Chapter Titles yes or no?

[RangerSG]

An interesting twist I've encountered on Chapter Titles is having a quote precede a chapter rather than a title. In books like "This Alien Shore" they add a depth and flavor to the novel's world as well as add a commentary on, rather than spoiler for, the following chapter. They also seem to create a universal undercurrent to the themes of the novel as a whole. 

Brandon Sanderson does the same thing in his Mistborn series. So does Steven Erikson frequently in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I like it. But I don't know if I'd want to do something like that unless I was writing a history-style work.

[comprex]

Brandon Sanderson does the same thing in his Mistborn series. So does Steven Erikson frequently in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I like it. But I don't know if I'd want to do something like that unless I was writing a history-style work.

It's pretty common for period fiction.   What was I just reading that had it?  Oh yes, Boris Akunin's ‘The Winter Queen’.   

(Which is a pretty decent read in itself: imagine young, very young 007 set in czarist Russia with  a nod to Dumas)

[Benchleyfan]

I recently started reading the Alex Rider series that makes good use of Chapter Titles.  The first book is called "Stormbreaker" and written by Anthony Horowitz.  Think Jr. James Bond type if he didn't volunteer, but was more or less blackmailed into working for Queen and Country.  Good stuff. 

[Quantus]

 

Which to my way of thinking is a prop for lazy writing; if you're good at distinct voices, you really shouldn't need that.

Not really.  Its mostly a reference, so that the reader can get into the proper frame imediately, rather than having to read even a few sentences to get their bearings, so to speak.   A really good example of this is the Wheel of Time, where there was a unique icon at the beginning of each chapter that told you which character/group/subplot that chapter was focused on.  It gave nothing away, and it may have been obvious anyway after the first few sentences, but it was still helpful as a reader. 

There are several ways Ive seen Chapter information given well.  Chapter titles can work if done right (as others have said, they can give too much away if done wrong).  Another route I have often enjoyed is when authors start a chapter with a world quote;  they can be ballad lyrics, proverbs, philosophical saying etc, but they are from within the story world, and often add depth to the story and world as a whole.  Their relevance to the specific chapter can be secondary, though Ive seen a few that do it well, being relevant, but only in hindsight. 

One of my favorite chapter devices, used well in Ender's Game, is to give a short bit from a non-standard POV.  In Ender's game (written in first person) this was a short bit of dialogue from the antagonists.  It was entirely dialouge, and the first half of the book you were just trying to identify the speakers.  But it gave you a short glimpse of the Teachers reactions to whatever was going on, and was a very effective outlet to convey little bits of information that the Reader needed, but the MC needed to be ignorant of. 

[horsehearted]

I didn't realize there were chapter titles in the HP series until the 5th book. So even if you do have them in, some of us are SO focused on the story that we won't see them.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Not really.  Its mostly a reference, so that the reader can get into the proper frame imediately, rather than having to read even a few sentences to get their bearings, so to speak. 

That in and of itself is lazy.  If the voices are distinct enough, you won;t need more than a sentence or two to know.

A really good example of this is the Wheel of Time, where there was a unique icon at the beginning of each chapter that told you which character/group/subplot that chapter was focused on.  It gave nothing away, and it may have been obvious anyway after the first few sentences, but it was still helpful as a reader. 

With all due respect to Robert Jordan, all his character voices sound pretty much exactly the same to me, so I don't think this disproves my point.

[Quantus]

That in and of itself is lazy.  If the voices are distinct enough, you won;t need more than a sentence or two to know.

Its not about how long it takes to pick it up from the voice, its the fact that the reader will spend a sentence or two not knowing.  Now for some styles thats fine, or even beneficial, but for others it take away when a simple thing like a chapter title can give your reader a heads up so that they are thinking in the correct context, or can adjust for a sudden change in poltline/location/character/etc.  This can be especially important if the chapters tend to end on cliffhangers, and then switch to another subplot.  Without some sort of transition, the change can be jarring to the reader.  Its much like the transitions in movies:  sometimes a simple fade-to-black is enough, but other times you need that little bit of text in the corner that says "Calcutta, 23:50 hours"  And while yes, any such information could be conveyed in text, sometimes it can be better to get it across in a more direct manner and move on.  I see where your point is coming from, but I think it may be due in part to a more specific stylistic expectation.

 

With all due respect to Robert Jordan, all his character voices sound pretty much exactly the same to me, so I don't think this disproves my point.

