Ebook types
The fiction novel
The only fiction format here, and the one where continuity does the most work — because a novel that contradicts itself in chapter nineteen is a novel nobody finishes.
What BookArc writes for this format
A story: characters, plot, and a real ending.
- Chapters
- 20–30 chapters
- Default length
- 24 chapters · ~1,500 words each
- Typical book
- ~36,000 words
- Voice
- Fiction
- Example genre
- Literary Fantasy
- Credits
- 75 at these defaults, cover included
Who writes one
- Writers who want a complete draft to argue with rather than a blank page
- Authors testing a premise before committing a year to it
- Anybody who has had the same story idea for five years
The arc is planned before a word is written
A protagonist who wants something, escalating complications, a genuine turning point, a cost that has to be paid, and an ending that resolves. Over this many chapters the plan also includes a subplot and a mid-book reversal, because the middle is where a long story drifts.
The test the plan is written against: no chapter may be reordered without breaking the story. Every chapter has to change the situation for the character.
Continuity, which is the hard part
Each finished chapter is summarised into a record that is handed to the next one, and for fiction that record carries specific things: the characters and their names, the setting, what happened in plot order, the established rules of the world, significant objects and phrases, unresolved questions, and exactly where the protagonist stands as the chapter ends.
The rule attached to it is blunt — a character who was hurt is still hurt; an object left behind is still behind. This is the thing a chat window cannot do past about chapter eight, and it is most of why a book tool exists at all.
What this format is not
It is a drafting tool. A drafted novel needs a real edit before it is anybody’s book, and if the value of your novel is your voice, a drafted one is not what you want. That comparison is made properly here.
How a chapter is written
Continuous prose, with no subheadings inside a story chapter. Dramatised in scene — concrete sensory detail, physical action, dialogue — with the character’s state shown through what they do rather than narrated. Each chapter ends on a turn or a hook.
Questions people ask
How long is a BookArc novel?
The specification below is read from the app itself. At the default settings it lands in the range most genre novels occupy, though it sits at the shorter end — a first draft to develop, not a finished 120,000-word epic.
Can I write a series?
Each book is planned on its own, so a series is written a book at a time. Continuity within a book is automatic; continuity across books is something you carry in the brief.
The other five formats
- Lead MagnetThe shortest book worth publishing: a specific problem, solved completely, read in half an hour and given away for an email address.
- How-To GuideThe workhorse non-fiction format. Its whole value is in the ordering — chapters arranged the way the work is actually done, not the way a syllabus lists it.
- Online CourseThe longest non-fiction format here, and the most structured: modules grouped into units, each with one objective phrased as something the learner will be able to do.
- Research ReportThe format for people whose credibility is the product. Structured like a real research document — and instructed, explicitly, never to invent a citation.
- Interactive WorkbookThe format with the highest completion rate, for the simplest reason: a reader who has written something down has started, and people who start, finish.
Write the book you keep meaning to write.
Describe it in one sentence. BookArc plans the chapters, writes every one of them and designs the cover. 30 credits free, no card.