The value of labeling book sections

Question

My wife is beginning a novel, and she's written four chapters in under six pages. I suggested that she consider using page breaks, or lowercase Roman numbered sections, instead of chapters because a few of her chapters deal with a single event (an accident) and the hours after it (waking up in a hospital).

As well, I find lots of chapters to be excessive in some way. Typically, this comes into play with tables of contents. Moby Dick, for example, has 135 chapters in its table of contents, and that table of contents is daunting to me; I can't use it to recall specific sections with any facility. Ulysses, on the other hand, has 18 chapters (episodes), and I find that I can peruse the table of contents and have a strong conceptual idea of each episode. True, I can recall Moby Dick with the same clarity as Ulysses, but the sheer number of chapters in Moby Dick doesn't seem very functional in aiding the recollection of the material in those chapters—even though those chapters are shorter than the chapters in Ulysses.

I see the argument that this is a matter of preference, but I think that books with over, say, 50 chapters lose the significance of the chapter. I also see that chapters and sections, in many cases, derive organically from the material, but I still feel the need to caution against too many chapters.

So, what is the best way to deal with many chapters so that they maintain some autonomy? Give them titles?

Chapter One "The Sound of the Conch"

Add brief sub-headings beneath the chapter number?

Chapter One In which Maggie regains consciousness and faces the reality of the last 24 hours

Add key elements of the chapter, like Twain does in Huck Finn?

CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.—Miss Watson.—Tom Sawyer Waits.

Add a quote that relates to the chapter:

Chapter I The First Turn of the Screw

Mephistopheles: "Was gibt es denn?"

Wagner: "Es wird ein mensch gemacht." --Goethe Faust II

I find that quotes are overdone, and, in longer books, could lose their impact. I'm drawn to short synopses under chapters, but it does sound slightly like a children's story book.

Does anyone have any suggestions about insuring the identity of the chapter in books that have many chapters?

Answer 1

I think you've mistitled your question. The real question is not How many chapters should I have?, but rather How long should my chapters be?

Four chapters in six pages is probably not the right way to go. Generally, in modern books a chapter runs between 2,000-6,000 words (10-30 typewritten pages in manuscript format), which is roughly the same length as a short story. There are exceptions, of course, and there are some novels that eschew the chapter structure altogether, but this is a good guideline. So my suggestion is that the "chapters" described above should really just be scenes in a single chapter.

Answer 2

Adapt multiple levels of division. What I see as the worst problem is abusing chapters as sections. Get your wife to adapt * ~ * ~ * section breaks with the current frequency of chapters, use chapters much more sparsely, possibly name each, and if that isn't enough, divide the whole thing into 2-4 parts.

The division into parts is clear, memorable and obvious though not very helpful in finding specific places. But with parts, named chapters become entirely meaningful and really help locate points of the story. Meanwhile the sections serve as thread separators, scenes for benefit of the flow. They aren't for locating events but for keeping them distinct.

That is not to say some very short chapters are wrong. Breaking the rule of chapter length and serving a fully featured chapter to present a single paragraph of text will certainly give that paragraph some weight. If the event is the turning point of the whole story, the readers will certainly remember "that special chapter" and it will do the story good. But 130 chapters in a moderately sized book? No. Just no.

Answer 3

It's really completely a matter of personal preference. There is no set length or number of chapters at which it is considered to be too many. I have read books with over 100 chapters and the existence of the chapter remains relevant as a separator.

Additionally, in most cases, none of the chapters have titles. I do agree however, that adding a title to each chapter can help break monotony. Nevertheless, the focus is usually on the content and therefore chapter titles do not always need titles, regardless of the number of chapters there are.