I've taken the survey and the link seems fine. I'll approve it.

Did the survey, but was first disappointed that the thread wasn't a discussion about some actual storytelling techniques (like making chapters roughly readable aloud in 30 minutes, for Narnia books, like making chapter numbers range around 15/16, like "always saying exactly what you mean and be sure it can mean nothing else" and so on).

We can always do that, hansgeorg. 🙂

We can start with some stats, if you don't mind. Won't link to the post I'm quoting, but I included 3 childrens books by JRRT along with the seven chronicles. The Hobbit, Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles.

Here are chapters per book, high to low: 19, 17, 16, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, "9", ?

19 = The Hobbit, the last two also JRRT.

Now I took out ten chapters:

Two each from end of Horse and His Boy and beginning of Prince Caspian.

One from Voyage of the Dawn Treader, two from Silver Chair.

Three from The Hobbit (6, 7, 8)

This gives us per chapter studied:

Verse lines: 24, 21, 18 (none in other seven chapters)

Speech paragraphs: 109, 96, 72, 68, 66, 62, 47, 46, 45, 40

Other paragraphs: 103, 67, 51, 41, 30, 30, 30, 28, 24, 24

I think highest number of paragraps are from JRRT's Hobbit. Conclusion : CSL gives us pretty short chapters, which however have more dialogue than action paragraphs. I e, he shows some influence by drama.

I'm lost in the numbers (me and numbers don't commune well), but another thing I'm picking: I think the influence by drama is there, because there definitely is some Shakespearean influence. E.g. the political situation in Prince Caspian has echoes of both Hamlet and Richard III. So I see no reason why he would not be influenced by it in other aspects as well. Or it's just a style that suited him and also led him to like drama. 😉

Also, in the survey, I'm running into the problem of different editions of books, and me having read most of them in translation - I'm not sure I'm checking the boxes correctly, because I'm not always sure which of the collections of essays which book was translated from. 😛 And the Oxford History of Literature is not included, and I've actually read that one! *sigh* 😀

Let's get to the summing up in medians, then.

For all ten books, the median chapter number is 15/16 (as ten is even, the median can be between two different values).
For all ten chapters, the median number of paragraphs except dialogue is 30.
For all ten chapters, the median number of dialogue lines is 62/66.
Median and anything lower exclude persence of verses (median number of verses = none).

Books and chapters vary above and below that.

And CSL does neither make dialogue lines, nor non-dialogue paragraphs, very long. You don't find them taking half a page. Range from higher to lower quartiles is:

Chapter number the ten books: 16 down to 15.
Narrative paragraphs per chapter : 51 down to 28.
Dialogue lines per chapter: 72 down to 46.

There is another question : how many scenes do these paragraph numbers and line numbers break down to? Is there just one scene per chapter or more?

I think there are usually more than one scene per chapter.

How does CSL handle transition between scenes (this is not a mathematical question in any way)?

If I remember correctly, in Narnia he tends to preface the change of scene with the narrative voice explaining there will be a change of scene.

A pretty correct remark and it makes for the shortness.

I was watching the PC commentary the other day and at one point either Barnes or Adamson commented on the fact that in the books, Lewis' narrative tends to jump around a bit and have multiple conclusions, which poses a challenge when converting book to film.

Prince Caspian is particularly challenging that way, yes, what with its narrative-inside-a-narrative.

I remember my older sister telling me how much PC confused her when she first read it. 😛

That's funny, I loved it as a child! I guess it was the lingering writer inside me appreciating the trick. 😀

I liked it, too, but for some reason the reference made in Aslan's How about Trumpkin going "to his death" when he had just led the Pevensies there confused my sister. 😛

I never had problems with a story set within a story (so far, not sure how homelessness for ten years would act on my capability of getting it in a story I didn't already know).

It comes quite a lot in Arabian Nights - though that is for other reasons not a work I can totally from all points of view recommend. I highly liked it in my teens, except for some passages which made me squirm. And those were not about setting a story within a story or even a story within a story within a story.

Have you noted that chapters in LotR are much longer than those in Narnia?

Is it just that scenes are described in more detail? Or are there also more scenes per chapter? I don't really know. I guess it is both. And dividing chapters in scenes is subjective anyway. One can see a division which another fails to see. But I think the comparison is useful.

EDIT : teens = more like preteens and very early teens.