In praise of shorter chapters

By Brian Clegg

Anyone who has read my book reviews will be aware that I sometimes moan about books being too long. Something I’ve realised more recently is that I often prefer short chapters too. The point of a chapter is to give a natural break to the reader – in fiction, often to act as a pivot or provide an opportunity for a cliff-hanger, and in non-fiction to indicate a change of direction or sub-topic. But there are usually several points when writing or editing that chapter breaks suggest themselves, and I do appreciate writers who take the hint often enough.

Part of the problem for me is that reading long chapters keep me awake at night. I do most of my reading for pleasure (as opposed to research) in bed, and I really like to put the book down at the end of a chapter. I’m currently reading a non-fiction book that I am enjoying, but boy do I have to wait too long for the chapter to end.

I also think there’s something deeper. We absorb information in chunks – and it can be helpful to give the brain a regular indicator of the chunking to help it keep on top of things. If a chapter seems to go on for ever (and yes, I do flick forward sometimes to see how many pages are left), it can make me start to lose focus and go into skip-reading mode, which I prefer not to do.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to books. I think most people agree that many films these days are too long. One and a half to two hours feels like a natural limit – a three hour film is a pain. (At least without an interval – remember intervals?) But books are my business and I take it personally.

If it’s desperately important for a chapter to be long for the integrity of the book, fine – but at least break the chapter into sections. This is almost as effective as chapter breaks both for my sleep pattern and chunking the information, and is always possible. My next longer book (sneak preview, it’s a biography of the electron, due out in June in the UK) has 34 chapters – more than I would normally use, but it seems to really work in this case. Even if there are only a dozen or so, though, there will always be plenty of section breaks for the reader to take a mental breath… or to get some sleep.

Image from Unsplash+ by Getty Images. Personally, I don’t use a torch (though I did at that age).

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.