Chapter Titles yes or no?

[gravesbane]

How do feel about chapter titles? I think they can be a great outlet for additional snark. My wife feels they can give away too much of the upcoming plot. What are your feelings?

[Suilan]

From the reader's perspective:

Chapter titles do seem to be out of fashion, at least in adult fiction. I just took a moment to search my bookshelf for any novels that use chapter titles, coming up with none (though I only searched the fantasy and scifi section) for adults, but two series for YA (Harry Potter and The Spook Series).

A good chapter title can raise the reader's expectations and, after reading the chapter, add to his or her understanding of what was the most important thing that happened in the chapter.  If you choose the title well, you won't give away too much of the plot.

From the writer's perspective:

I use them in my own writing. A good chapter title is hard to find, but the search alone (as well as the title once you've found it) helps you, the writer, focus and bring out what you really want to achieve with this chapter. Often enough, as I am struggling to come up with the appropriate title, I realize what the chapter is about, and it affects the plot. (Other writers might achieve the same effect with meticulous outlining, but that doesn't work for me.)

To me, chapter titles are part of the story, not separate from it (like a newspaper heading.) They should add to the story. If you string all your chapter titles together, you should have a near-complete list of all your major plot points.

So my advice would be: if you like them, use them. I wouldn't consider them a waste of time and effort even if, should your novel be published, the editor wants to omit them. They are really a great tool to help you organize your story.

[gravesbane]

Thanks. I agree with you and you added some points I had not come to my mind. I am also debating Prologues and Epilogues.

[gravesbane]

Please forgive the grammer of my last post.

[daylightdreamer]

I personally don't use them, but then again, I have enough trouble coming up with a title for my book, etc, so it just seems like extra work that I'd rather not do if I don't have to.

I think they can be a great way to whet the reader's appetite, so to speak, and make them want to push forward (like when there's a nagging question the reader has and the chapter title hints that it will be answered or at least addressed here), but at the same time, I think they're easy to screw up, too.

I agree that they seem to be more in the realm of young adult literature. I can't remember the last fairly modern adult book that I read that used chapter titles. I really think it's a personal preference, though. I'd really wait and see how it feels once a given piece is done. Does the chapter title add something or not? If you're not sure, have other people read a few samples and ask if they like the titles or if you should drop them.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I agree that they seem to be more in the realm of young adult literature. I can't remember the last fairly modern adult book that I read that used chapter titles.

Steven Brust uses them in most of the Vlad books in various sneaky ways - one of them uses lines that altogether make up a laundry list, in each chapter of which you see incidentally how the garment in question acquires the stain or damage that prompts that instruction;  and in the Khaavren Romances in a different way, the sort of semi-humorous sentence summarising the next chapter of the Victorian swashbuckler.  "In Which Our Heroes Fight Three Duels And Cross A River" sort of thing.

It's a question of style, really.  It also makes a difference, IMO, if you are doing a first person story, to decide whether this is a story written down by the first-person narrator within their own world, and whether it is the kind of thing your narrator would think is cool.  (Writing narrators who have totally different ideas of what's cool and what's boring from what you do yourself is a lot of fun.)

[gravesbane]

Interesting idea.

[Lanodantheon]

The effect of chapter titles is thus:

If you give a chapter a title you tell the reader what is going to happen before it happens. A title may add suspense or take it away. When I first read a new HP book when it came out I read the names of all the chapters in the table of contents so I had a general idea of what would happen before it happened.

This isn't a rule though.

There's a book, As I Lay Dying, about a family going across country. The narrative jumps from one member of the family to another in first person. Each chapter tells who is narrating at the current moment.

In my Magical School Drama, I myself am currently debating a narrative based around a Journal entry style. Every chapter in that case would be titled after the day it occurs based on when my Main Character got his magic. For example, the first day would be Day 6 or so and by the end of the book he'd be on Day 285 with the day he gained his magic being Day 0(Zero). I may abandon this idea though because unless I can create a good caveat that allows him to magically write in his journal in real-time, the tension will never be as high as it could because in order to write all this stuff down, the MC has to be alive at the end.

In The Dresden Files, the chapters are just numbered for the sake of telling you where you are in the book for easy reference. A friend of yours starts reading a book and you ask, "What part are at?" your friend can respond, "Chapter such and such..."

[thausgt]

Chapter titles might be something of a relic from the old days, when most fiction was published serially in magazines. The more elaborate ones: "'The Curse Of The Noble Gasser' or 'Helium for Laughs', in which our heroes discern the nature of the strange scent left by the mysterious house-breaker" might be the 'hook' that drew readers in as they flipped through the periodical. The sub-heading has, to varying degrees, become simply the first sentence in new chapters.

Chapter titles might also be an early form of outlining a longer story, when payment for stories was more pennies per word; authors therefore tried to find new ways to squeeeze more words into each published work.

[Suilan]

Well, if I were paid in penny per so many words, I certainly wouldn't waste time on chapter titles! It only takes a moment to add another sentence to a chapter, but to find the perfect title? Well, let's just say that takes a lot longer. 

As for chapter titles being a relic from the old days when most fiction was published serially in magazines, why, I can imagine they might come back into style one of these days, as we live in times of decreasing attention spans and increasing number of things competing for our attention.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

If you give a chapter a title you tell the reader what is going to happen before it happens.

Only if you are being direct; good tites may well suit their chapters in ways that aren't obvious until you've read the chapters, no ?

There's a book, As I Lay Dying, about a family going across country. The narrative jumps from one member of the family to another in first person. Each chapter tells who is narrating at the current moment.

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.

I may abandon this idea though because unless I can create a good caveat that allows him to magically write in his journal in real-time, the tension will never be as high as it could because in order to write all this stuff down, the MC has to be alive at the end.

There's no absolute need for that.  It could be unfinished, for example, and you could have someone else find the journal after the main character is dead and complete the story.

[thausgt]

There's no absolute need for that.  It could be unfinished, for example, and you could have someone else find the journal after the main character is dead and complete the story.

True. There was a creepy little story from an all-prose anthology of Batman stories using that technique. The journal had been kept by a couple of street kids who decided to build their street cred by taking out the Joker. The Joker, in turn, wrote the final entry and arranged for Batman to get it... probably along with a few bits of evidence about what happened to the kids.

Brrr...

Anyway, feel free to have the MC die in the course of the story. The "final entry" doesn't even have to be written in the journal itself. Depending on who finds the thing and when, it could also be a police report or even an archeology display. (That one's from Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale".)

Good luck!

[NothingWicked]

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. 

[Hoyled]

Having just finished the  Warhammer novel Hero of the Imperium, I find that I really like how it was set up. The book is the personal memoir of the hero, being edited for reading by someone he knew. The friend adds in quotes the hero had collected, filled in information gaps, and added in extra sources to fill out the full extent of the situation.

[comprex]

Steven Brust uses them in most of the Vlad books in various sneaky ways - one of them uses lines that altogether make up a laundry list, in each chapter of which you see incidentally how the garment in question acquires the stain or damage that prompts that instruction;  and in the Khaavren Romances in a different way, the sort of semi-humorous sentence summarising the next chapter of the Victorian swashbuckler.  "In Which Our Heroes Fight Three Duels And Cross A River" sort of thing.

I was most impressed with his use of them in The Sun, The Moon, And the Stars, different than either of the above.