I dont disagree completely, though some of that I attribute to 3rd person POV in general (and the rest to simply having too many extraneous characters) 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Its not about how long it takes to pick it up from the voice, its the fact that the reader will spend a sentence or two not knowing.

Readers who have a problem with that really to my mind fall into the 'wanting to be spoon-fed everything" category, and I prefer my entertainment to actually engage my brain.

This can be especially important if the chapters tend to end on cliffhangers, and then switch to another subplot.  Without some sort of transition, the change can be jarring to the reader.

Jarring is not inherently bad.  Sometimes it is exactly the effect the author wants.

[Starbeam]

Its not about how long it takes to pick it up from the voice, its the fact that the reader will spend a sentence or two not knowing.  Now for some styles thats fine, or even beneficial, but for others it take away when a simple thing like a chapter title can give your reader a heads up so that they are thinking in the correct context, or can adjust for a sudden change in poltline/location/character/etc.  This can be especially important if the chapters tend to end on cliffhangers, and then switch to another subplot.  Without some sort of transition, the change can be jarring to the reader.  Its much like the transitions in movies:  sometimes a simple fade-to-black is enough, but other times you need that little bit of text in the corner that says "Calcutta, 23:50 hours"  And while yes, any such information could be conveyed in text, sometimes it can be better to get it across in a more direct manner and move on.  I see where your point is coming from, but I think it may be due in part to a more specific stylistic expectation.

Isn't that kind of the point of ending on a cliffhanger?  Keep people reading, and best way to do that is to switch POV.  With Jordan, I don't think I realized the symbols were for different characters until I was several books into the series.  I had more trouble when he switched from one POV to another only paragraphs from each other with no kind of break.
The change in POV might be somewhat jarring, but when you get to a new chapter or a space break, it's easy enough to guess that it'll either be a POV change or a time change.

I've more often found that chapter titles can be a bit jarring themselves; they pull me out of the story when I notice them, and I prefer to just go from one sentence to the next.

On a side note, Star Wars is probably the best movie/novel comparison I've come across, where the changes of POV in the novels matches the editing in the movies. 

[thausgt]

Readers who have a problem with that really to my mind fall into the 'wanting to be spoon-fed everything" category, and I prefer my entertainment to actually engage my brain.

I agree, with one addition: I approve of situations where the confusion is a deliberate choice on the part of the author in service to the story, and disapprove of situations where the confusion is lack of skill on the author's part and/or it does not serve the story.

For example, consider Niven & Barnes' "The Barsoom Project", in which the murderer gets a few lines and made significant changes to the plot in an early chapter; the authors included that scene to explain what happened later as well as in service to the story (the context of the murderer's actions caught the hero's attention; "That's not supposed to happen in this Game!") without revealing who the murderer was until an appropriate point in the story.

Jarring is not inherently bad.  Sometimes it is exactly the effect the author wants.

Exactly I agree, and that is precisely why I personally take issue with the "technique" when it's actually bad writing. Another example is in Alfred Bester's "The Computer Connection", when the story switches from first-person-narration to third-person halfway thrugh the book, then back again. The story flow is not only not interrupted, but enhanced by both transitions. This would be a mark of a lesser writer and a soon-to-be-fired editor, but because it serves the story, the technique works.

Truth to tell, I can't have an educated opinion on Jordan's work, as I never managed to get past the first book. And my tendency to forget "bad" writing means that I can't remember any other examples to illustrate what I mean by that. So it goes...

[Quantus]

Readers who have a problem with that really to my mind fall into the 'wanting to be spoon-fed everything" category, and I prefer my entertainment to actually engage my brain.

Again, its not a matter of spoon-feeding, its a matter of stylistic choice.  If you want those first few sentences to be built so that the reader can get his bearings from them thats fine, but if you have something else you want to do with them, some form of chapter text (titles, timestamp, random excerpt, alternate POV, etc) is a good alternative, one that shouldn't be disparaged on its face.  It can be done poorly of course, but it can be done well also.  Its not a mark of laziness, or a commentary on the intelligence of the audience just because its not accomplished in the body of the text.  Hell, it wasn't that long ago (relatively speaking) that even the great authors included illustrations. 

Jarring is not inherently bad.  Sometimes it is exactly the effect the author wants.

Oh, absolutely.  But at the times that it isnt what the author wants, Chapter text can be a good tool to use.