What it means
A chapter is the main division of a book's text — the unit readers use to pause and the unit writers use to control pace. Chapters can be numbered, titled, or both, and a book can hold anywhere from a handful to a hundred of them.
There is no rule for length. Thrillers favour short chapters of 1,500–2,500 words that end on a turn; literary novels often run 4,000–6,000; nonfiction chapters tend to be longer still because each one covers a topic. What matters is that each chapter has a reason to begin and a reason to end.
On the page, a chapter opener is a designed page: a sink of white space above the heading, often a drop cap on the first paragraph, no running head, and a drop folio (page number at the foot) or no folio at all. Traditional books start every chapter on a recto; many modern books start on whichever page follows.
In Bindery
Describe a book in Bindery and Claude proposes its chapter structure before drafting; the typeset proof then lays out every chapter opener for you.
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