I name titles after whatever I think fits and is good. Sometimes they're contradictory, like in one of them the queen dies, but it's titled "Long Live the Queen".
@@alexanderpeters5242 Given that when a King/Queen dies, the messenger goes directly to the heir and announces to them, "The king/Queen is dead." And then immediately follows it up with, "Long live the King/Queen." So, if the chapter is about the queen dying, and the heir is a princess, there is no contradiction in the title. "Long live the Queen." I'm just being pedantic here. Worst case scenario, there is no heir; civil war, as the reigning duchies duke it out.
i can't put into words how much i love your channel and your advice. this video is the best example. before watching i wasn't interested in chapter titles. i just wanted to number them and call it a day. now i have so many fun ideas. i just needed inspiration and the very tangible kind of advice you always give. it helps making my story more like my story. packing it tightly with soul and identity. it definetely makes me a better writer because it always forces me to make concious choices. thank you so much!
@Bookfox i second this. Was missing a massive oppertunity. Your channel has gotten me so much alpha on my book and thought process. Will be donating via patreon before finished
I use song names with slight deviations sometimes. It’s cool bc you can listen to the song when reading and help set a mood. Lyrics can also tie in or mirror
Ooh, I've been thinking about this but it doesn't fit the tone of my current project. This does give me the confidence to use it in the future, though!
Obert Skye's excellent Pillage trilogy (for younger readers and for everyone) (THE SECRET GARDEN but with dragons) does this with three different bands' songs. Queen, The Smiths, The Beatles.
@@ss-nu3qf Thank you for asking! It is so fun. The story revolves around Billy Wilde and Wendy Parker. They meet briefly as teens in the late '60s, but their lives take them down different paths. When they are reunited in 1976, they don't recognize each other. Billy is an overworked, stressed out actor/musician, and Wendy has just escaped her deranged husband's cult. They are stranded together on Billy's private island, unaware that someone is out to kill them both. It's an enemies-to-lovers romance/thriller called Wilde & Wendy, due to be published next year.
In my last work I used dialog lines for chapter titles and had so much fun with it. I liked choosing lines that would make readers curious but wouldn't reveal too much :)
If there's a time limit, it can be especially clever to use time as chapter titles to create tension. In Good Omens, we know when the Armageddon is due according to the prophecy. The titles are the following: In The Beginning, Eleven Years Ago, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. This makes the pacing seem even more intense, given the weight of the danger.
@JiveDadson first of all, this is a NOVEL. A fantasy one. So is - at least according to most atheists - the Bible itself. Good Omens also has a witch, two witch hunters, and a demon/angel duo who may or may not be gay for each other. Second of all, there are explanations and interpretations that paint those prophecies as not necessarily failed. In other words, maybe it's legit, maybe not. Statistically, more likely not, but still. The existence of something can sometimes be proved, but the nonexistence - well, that's a trickier one. Impossible one, to be exact. Yet, you're so quick to state the nonexistence of something. Look into the difference between atheism and agnosticism; and philosophy (specifically dialectics) in general.
Meh, I quit reading Percy after the... third book? It's dumb. Boy gets into trouble, calls on daddy, gawd bails him out; rinse, repeat. Oh yeah, mom sticks with abusive spouse cuzz... he stinks too much. Great life lessons all around.
@@clintcarpentier2424 It's a middle school read, in the beginning. It's fun, and as someone who has ADHD, it helped me as a kid really relate to certain struggles. Get over yourself...
This is a really original topic for a writing advice video. I had decided not to use chapter titles, but after watching this, I may reconsider. Thank you.
I have duo protagonists for my wip. One character is a silly guy and his chapter titles are humorous lines in that chapter. The other character is more serious with more artful narration, and has artful chapter titles from that chapter
I just want to thank you, bro. I sent a manuscript to a publisher a few days ago and I’ve been a nervous wreck. Your videos have been helping me through the anxiety.
Great advice. I feel like my whole draft shines more with using a part of the last sentence as the title. It makes so much sense since it is a little cliffhanger for the next chapter and takes work to use it as an appatizer. Even long titles are cool this way like "And so I, Ygareth, Warden of the Wayfarers, do accept thy offer." Even I am eager to read the chapter and I know what's about to happen. Tanks for your premium quality videos and tips.
