Is 1700 words good for a chapter?
Based on this dataset of novels, we can establish some guidelines for chapter length: the average word count of a chapter generally ranges between 1,500 words to 5,000 words, with 3,000-4,000 words being the most common sweet spot.
There are no rules when it comes to chapter length. The important thing is to concentrate on making your chapters fit your story, not on making your story fit your chapters. Many novelists these days prefer chapters that are between 1,500 words—or six book pages— and 8,000 words, or 32 book pages.
At the shorter end, short can be very short. I've quite often written chapters that are 500 words or so. (That's a page and a half or so of an ordinary paperback.) If you want to go to 300 words or even less, you can.
A: There are no hard-and-fast rules on how long or short a chapter needs to be. It could be three pages. It could be 22. It could be 40.
In any of these books, some chapters are longer than others. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. Twilight uses about 4,580 words per chapter. The Hunger Games uses 3,700-word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts.
1,700 words is 3.4 pages single-spaced or 6.8 pages double-spaced. Documents that typically contain 1,700 words are short-form news articles, medium length blog posts, and short pieces of journalism.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling has an average chapter length of right around 4,500 words. Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner comes in at about 4,200 words per chapter.
Chapter length averages
On average, chapters tend to range from 1,000-5,000 words, with most falling in the 2,000-4,000 range. But chapters can be much longer or much shorter. There are plenty of bestselling books where some chapters are only a page and some where they don't even use chapters in the traditional sense.
As a general rule, having chapters of similar length doesn't really matter. If one chapter has 6,000 words, then 1,500 words, then 4,000 words, then 1,200 words, that's perfectly fine.
The first chapter should engage readers, introduce your protagonist, and provide a window into the world of your story.
How long does it take to write a chapter?
How Long to Write a Chapter. Some writers like to plan one chapter at a time, rather than setting deadlines for the whole book. Most chapters are around 1,000–5,000 words long. That means that if you write 500 words a day, a single chapter should take you anywhere from 2–10 days to complete.
A chapter can be comprised of three 500 words scenes or two 2500 word scenes. As long as the scene ends when the chapter ends, you're good to go.
Writing 1,700 words will take about 42.5 minutes for the average writer typing on a keyboard and 1.4 hours for handwriting. However, if the content needs to include in-depth research, links, citations, or graphics such as for a blog article or high school essay, the length can grow to 5.7 hours.
The average reader will read 1,700 words in 5.7 minutes when reading at a speed of 300 words per minute (wpm).
Average novel chapter lengths fall in the 3,000- to 4,000-word range. But there are plenty of wildly successful books that have longer and shorter chapters. Nonfiction chapters often fall around the 4,000-word mark, but this is highly dependent on subject matter.
Chapters can be 500 words, or even 10,000. It all depends on how much you dive into an idea and how far you go with that idea. That said, you never want your readers to think: “That chapter was too short,” or.