How to think of chapter names?

[Darcie]

I am writing a novel (I hope I can accomplish a long enough length this time round), however I am having trouble thinking of chapter names for some of them. Anyone have any tips for me that work for them?

 

[dpaterso]

How do your favorite authors decide this? Do their chapter titles reflect the content of the chapters? Or do they deliver something else entirely? What have you observed as you've read?

-Derek

 

[Darcie]

I've noticed the chapter name is always relevant to chapter's said content, but when I try and infer one from my own work, it never seens to flow well.
Another tactic I use sometimes is a few words from a song. Can I get sued supposing I got published?

 

[dpaterso]

Another tactic I use sometimes is a few words from a song. Can I get sued supposing I got published?

You're not supposed to use song lyrics anywhere without permission, publishers might ask you to change this. Song titles are okay apparently but not copyrighted lyrics.

-Derek

 

[Darcie]

So even if it was like, "How to Save a Life", from the song of the same name, or "Young Love Murder" from Harold Song - Kesha, I could still run into infringement of copyright?

 

[bonitakale]

So even if it was like, "How to Save a Life", from the song of the same name, or "Young Love Murder" from Harold Song - Kesha, I could still run into infringement of copyright?

Don't know nothin' 'bout music, but if that's the title, you can use it, crediting it as the name of the song.

If you want words, try using old songs -- "Bring me a boat that will carry two," from "The Water is Wide" for instance. Or look up relevant topics in Bartlett's or another quotation book.

But I'd suggest you don't name your chapters till the book is complete. Chapter names are not necessary anyway, and you might get a Great Idea that affects all of them after you're finished.

 

[rwm4768]

You don't necessarily have to have chapter titles. In fact, it can help the initial writing process if you don't title them for now. I've found there are times I have to change a chapter title because I don't actually reach the event detailed in the title.

 

[blacbird]

1. Chapter names are optional, of course. Many novels have chapters named 1, 2, 3 . . . etc.

2. That being said, I kind of like chapter names, provided they are interesting. In my best unpublishable novel I used chapter names, taken from some meaningful word or short phrase from within the chapter, something that enhanced, but did not give away, chapter content. My currently stalled WIP, about 70,000 words along, is a first-person narrative in which, at least at present, every chapter is named with a phrase beginning "We . . ." Examples: "We Repent", "We Eat Like Kings", "We Are Brought Low", "We Improve Our Station", "We Are Invited to a Social Occasion", "We Are Mesmerized", etc.

If you have trouble coming up with chapter names easily, you probably don't need them. Go with numbers and worry no more.

caw

 

[Filigree]

I dropped chapter names a decade ago. For me, it was easier just to write out 'One, Two, Three, etc'. I didn't like the spoiler aspect, or the need for clever wordplay that I could better use in the writing itself. I haven't seen much of named chapters in epic fantasy lately, but there's a lot of newer stuff I haven't read.

 

[blacbird]

I haven't seen much of named chapters in epic fantasy lately, but there's a lot of newer stuff I haven't read.

Jesus, does anyone other than me here not write epic fantasy? Or has AW become an epic fantasy writing specialist place? Every directly writing-related thread I look at anymore seems to devolve into a discussion about how things are done differently in epic fantasy than in any other genre. It's like a language I'm unfamiliar with.

caw

 

[Darcie]

Jesus, does anyone other than me here not write epic fantasy? Or has AW become an epic fantasy writing specialist place? Every directly writing-related thread I look at anymore seems to devolve into a discussion about how things are done differently in epic fantasy than in any other genre. It's like a language I'm unfamiliar with.

caw

I don't. I write teen drama and am dipping my toes in horror.

 

[frankie say relax]

2. That being said, I kind of like chapter names, provided they are interesting. In my best unpublishable novel I used chapter names, taken from some meaningful word or short phrase from within the chapter, something that enhanced, but did not give away, chapter content. My currently stalled WIP, about 70,000 words along, is a first-person narrative in which, at least at present, every chapter is named with a phrase beginning "We . . ." Examples: "We Repent", "We Eat Like Kings", "We Are Brought Low", "We Improve Our Station", "We Are Invited to a Social Occasion", "We Are Mesmerized", etc.

These are my favorite kind of chapter names! I love it when they all fit into a theme. Like the titles of episodes from Friends (they all start with "The one..." My avi comes from "The one with the tiny t-shirt)


OP, I also like chapter names that give a slight spoiler alert. Nothing too big, but enough to make me want to read another chapter before going to bed (or the whole book, more likely). The Harry Potter novels have great chapter names IMO.

 

[LadyV]

I have chapter names so I can keep track of where something happens in my book.

 

[Wind Ann Wise]

I used to do chapter names, but it was becoming too much of a pain to have to think of different titles for them all, so now I just use 1,2,3, etc.

 

[victoriakmartin]

I have a tough enough time coming up with a title for the damn book so I've never tried to do chapter titles!

 

[BethS]

I started out not titling chapters, but ideas for naming them kept popping up, so now I give them titles. Some come to me more easily than others. If a title doesn't suggest itself right away, then I let it compost for awhile. Usually the title is related to a theme in the chapter, or an event, or a significant object, and is usually best understood in retrospect.

