How long is a chapter, and should I give them names? I've had this question several times now, and I'm sure established authors have a million times, but I always enjoy answering questions from first time writers like myself.
How long is a chapter? It's so tempting to reply “how long is a piece of string”, but that doesn't really help, does it? Well, it depends on your preference and style of course. Many authors have long chapters of 10,000 or 20,000 words, or sometimes no chapters at all. They probably don't want to break up the pace. Others, like Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”, keep a tight pace by breaking every 1000 words or less; an interesting device that gives the novel a more frantic, exciting pace. What effect are are you going for? A popular choice is to break every time you switch between characters, particularly if you are shifting point of view. If your plot follows a tight sequence of time, you could break every hour or every day. If you are shifting between disparate locations, like countries, or time periods, the chapter break is a useful mechanism. Somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 words is typical.
The only real rule is to make sure that your chapter break makes sense. Readers like a neat place to put down a book, so a frequent break allows them to read a chapter or two in a spare moment. Some readers are happy stopping wherever they happen to be, mid-page if necessary, but I'm sure a lot of people are like me, and feel psychologically safer stopping at the end of a chapter. After all, that's exactly where the author intended a break, right?
Personally, I like to end most of my chapters on some kind of cliffhanger or hook, so that the reader eagerly awaits picking up the book again. Frank is dangling over the cliff and the rope is shredding! Try to avoid ending the chapter with the character going to bed. It sounds logical, but it doesn't leave the reader wanting more. It's also tempting to get to the end of that fight or chase sequence before breaking, but it's a lot more dramatic to stop right in the middle at a pivotal point. The hero spins around just as the assassin throws the knife, aimed between his eyes. I mark my chapter breaks on the second draft, and try to split the book into roughly equal parts. My goal is 3,000 to 4,000 words.
So what about naming your chapters? I think it's safe to say that the majority of novels don't, but naming does seem to be more popular with YA or younger. I like chapter names; they're fun. The secret is to say just enough to intrigue the reader but not enough to give the game away. If you want your reader to be shocked by a ship's mutiny, clearly don't name the chapter Mutiny! You can even make it cryptic and let the reader figure out how the chapter got its name. A fine example is Shortcut to Mushrooms in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. By the end of the chapter, you get it.
I like to anticipate what the reader wants to know next, and use the chapter name as a hook, e.g. you've had a mysterious black-hooded stranger asking around the village about the hero. When the reader reaches the chapter, The Stranger Unveiled, he knows the secret (or part of it) is about to be revealed. Traitor! is a popular one when you have a group of characters. While you have apparently ruined the surprise that there is a traitor, you have actually amped the suspense; which one of them is the traitor? Can the reader guess? Hopefully, he pauses to review the story so far, excitedly looking for clues. Everyone loves to solve the crime; after all an entire genre is based upon that premise.
Have fun with the names, and remember that the length can be whatever makes sense for your book.