PJO's chapter strategy also is #14 and possibly #6. The titles of the chapters are essentially what happens in that chapter, but summarized in a playful way that gives away nothing. It gives you an idea of what to expect and like #2 it is in the voice of the narrator Percy. You get a sense for his witty personality in how he gives us the sparknotes for that chapter. I also love that the target audience is for kids, so it can be a really clever way to help the author keep kids not only engaged but let them refer to the book easily for book reports and such. I'm reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and I really love how she does her chapters. They're just numbers but at the top there's little snip-its of literature from within her fictional world such as character journals, textbooks, battle reports, etc. These works are talked about within the narration, so they're relevant. Also, the narrator is a scribe (turned dragon rider), so she's very familiar with these works. She also reinforces their importance in her dialogue and narration by using the knowledge to help her get ahead at the dragon riding school and reciting the works also helps her cope with the dangers there/ keeps her calm and level-headed. For us readers, it enriches the world building in a clever way. The snip-its are also relevant to what's happening in that chapter, which helps set up expectations and reinforces points the author is trying to make.
I remember The Neverending Story has chapters from A to Z, that start with the letter of that chapter, plus an extra chapter before and after the alphabet. I also love how the author used two colors of text to distinguish between what happens in reality and on Fantasia. It's still one of my favourite books. The Moomin Family chapter titles are summaries, sometimes quite long, and they are funny and quirky. I'm definitely using titles on my book!
William Lindsay Gresham titled his chapters after the major arcana tarot cards in Nightmare Alley. They relate to the story and aren't just for show. Plenty of symbolism and metaphor.
Thank you! Unimaginably insightful. With these strategies in mind, I'm tripling up on my titles for my long chapters using soundbites from that chapter; not only do they create expectations but speak to the protagonist's philosophy. My first chapter titles: Keep Moving; Untouchable; No meat. 🙂
Great video, awesome selection of really interesting approaches. One thing I think you maybe understated is how propulsive Martin's chapter naming can be in his books - I spent a few nights caught in the trap of "oh Jon's last chapter ended in a cliffhanger, let's see it resolved here", followed by "oh we haven't heard from Arya in a while, maybe let's just read this one as well"
Some historicals like Wolf Hall contain the dates the chapters take place in the chapters, meaning people with historical knowledge can get excited over the fact that they know this is when so and so event occurs
I love that this channel is full of super helpful book writing tips that aren't generic. So many channels recycle the same advice, so your videos are so refreshing!
Thank you very much! Admittedly, as a reader I don't like chapters without titles that much. It feels almost as if the author didn't want to make an effort 😂
id never really thought chapter titles were important but damn they really do hold a sway over the book!! i agree that the last line = chapter name is a great technique!! thank you so much for this great video :D
In a scrapped draft, I was writing about an entity that in a nutshell could rewrite memories and therefore manipulate the scenario, so for every chapter title I gave a quote that was altered by the entity, showing how far it could go. For example: "Every single memory I had with you just reminds me that I'll (never) be there for you if you're in need." Shows two characters despised each other, but all of their memories had been washed out and rewritten so they would trust each other. Ps: if anything i wrote seems odd, english is not my native language and i'm writing this at 1am.
I wrote a story about a boy who escaped the prison he was born into. Each chapter had a title about an idiom expression that impacted the chapter. As he discovered real life, he was learning to speak like everybody asking the way. It was very fun to research!
I like to forshadow with chapter titles and / or have parallels where chapter titles work off previous titles. For example, I have one chapter titled, "The Fracture" and a later chapter titled, "The Break."