I realize that many readers pay no attention to chapter titles and certainly don't go back to ponder their meaning, so I do this mostly for myself, because it's fun.

As to using song lyrics, no. But you can use song titles.

 

[writerjohnb]

I like playing with titles.

In some novels, I stay straight, titling by the content of the chapter - "The Cubs" "The Cave Hag," etc., but I make a serious attempt to foreshadow

In two suspense mysteries - each title is a question, taken from the dialogue in that chapter, often misleading the reader as to what's coming.

In my latest novel, a WWll Bildungsroman, every chapter title begins with "B" and still describes the chapter.
Bombs, Bayonets, Blonde Bombshells, Blast from Hell, Broadway, Big Secrets, etc. It was a lot of fun, puzzle-like, to find a B word that fit the chapter.

My novel titles ALWAYS change from my original working title, every one of my books named itself for me.

 

[Devil Ledbetter]

I usually just take a short, interesting phrase out of the text of that chapter, something that doesn't spoil it but would pique curiosity. If I don't have any interesting phrases in the chapter, then that chapter needs to be revised.

 

[seun]

I don't use chapter names. They don't fit what I write. They're not automatically needed in any case.

 

[bzMac]

When I'm still in the drafting phase, I'll give chapter names that tell exactly what's going in the chapter. This is mostly so I don't have to peruse the whole thing to remember what's happening. When the story's actually done, I might use a name if it's someone important, maybe an interesting word or phrase a character uses that doesn't give anything away, an important location, or a word that cryptically summarizes an effect the events of the chapter had on the MC. Something like Scarred if something bad happened that left an emotional footprint.

 

[Andreas]

I am writing a novel (I hope I can accomplish a long enough length this time round), however I am having trouble thinking of chapter names for some of them. Anyone have any tips for me that work for them?

Hmm. Chapter names come to me easily. Not always the right chapter names, of course. Early on, when I was still learning the craft, I had a chapter titled "The Last, True Priest and the Country of the Damned". Later, when it turned out that the chapter was just too long (both in regard to the actual chapter length and the complexity of that chapter's plot), I had to split that chapter in two, and renamed the chapters: "The Country of the Damned" and "The Last, True Priest".

But it's the first time I hear from somebody who actually has problems finding names for his chapters. But that explains why so many cheap Fantasy books don't have chapter names but chapter numbers...

You have several ways to get your chapter names.

1) Use numbers instead of chapter names. The cheapest, fastest and least attractive option.

I'd shy away from this. I hate this resolution. Chapter names are pieces of art. Pass on them, and your book will be the poorer for it. Imagine if The Never-Ending Story or The Silmarillion were neutered by numbers instead of chapter titles...!

2) Summarize your chapter, and state its plot in one single, lengthy sentience. Then try to find the most poetic and exiting yet at the same time, shortest chapter title based on your chapter synopsis. Try to limit the chapter name to no more than 5 or 6 words, at most. "Flight into the Dark" or "Dark Passage" is okay; "Cindy's Escape into the depths of the Realms of Darkness" is not, unless the whole tone of your novel is like The Silmarillion. And even there I'd say that the last example is way too overblown. it sounds amateurish and artificial even after we strip the "Cindy's" word from the title.

3) Or you could summarize the main plot lines of that particular chapter and use that as the "title" of the chapter. like this:

"Cindy picks the lock of her cell. Escape into the shadows. Attack from the dark."

If you use this option, I'd try to make no more and no less than 3 short sentences. This way, if you lack proper chapter names, at least the chapter previews look orderly, creating kind of a rhythm.

But I don't like this third option, either. It's too literary for me, and it lacks true art. You are far better off if you keep trying to create REAL chapter names, either by the method filed under #2, or some other way.

Good luck!

 

[Andreas]

I don't use chapter names. They don't fit what I write. They're not automatically needed in any case.

Actually, chapter names are automatically needed. Chapter names are a core component of good fiction. Unless the chapters are so short and undefined as to be useless, a good writer will always include chapter names.

Drop them, and you automatically drop much of the atmosphere and color from your book.

 

[seun]

Actually, chapter names are automatically needed. Chapter names are a core component of good fiction. Unless the chapters are so short and undefined as to be useless, a good writer will always include chapter names.

Drop them, and you automatically drop much of the atmosphere and color from your book.

In that case, all the published writers (including me) who haven't used them best withdraw their books from circulation, re-write them to include chapter names and re-publish them at their own expense lest the people who've bought and read their books rise up and complain en masse that the writers have been doing it wrong according to a poster on a website.

 

[onesecondglance]

Actually, chapter names are automatically needed. Chapter names are a core component of good fiction. Unless the chapters are so short and undefined as to be useless, a good writer will always include chapter names.

Drop them, and you automatically drop much of the atmosphere and color from your book.

That's a strangely absolute view of the world. To be honest, I don't think chapter names are appropriate to certain genres, and I'd find them distracting if they were there.

Just because you like them doesn't make them a mandatory component of "good fiction".

 

[jimbro]

I like chapter names, but if you are having trouble, don't waste your sweat worrying about it. Just use numbers. If, during the edit of your penultimate draft, names suggest themselves (as they do for me), then fine. But I would wait until then.