adminI’m undecided.
When reading books, dividing them into chapters makes it much easier to read, and hard to put down if each chapter ends on a cliff hanger. But writing a book into chapters can be difficult.
Naming chapters is altogether another difficulty. By naming a chapter you tempt the reader to continue because they now have an idea of what is about to happen through the next few pages.
But how do you pick a suitable title? I personally find titles quite difficult for any semi-decent piece of writing. (By contrast if I think up a brilliant title then I can’t write a piece to match it!)
My books have cycled through various working titles, simple things that remind me what they are like “Group story 1″. Some of them have final titles, like “The Good Ship Broccoli” but I haven’t even managed to finish a first draft of the entire book, and it doesn’t look like happening soon. Book titles are even harder to think of than chapter titles, but at least you only need one of those.
I’m wondering at this point whether it’s worth naming the chapters, or just numbering them. Certainly numbers are much easier to think of (1, 2, then 3 etc), but they aren’t exciting in the least and don’t stimulate further reading.
It looks like I’ll have to try naming chapters as I go along, and come back to those that I struggle with. That leaves me with:
- The Dragon’s Wake
- Small Truths
- Belonging
- Chapter Thing
- The Maze
- needs a name
- Blibble
- The ‘Other’ Speaks
- etc, etc, etc
I’m not too sure about this. I’d better remember to change them at the end!
| 3.2 |
September 6th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I’ve never named my chapters. Never even considering doing it, and I’m not sure if I’ve read a book where the chapters had titles…at least none that I can recall. It’s hard enough coming up with a title for the book itself. LOL…Numbering isn’t only easier, it’s more convenient.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Well, numbering is the easy way out, but decent titles help stoke the imagination of the reader, especially when reading the “Table of Contents” at the start of the book.
I vote to stick with proper chapter names
September 17th, 2008 at 6:10 am
When reading the book, I like both ways - with and without titles. But Owen brings up a great point about the Table of Contents - I do skim those when perusing books to buy or when opening a new book.
Sometimes, though, too much is revealed in the chapter titles, and that is disappointing.
The beginning of your post, though, reminded me of my struggle with blog post titles.
[Off topic: I tried to email you in response to your comment on my site and it bounced back to me. You can read the response on my blog. My brother is an emergency vet - he loves it! Writing books while going through vet school?! Now that’s just downright amazing! Best of luck to you!]