A rather famous composer Benjamin Britten (BB) wrote a symphony with the title Simple Symphony (SS) anf the four parts of this symphony are Boisterous Bourrée, Playful Pizzicato, Sentimental Sarabande, and Frolicsome Finale.
personally, i use something that makes me feel like i’m anticipating the chapter even if i know the whole story. and i make the chapter titles and subchapter titles be a part of it, i make my main chapters extremely large so i use a vague sentence that the chapter will strangely revolve over and i explore multiple meanings of it, (because i write in french, some of my title might not have as many different meanings in English, sorry 😅 i try my best) the title of my second main chapter, is in french « la mauvaise nouvelle » which could at the same time mean : « the bad news » but like it’s only one singular piece of « bad news », while the chapter is revolving around deception, multiple pieces of bad news and huge tense between characters situations. the main reason i named it like « a singular piece of bad news » was to make the reader anticipate and be curious about « there is multiple bad news, but what will be THE piece of bad news from it, and at the end of it, it would almost feel like the chapter WAS the singular piece of bad news. it is also the chapter with the most groundbreaking plot twists in my book, and with the most « downgrading » for my characters, exposing their flaws one by one and taking some abilities away from them, forcing them to improve themselves for the future if they don’t want to live the worst kind of futures, the chapter also brings some « good news » but especially good news that could turn bad, or that create anticipation for something to remove the effects of these. making one of the darkest and smoothest descent in my entire book and the second reason why i named it « la mauvaise nouvelle » is also because in french, it could also mean « the bad novel » making some anticipation for it to be some kind of « deception », while a lot of expectations will be brought by the beginning of the chapter, and will not be resolved in a satisfying way or being contradictory. like the beginning of a great quest about a creature, to figure out that the creature doesn’t seem to exist, for it to reappear unexpectedly later in that chapter and being way worse than it was expected… only for it to ged obliterated, not by the main character but by an unjustly overpowered character that seems to be hiding something and has multiple major flaws that create anticipation about who is the character and what are their flaws hiding.
this chapter is basically in itself, a big expectation followed by deception leading towards greater expectations, that will be achieved during the next chapter instead of this one precisely. it’s a second chapter about oversetting, and it secretly creates a really awkward feeling about what to expect and what to not.
for subchapters i try to make something easier and that just remind vaguely of what the subchapter is about, but i always go further than the original expectation of it. the subchapter « Vampire house » was about the main character getting lost a strange house which is the home of a deadly vampire, the twist is that the house is secretly a portal that leads to every single big city in the world of my book, having the identical strange house in every of these places. and one of the many portals in the house leads to the castle of the entire vampire society. which gets a lot of importance later on, the house also having an unexpectedly important role in my story’s politics.
another subchapter that i called « the fiery lands », the twist being that the powerful demon who lives in there, thinks that he conquered the entire world because he has never seen the surface, the fiery lands being far under the ground.
yet another subchapter « the demon, the dragon, and the usurper » which is the last subchapter of the first chapter, highlighting the three greatest menaces seen so far… the twist being that it’s only the end of the first chapter, and that the story has many, maaany yet unsolved mountains of problems, mysteries and uncovered secrets. and that getting rid of the most apparently great menace only makes the hidden ones grow bigger and bigger, until they all unfold in the second chapter « la mauvaise nouvelle », the bad news of those kept up and overlooked problems end up being obviously way worse than expected… and that by badly resolving the first chapter’s problems in a rush, it ended up shaping everything like a keyhole for all the problems that were just waiting peacefully for this exact moment.
I’ve been going back-and-forth on chapter titles versus just putting numbers. I really like the idea of the last line being the chapter title. I don’t know if it’ll work for my current work in progress but something to think about.
That’s great! I just renamed a few chapters to Move #23 1 Campsite and a coffee The 101 to the Golden Gate Bridge Gate #17 Marriage #1 meets boyfriend # 1 😅
hey John, loved this video! Could you next make a video on the use of extraordinary text formatting techniques, typographic devices or font use that further amplifies the storytelling?
I don't usually write chapter titles as I can't come up with them until I have written the chapter. With some stories I have chapter titles as I have a brief synopsis with each (or most) chapters
Great timing! I'd just started thinking about whether I should use chapter titles, which is something I hadn't done in my last 18 books. Reading Millennium People by Ballard has just put this notion in my head and your vid has confirmed it, so thanks!
@@Bookfox Done it on the 28 chapters complete so far ... I just went with the idea of taking an appropriate word or short phrase from the chapter, sometimes directly from dialogue. So it's almost like a game for readers to recognise the chapter title in the prose or dialogue they're reading. Fun!
