minor writing question

Chapter titles, yay or nay?

yay	58.3%	[ 35 ]
nay	41.7%	[ 25 ]
Total Votes:			[ 60 ]

[Sonnet Ghost]

Sometimes it depends. Writing is a "soft" art. Not predefined by a set of rules. I usually only title chapters with numbers; unless it is a poetic endeavor or a personal writing with extreme creativity.

[Jesca Dragon]

Some times you can invoke a frame with chapter titles. Olde books use to have a standard "In Which Egbert Findest His Hands" type of chapter title and authors have done specifically this to make the tale feel more like an olde book, like Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones.

Epithets are fun too, especially if you've got a good hand at poetry.

Or most fun: dispose of chapters all together. "I'll read to the next chapterrraaAAAGH I CAN'T PUT IT DOWN!!!" Terry Pratchett does that to me all the time.

[SebastiansLittleDoll]

To be honest with you, it doesn't really matter, though I guess it could depend. If the story in question has 100+ chapters, you may wanna skip out on writing chapter titles.

[burning_carousel]

In my own writing, I don't title chapters because I'm not clever enough to think of suitable titles. (Except during NaNoWriMo when I need to bolster my word count XD)

In published work, I don't have a preference: chapter titles are fine, but it's not the end of the world if they aren't there.

[TheTwitch88]

This is a hard thing to judge, contemplate, or even classify. In some cases I never use chapter titles, they just never seem to flow with the words that have already been written. Other times, I can't help but put titles to chapters, mostly when I'm writing comedy. It really does depend on mood, theme, and how the words flow for me, at least.

I also find that within the books I love, writers peon know all over, IE J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, Christopher Moore, etc., all vary in there own works, like any other artist. For writing is an form of art, if there ever was one. I'm sure anyone who reads this can give further examples of works they've read, even of their own works of art.

[garbage ghoul]

That is up to you. For me and a friend, personally, it helps us somewhat map out our chapters before we even write them

[Sir Icehawk]

Something else to consider I just thought of:

They're also a lot of work. My god... I'm planning of titling the chapters of my novel. It has quite a few chapters. I'm somewhat dreading the attempt.

Titles for pieces I think I come up with fairly easy. It's nothing I ever rush, but I normally come up with something decent after the first few drafts.

As I approach the time to start attempting it on my novel, it's starting to look like it may be a lot more work than its worth to a degree. So to add to my prior point, this is why I didn't bother trying to do this as I wrote it. I was enjoying writing the story. Having to do this as well might have ruined it for me.

[hshaver13]

Miss-Mary-Quite-Contrary

When writing Chapters, is it better to title each chapter, or just leave as numbers?

It varies on the story for me. I like a little title for each chapter usually. It gives some information when you're reading. When I'm posting things online I only use title ch.# to signify.

[xSilentCry]

Chapter titles can come in handy if you change the POV (within characters) every chapter or if there's a new POV (ex. 1st to 3rd). Different chapter names eliminate some of the confusion starting out. They also point out what the reader can look forward to if it's sort of obvious.

[Quotesy]

Right now I'm just plotting the entire first half of my novel, and I haven't even chosen chapters yet. I just try and get a sense of where I should end the entire thing, and, yeah.

I would leave it as numbers, unless you feel as if the titles you provide to your chapters would have some kind of tie-in with the overall theme of your novel and provides a reference / points for your reader to know exactly where in the writing spectrum they're at.

[justadarling]

I personally prefer to not title chapters.

I don't like thinking of titles, it isn't my strong point, I suppose. And the thought of having to do it twenty times in one novel leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Other people may see it differently, I just don't like to do it.

[Arm Stockings]

my main passion in life is writting novels. iv'e wrote Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Erotica and Manga Novels but sadly still can't find a publisher. every book i have ever wrote has both chapter titles and numbers so i would have to vote a big YES on having titles in every chapter, However i vote NO on having them on Prologue and Epilogue Chapters in Novels. I'm working on my own super-hero comic book series as well which is something iv'e never done before ^^;

[Sinister Riot]

It really depends, actually. If you want to clue in what is about to happening (predicting basically), then put titles. If you want to make your readers find out about it themselves, then use numbers instead. smile

[Alanixia]

Depends on the story and the writer's ability to come up with creative ones.
I don't mind if it's just number because most of the time I don't pay any attention to it, but sometimes writers come up with quirky names for each chapter where it tells you something about what's going to happen, without giving away too much. Stories that have a comic theme, are all the more funny with cool chapter names^_^