A Question About Chapters
I'm not sure if this is the best place for this thread, so if one of the mods thinks it'll better fit elsewhere I won't care if you move it. This is probably going to sound like a pretty silly question, but how does one know how large a chapter should be? Posting on Lit, I tend to try for the 10,000 word mark. It makes the chapter around three pages long, and most people are comfortable reading that much in a single sitting. The trouble is that I don't really know how big they ought to be when you're talking about publication. I see just about every publisher saying you should submit the first three chapters of your story. What word count are they expecting these chapters to be, roughly?

Hmm, it depends on the publisher. I tend to target mine for anywhere between 2500 to 6000 words a chapter.

It really can be anything by I woulf suggest over 1000 and under 10,000. Mine average around 3000 words.

It does depend on the publisher, but I'd say between 2500 to 5000 is good. Whatever the size you pick, usually it's best to keep chapters around the same word count.

I do try to keep them as close to the same word count ads I reasonably can. There seems to be a loose consensus here, so I think I'll shoot for somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000. Thanks guys. I kept searching pub sites for that information and couldn't locate it.

Oh, one should begin a new chapter on a fresh page, yes?

I think so. My only issue with chapter length was that in the beginning I had them too short. I was confusing scenes with chapters. One chapter for me will have between 1 and 5 scenes, roughly.

As for the start of a chapter, again, it depends on the publisher. Some want a new chapter on a new page; some want you to skip several lines. LOL

Great. Thanks again for y'all's help. It looks like I have about 8 1/2 chapters so far. Cool. :D

Yeah, but do they all begin and end in a chapterish manner. ;-)

Ummm...well, I tried my best to place the end of chapters in good locations, that's why each chapter isn't the exact same size. They range between 3,000 and 4,000 words. There was, however, one or two that I was uncertain of the exact spot that would be best. I'm hoping that a beta/proofreader will be able to assist me with that.

My chapters vary a fair deal. I was looking at my current WIP which has from 1500 to 5400

No, it doesn't mean cliffhanger. There's just this knack for a satisfying chapter conclusion, very much to do with the story line arc for that chapter. Sometimes you have closure, sometimes a cliffhanger, but all endings require that the final sentence wraps up that chapter so it feels like it should end there, cliffhanger or not.