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How many words in a chapter?About 3,400 words, in 75 novels.

I counted the words per chapter in 75 published novels: 1,887 chapters. The middle chapter is 3,399 words long, and half of all chapters run 2,342 to 4,906.

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Words per chapter in published novels

The middle chapter: 3,399 words.
Half of all chapters: 2,342 to 4,906 words.
8 in 10 chapters: 1,663 to 7,030 words.
A typical book’s own middle chapter: 4,052 words (half of the books between 2,852 and 5,090).

All 1,887 chapters of the 75 novels, by length in steps of 500 words. Most sit between 1,500 and 5,000; a long tail runs past 12,000.

The numbers

Words	Chapters
0–499	8
500–999	27
1,000–1,499	95
1,500–1,999	196
2,000–2,499	212
2,500–2,999	237
3,000–3,499	204
3,500–3,999	172
4,000–4,499	146
4,500–4,999	141
5,000–5,499	90
5,500–5,999	56
6,000–6,499	69
6,500–6,999	43
7,000–7,499	42
7,500–7,999	32
8,000–8,499	27
8,500–8,999	16
9,000–9,499	10
9,500–9,999	11
10,000–10,499	8
10,500–10,999	4
11,000–11,499	5
11,500–11,999	5
12,000+	31

So there’s no right length. A chapter of 1,500 words and one of 7,000 are both what published novels do.

How many words in a novel?

The same 75 novels: the middle one is 86,265 words long, and half of them run 66,814 to 123,797 words. They have 24 chapters in the middle, half of them between 15 and 31.

A few of the books

Novel	Words	Chapters	Middle chapter
The Great Gatsby	48,208	9	5,224
The Hound of the Baskervilles	59,126	15	4,052
The Maltese Falcon	67,049	20	3,240
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd	69,780	27	2,533
The Secret Garden	80,522	27	2,696
A Farewell to Arms	88,620	41	1,639
Anne of Green Gables	102,236	38	2,466
Little Brother	105,534	21	4,956

Words per chapter, then and now

To look past the 75, I also counted 84 novels from 1931 to 1963 that are free to read on Project Gutenberg: 1,644 chapters more, by 58 writers.

	1900–1930	1931–1963	1983–2013
Novels	61	84	14
A book’s middle chapter	3,377	3,051	6,259
A book’s length	82,900	57,191	122,112
Chapters	25	19	21.5

The middle years run shortest, but 60 of those 84 are science fiction, mostly 1950s paperbacks: their chapters run 2,825 words, the other 24 books’ 3,399. The 14 recent novels run longest, but most are science fiction and thrillers by two writers. So the gaps say more about the kind of book than about the year.

The one study of chapters I found agrees that they change: in 9,126 Project Gutenberg novels, books had about 30 chapters until authors born around 1875, and fewer since (Pethe, Kim and Skiena, 2020).

How I counted

Each book’s story only, cut at its own chapter headings, with words counted between spaces. Out of the 109 books Falcontext’s checks are measured on, I left out story collections and books whose chapters can’t be told apart: 75 remain. The 84 mid-century novels were counted the same way, and aren’t in the numbers above the table. Every book’s numbers, as a spreadsheet (CSV). Free to reuse with credit (CC BY 4.0).

Your own chapters

Falcontext’s chapter lengths check lists the chapters far longer or shorter than your own average, and Bird’s Eye shows every chapter’s length. On your own device, with no AI.

Questions about chapter length

How many words should a chapter be?

There’s no rule. In 75 published novels, half of all chapters run 2,342 to 4,906 words, and the middle one is 3,399.

How many words is a novel?

In the same 75 novels, the middle one is 86,265 words, and half of them run 66,814 to 123,797.

How many chapters does a novel have?

In those novels, 24 in the middle; half of them have 15 to 31.

Measure your own chapters

See every chapter’s length, and the ones that stand out.