Averages and outliersWhich chapter doesn’t fit?

How Falcontext measures chapter lengths

Each chapter runs from its heading to the next chapter heading. The last one runs to the end of your manuscript.

Each chapter heading also starts the chapter’s first scene, and every scene heading or break symbol starts the next one. So a chapter’s scenes always add up to the whole chapter.

The chapter you’re still writing, after the last marker, stays out of the averages: comparing an unfinished chapter with finished ones wouldn’t be fair. An average needs at least two finished chapters, or two finished scenes.

What makes an outlier

A chapter or scene 40% or more longer or shorter than your own average: “52% longer than your average chapter”. Style works the same way: each chapter’s adverbs and passive voice per 1,000 words against your book’s own average, with the same 40% line.

Chapter lengths on the free plan

Word counts for every chapter and scene, and your own per-chapter target.

And on the Edit tab, the Structure pass has a Chapter lengths row: the chapters 40% or more off your average, or more than 20% over your target, in a small table: each one’s words and how far it is from the average (“↑ 52%”), the longest first. A “chapter” under 50 words, such as a stray heading, is left out of the average and the table, and the line under it says how many. Green for none, orange for one or two, red for more.

Pro

Each chapter and scene compared with your own average length. And each chapter’s dialogue against narration, and its adverbs and passive voice.

Those breakdowns need a Bird’s Eye scan first, since that’s what reads the text.

Your own average, not someone else’s rule. A short chapter can be exactly right. These are there to make you look, not to tell you what to do.

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