Don't Judge a Book By its Chapters

Most people measure books by chapters, which is a curious way to deem a book worthy of reading. There's some kind of cosmic expectation that the more chapters, the better the book.

The second most common question I'm asked is how many chapters are in my current work? To which I answer . . . uh . . . blink, blink . . . I don't know. Not because I'm a drooling idiot who can't count past ten because that's how many fingers and toes I own. The thing is that X amount of chapters is not my goal. There is no magic number of chapters that makes a book great.

Why?

Because chapters are subjective.

Some are short. Others enormous. It all has to do with the cadence of the story. Each chapter needs to launch the plot forward and is kind of like a story within a story. However many words it takes to do that is the sweet spot. Once that launching purpose is served the chapter needs to be cut off.

A better way to measure the length of the book is by word count. 90k is the goal I shoot for, regardless of how that breaks down into chapters. That's roughly around 350 pages.

So let's stop the judgmental attitudes out there about the perfect book being 30 chapters. I know haters gotta hate, but honestly, let's put that hatred onto things worth hating, like sauerkraut for example.

Oh yeah. I suppose you're wondering what the number one question is that I'm usually asked. It's how much money do I make at writing. Why do people feel the need to ask that? Is it because they secretly yearn to quit their day job and write stories in their jammies?