Episode 76: [Summer Short] Do Chapter Titles Matter?

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Elizabeth & Stephanie talk about whether chapter titles matter. Do you need chapter titles? Is there a difference between genres? Do readers have expectations?

As part of our Summer Short series, this episode shares our perspectives on whether or not chapter titles are important. As we both make progress with our works in progress, it's something to consider because there are differences, and sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference. 

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Transcript

1:14

welcome back, listener to another summer episode from the Inspired Writer Collective. Today we are talking about. Chapter titles, and we've just kind of been thinking about this just as we work on our own manuscripts. Mm-hmm. About how, whether or not we wanna use chapter titles, is it common in our genre. And it just raised some interesting thoughts for us. So, uh, Elizabeth, I'll have you start talking about memoir and Yeah. What you're thinking. So, my struggle and my reason for not wanting to use chapter titles is because they're hard to come up. With, right. You already have to create so much for your manuscript. You're writing the whole book. You've gotta create a blurb for the back. And that's really intimidating. And like I, I just sometimes have a hard time figuring out what a chapter title should be. And even now as I think about chapter titles, like I have some like placeholder ones, just so when I look at my manuscript, I know what that section is about. But there are some that like. Because I'm telling my story chronologically that to give the chapter a title, like I'm covering a couple of different things that happened that appear in that chapter because of the general chapter length and things like that. But as we sat down to record this episode, we quickly perused through both Stephanie's bookshelf and I did just some quick Google searches of some major memoirs. And found that many of the memoirs do use chapter titles, so the convention would be to. Come up with a title for each of my chapters in my memoir. So I don't really know how I feel about that because I was planning to do what I've seen across so many other books, um, which is to simply have a chapter number and it's not like I'm changing points of view. I don't need to do a lot of different dates. I'm not jumping timelines, um, or anything like that. And so I was hoping to be able to phone in that one. Um, I did find that Wild by Cheryl Stray did not use chapter titles, and so I was just positing to Stephanie. Like, I wonder if that's one of the reasons why it didn't feel like memoir and it felt like fiction. And I would kind of love to borrow that element if that's how, like our brains were tricked in the, in that story to just feel like it was fiction. I don't wanna like. I also don't wanna give anyone the expectations for the chapter ahead of time. It feels like it's spoiling it a little bit. If I'm like, divorce, and this is the chapter where I got divorced, you know, like, I don't know. I wonder if sometimes a chapter title may cause a reader to decide like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna put the book down for a little bit. I'm not gonna keep reading tonight. Whereas if you just have a number and you've got whatever cliffhanger sentence. You've left the reader with on the previous chapter, maybe they'd keep going. So I, I'm, I think I'm still gonna be in the camp of, I prefer not to use chapter titles unless I'm just told like. That I really need to have them. Well, I think in going along with that, that number one, the beauty of publishing it yourself is ultimately you can make that final decision. Mm-hmm. Um, and that if it, if it were to get traditionally published, there might be a little pressure to come up with chapter titles. I can definitely understand that feeling of. Not wanting to set the reader up too much in advance to have a preconceived notion of what is coming. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, because you, you are, I mean, it's not specifically chronological from what I understand, but there's a flow to it. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes there can be a little bit of. The chapter title that can break up some of that flow or where your mind does anticipate what's coming. And so it's kind of interesting to think about and, and I'm curious if some of you're gonna run out now and start, you know, browsing through bookshelves to find out what you know, different authors that you like or doing, because I mean, we. We do learn from what's been done before, but then mm-hmm. The other beauty is, is that there is an aspect of being able to disrupt the system a little bit too. Mm-hmm. With that, and I know, I mean, certainly in my genre with contemporary romance, there are chapter numbers, but there's also a really strong trend right now of the dual point of view. Point of views. Mm-hmm. So there's the bit of the head hopping where one chapter is the female main character perspective, the next is the male main character. Um, or in some cases, you know, there's two women or mm-hmm. Whatever you the counterpart, romantic The counterpart. