesh things out before you get into it. The truth is, you can usually skip it all and get to the story itself, without the fear of losing your reader.
tl;dr going off your last comment, I'd trim the flashback if it seems clunky and remove the history dump and keep the mystery, if you feel like that would make a better story.

Sometimes its not about the chapter length. Its about the chapter content that you want to tell or portray to the readers.

While I agree with people here I would like to play devils advocate (as there is some truth here)

there is something to be said about consistency, from a reader's perspective you dont want to have your chapters fluctuate to much, when i read I like to say "ok, imma go to bed after this chapter" but if your chapter is like 500 words then ill read it in like 2 minutes and i will go onto the next one only to find it is 5,000 and I have to stop half way and then I have to re read the entire chapter again later and all that jazz.

If I were you I would try to set a minimum and maximum chapter length(500 words is tiny like one page of a novel in book format, do you really want a chapter that is only one page long? it is also the shortest chapter allowed on Royalroad as each chap must have at least 500 words)

you would not even be able to post chapter 7.5 as it does not reach Royalroads chapter length requirements...(500 words minimum)

Please do not take this as me bashing your work I am just saying that as a reader I like consistency, it doesn't have to be perfect, just not too wild and all over the place.

'WhoCares' pid='822094' dateline='1488834650' Wrote: I regret some of the earlier structure of my story so I think I'll advise you to reconsider the info dump as well (even though mine wasn't an info dump but still) Sometimes not explaining stuff can be more rewarding and lead to a better story, even though it seems counterintuitive for a writer and you may feel like you NEED to flesh things out before you get into it. The truth is, you can usually skip it all and get to the story itself, without the fear of losing your reader.
tl;dr going off your last comment, I'd trim the flashback if it seems clunky and remove the history dump and keep the mystery, if you feel like that would make a better story.

I've posted the first 7.5 chapters up so that you can see my writing style. I figured that would be easier than constantly trying to explain it :P

I may have been slightly over-anxious about the levels of info-dump, going off one of the comments I've had already. However, one comment is only one comment. I'll see how it goes as more read those parts.

I've made sure to re-write the worst offending info dump during his reincarnation to be far less painful, I couldn't even read it aloud to my sister, it hurt so much XD

My biggest trouble is that I wrote the "past life" chapter to add some mystery to his history, as well as to build up a sudden shock. Even changing it a little would likely mean a re-write of the first 3 chapter and change the feel entirely. Perhaps I'll take a note from your comment and chalk this up to "Learning pains". :P

As long as no-one complains too hard, I'll leave it as is and just get back to actually writing the rest :P

'NaziShina' pid='822109' dateline='1488887147' Wrote: Sometimes its not about the chapter length. Its about the chapter content that you want to tell or portray to the readers.

Yeah, I think I might have just worked myself up. I looked up "novel word count" and seeing 50,000 words as the minimum threw me off, because I had literally just hit the same word count on my story.

The one thing you've all helped me remember (again) is that I should just focus on telling my story. If I start looking up word counts and stuff like that, I'll probably just burn myself out XD