Writing a Novel....

JC Denton

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Sorry to waste board space, but I was wondering just how long is an average novel, how long is the Lord of the Rings, and how many words average in a chapter.
Now I know it vastly varies, but isn't there like, a spontaneous average?
I'm doing around 6000 words per chapter, is that a lot?
Like I said, sorry for wasting board space :D
 
Just write what feels right. Once you feel a chapter is over finish it, just like you finish a paragraph. Don't even worry about how many pages or words you have, let your publisher or editor worry about that. If you don't have a publisher, just try to make it so that reading a chapter doesn't feel like jumping a hurdle.
 
Novels. I was actually up to one with another classmate. I was 7 years old and I wanted to write a sci-fi novel. Well, some 12 or so stories were completed, but they mostly involved the great battle of the planets, starring the planets themselves :lol:
 
The Lord of the Rings First Edition printing is 1,438 pages, including the Appendices in The Return of the King. This says little for the average novel -- The Lord of the Rings is exceptionally long.

The average novel is somewhere between 200 and 400 pages long. Personally I find that novels shorter than 300 pages tend to be unfulfilling as they don't take enough time to "paint a picture," as you might say, so I write my own novels on the long side. (None are yet finished, but does that really matter?)

Chapters can be anywhere from a single line to 50 pages long (and, yes, I have seen a one-line chapter). Just write until the chapter seems over. One strategy is to plan out the novel beforehand and have the title and topic of each chapter already set before writing. If one chapter proves too long, split it.
 
Originally posted by Cuivienen
The average novel is somewhere between 200 and 400 pages long. Personally I find that novels shorter than 300 pages tend to be unfulfilling as they don't take enough time to "paint a picture," as you might say

I think that depends on the author, though. None of Angela Carter's novels were over 300 pages long, yet you'd be hard-pressed to call her works unfulfilling. On the other hand I've read books which were over 600 pages that really had nothing to say.
 
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