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, whoever it might be, you're jumping between those different points of view. Um, and, and then the chapter would reflect that, right? Yes. It's like the number and then the. POV you're gonna be entering into. Yeah. And sometimes there isn't even a chapter number, sometimes it's just the name. Mm-hmm. Depending upon the book. But we were actually having an interesting conversation about this the other day because, uh, we had, uh, picked up a, a book and Elizabeth had started reading it and. Was anticipating that it was gonna be in the point of view of a, a character, and because that's how it was titled chapter one, this pers this character name and then read on to find that it was not in that point of view. And so it was it. We then were thinking, and then Elizabeth read a little bit to me because we happened to be on the phone and we were kind of talking about it and thinking like. Okay. Does this mean that the ch the chapter is about this person? Mm-hmm. Not from their point of view. And so that's another thing about if you're gonna put a title, especially a name mm-hmm. In the current trend of books, the anticipation is that it's gonna be that point of view, strictly their point of view. Yes. And it would be, you know, an error on the author's part to then include any internal thoughts of a different character or anything like. Scene setting that that character is not able to view. And that's what happened in this particular chapter is it opens up with someone coming in a door behind them and there's all this description of this person and then the sound of the clanging of the door, startles this main character, and then she turns and sees this person. So it's like she would have no awareness of what he looks like or how other people are treating him or. You know, like it, it was incorrect if the title is reflective of a particular point of view. And so it was very, like, as a reader, I was very offput and I put the book down to be frank. And so, you know, it's, I, I think it's important, right? Yeah. These, these chapter titles are the, the, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, not rituals, but, um, practices, I guess with like where the industry is, what's common practice, what does this mean? Um, the other time I see like just a repeated chapter title would be things like, um, if you're jumping locations mm-hmm. Or you're changing like timeframes, then there might be. Some of that as in place of a chapter title I'm currently reading. I don't know what she classifies her book as, whether it's like sci-fi or speculative fiction. Um, but it's, it's said in the future. And there's all kind like the government is actually AI and people have like robotic parts and the climate is a disaster, right? And so far in that book, the chapter titles are particular characters point of view and also a timeframe because there is some jumping of the timeframe, at least so far between chapter one and chapter two. So like chapter one started at a certain point, and then chapter two took you like two weeks earlier. So that was indicated. As part of that chapter title. Yeah. And that's, and that's common too sometimes in, uh, historical romance. Mm-hmm. There'll be the indication of the time period. Mm-hmm. Or if there's some kind of time travel. Mm-hmm. Or if a particular chapter starts. You know, in present day, but then it go, you go way back in time. Um, those are definitely indicated in the chapter title, which is helpful for a reader to determine, you know, where they are in the, in the time. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so those are, those are important pieces to include, I feel, to, to orient your reader so that they're not all of a sudden thinking like, wait a minute. I thought, wait, what? What's going on? Right? So then what's the purpose of the chapter titles? It's just to simply orient your reader in whatever kind of additional information they need in order to understand the content of that chapter. That's why like the non-fiction books use chapter titles, right? Because in that informative style of writing, they're trying to show you. A so you can quickly reference what you need outta that book if you're just opening up and finding a particular thing in your, your how to do X, y, Z. Um, but it, it's, yeah, to give you some basic information before you start reading the chapter. And I just don't think anyone needs that in reading memoir. I, I don't know. I mean, certainly the more skilled writers may be able to come up with fun chapter titles that then entice the reader to keep reading, like I was just looking up. What Glennon Doyle's chapter titles were, and Untamed and saw that one of them was blow jobs. And that's a story like where she's going to the therapist or whatever and told to give her husband more blow jobs. But like, and so I guess if you, as the reader, you know, as you're reading her book, if you saw that chapter title, maybe you'd be like, oh, let me keep reading. Right. Um, but I, I just don't think my reader is gonna need any more information than what I'm delivering there in the chapter itself. So I think I'm just gonna go with numbers. Well, and I think that you should go with what feels right for your book. And I think that, um, and that's the other piece too, is that in the grand scheme of the publishing world, is I. To be with, if you choose to go with a publisher, to be with a publisher and an agent who support who you are. I mean, we have an early episode where we talk about, you know, finding an agent is like dating. It's that mm-hmm. Is, you know, so we'll, you know, link that in the comments. But, you know, just sort of thinking about that and, and, and interestingly enough, in other. Areas that where I've been, that particular reference has come up several times. I think even when I was at a Cheryl Stray workshop online recently, I think she even brought up that connection between, you know who you're searching for. So I think when it comes to aspects of your book to find the person who's gonna support you, and if that's you, then awesome. Like mm-hmm. Be the one who makes that decision. And I know for me, I'm doing. Uh, dual point of views, so it's gonna be the different names. Mm-hmm. Um, and. Probably the chapter number. Mm-hmm. And whoever's point of view it is, is where, where I'll be. So, mm-hmm. Uh, listener, thank you so much for joining us and if you have thoughts on this, we'd love to hear from you and definitely, you know, links to follow us or in the comments, subscribe to our email newsletter so you don't miss some of this talk that's happening in. In our newsletter as well, things that you don't hear here on the podcast and other, other fun things. So, uh, happy writing.