Reading those reviews, I gleaned from them that many readers start skipping and skimming if a chapter runs over the length of 4-6 Kindle-pages. Their attention — even if they’re reading self-confessed un-putdownable novel, starts to fragment if a chapter is longer.

Especially those who say they couldn’t put the book down, want SHORT chapters because it’s satisfying (to them as readers) that they can rush ahead and get through many ‘conflicts’ that are unfolding in the short chapters. Or that they can finish a chapter before the lunch-break is over, or their subway stops comes.

And whatever issue or conflict is brought into the chapter, they want resolved before moving to attack the next conflict or issue.

Short chapters and short sentences. This shouldn’t be a news to any writer. My generation and the next one-and-a-half, do not have patience to stay with complexities that are often packed into a long chapter. We are used to distilled presentation via TV and movies; we are used to quick flicker of the screen when playing our games. My kids don’t even have the patience to read the bottom line of instructions or story-line in any video game they play. That should tell you something. And they love their video games. We rush – through everything in our lives, including our reading.

So, I’ve actually started planning (not plotting) my chapters and I think consciously, when I’m writing, about the length of my sentences. I’m also going over those novels that are already written, and editing them down, sentence-wise and chapter-wise. Short sentences, short chapters.

That’s if you’re writing for your reading audience. If you’re writing for yourself, you can structure and plot any way you want. But I’d rather not have to read all those sour-grimace asides about keeping my chapters short and sentences even shorter. And I tell you, if you think your structure and plotting was hard when you wrote without regard for length, try planning and plotting to exact length of 4-6 kindle-pages, and no sentence that goes beyond grade 7-8 reading skill. This is just my real-time experience as reflected in what my readers say in their reviews.

That’s why it’s become very difficult to plot and structure a good novel such that your audience likes it, and finds it satisfying, for many more reasons than just the story or characters.