When there is a bit of action going on in a story, is it ok for the chapters to be fairly short?

Question

And by fairly short, I mean like 3 or 6 pages long. And is it ok if you switch up the length of the chapters every so often. Just curious to see if Im doing the right thing.

Answer 1

I really like short chapters [like in Anna Karenina], cause when they are short, the story just flows by, and after a day I realize that I just finished half of the book with the help of these short chapters.

About switching their length. I don't think it would be attracktive if the first chapter would be 3 pages, second one - 25 pages, third one - 11, fourth one - 2. That would drive me mad. I noticed that authors keep the length of a chapter fairly the same - like from 15 to 25 pages or rom 6 to 14, they just choose a range.

Answer 2

Yes and yes. Switching up the chapter lengths is a definitive must for all books! James Patterson writes very short chapters (two to three pages) and is a very successful author.  

Answer 3

I think the idea of a chapter is to catch a complete thought or scene. something that comes to a logical break point.  As an example: If the story is going along about how nice the drive was in the country and then a tire blows and you get out and change it, you can stop there and pick it up in the next chapter as they head to the gas station.

Variety is good. What if every writer made every chapter 8 pages long? What a boring world it would be.