of or relating to the outside or outer part; outer: an external surface. 2. Medicine/Medical. to be applied to the outside of a body, as a remedy: for external use only. 3. situated or being outside something; acting or coming from without: external influences.
New writers tend to assume that a chapter must be a certain set length in order to maintain the average novel length of around 80,000 â 95,000 words, but in truth, chapters can be as long or as short as you need them to be. There is no formula.
The other thing is that chapter lengths are important if you want to keep your book on the straight and narrow, otherwise you'll end up with a tome thicker than a tectonic plate and busting 800,000 words. This is why writers vary chapter length, so they can keep within the 80K, 90K or 100K words of the average novel.