The protagonist of my dark portal fantasy, Redoubt: Killing Intent, was a bereaved chemistry professor who died early in the first chapter fighting a bitter war to avenge her family. I've chosen to name all 26 chapters consistently after 80's songs which the protagonist would've been into in her first life. Kind of like a Spotify playlist. The song titles also work well as allusions especially since I have a whole decade to choose from. Some are pop songs, some are metal, and so on. Blue Monday, Holding Out for a Hero, Master of Puppets, These Dreams, and Back In Black for example. She isn't really musically inclined so there's not much focus on making music, but she does do a tiny bit of beatboxing in the fantasy setting.
Have been planning an sf book where each of the chapter titles contains a pun; ‘A room of one zone’, ‘lost cores’, etc and have been collecting ideas in a notebook. I think I might actually have to base the chapters on the title to pull this off, but it’ll be worth it.
Very interesting topic and not one I've seen addressed before. It was fun to see all the different types of chapter titles. Just one small correction: GRR Martin's chapter titles don't contain II, III, etc. It's just the character name alone, always. That is, unless that's been changed in later editions.
This is a great topic! I've read a number of books with multiple POVs, such as Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible (the 'parts' or books within the book have Biblical themed titles) and having the character name as chapter title is very helpful. With historical fiction, a date and location (Kansas City, Missouri- April 1859) puts the reader into the setting more quickly, though this could be secondary to the actual chapter title. I'm using my current chapter titles as my own 'outline', being a pantser. I see nothing wrong with going back after the final draft is done and adding to or changing the chapter titles; after editing, what you started with may no longer work! Really fun examples on this one.
Great ideas. I also love when author’s use chapter titles so I can go back to a particular section and reread that chapter again. Advice from Matt’s Bird’s book (The secrets of storytelling) is to name your books or chapters with irony. Having unexpected things together, like the Black Swan (since swans are usually white), or Iron Man (since men usually aren’t made of iron. It causes us to pay more attention than a title like (The Graceful Swan, which would be a boring title because being graceful is expected of swans. Or the Rich Man instead of Iron man, which just sounds less interesting.
In _Catch 22_ chapters are the names of characters. For example, the first chapter is named _The Texan._ But the first two lines are, "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love." The third sentence introduces even more questions, but nothing about the Texan. The book starts _in media res,_ and jumps around in time. It does not try to clear up the timeline for an inattentive reader. The book is organized around theme rather than time, and the chapter's eponymous character elucidates the theme. However, the last chapter, _Yossarian_," is also the last temporally. It would be a different book if Heller had babied the reader.
I'm currently editing a book using time and location as chapter titles. Both the address where the chapter kicks off, and X days (or minutes) before or after a pivotal point in the book. Since my novel is non-linear, it helps the reader not get too lost and I find helps to keep the reader asking, "what is it that happens during this moment the chapter headers keep alluding to?"
I almost didn't watch this video, I was thinking 'I don't need to name my chapters anything', and now I am sat wondering WHY I haven't been thinking about naming them, what else have I been overlooking?! Thanks for the guidance, as always it's worth it's weight in hamburgers.
Also, if your book has a wealth of POVs like in ASOIAF, you can still have POV character names integrated into chapter titles that build anticipation or mystery or anything else. So basically you're revealing POV but you also get to add some of the other ingredients that make chapter titles fun.
I may have to experiment a bit with a few of all the ideas in the video and see for myself how I can come across. Hopefully, I find the right one for my current fantasy book
As always, a very helpful video-thank you! I’m curious tho, why you only highlight those specific books on your shelf. I’d love to know more about them!
I've been naming mine in a misleading manner that once you know the full story they're all glaring clues. Like a scene named Brother and Sister about a pair of adopted siblings who are members of a religious organization (thus they are both Brother XYZ and Sister XYZ, /and/ brother and sister) but the third person in the scene is actually the sister's biological brother.
I read through my chapter and pick a line from it. It could be something that happens, something someone said, or something someone thought. I think it works quite well. Sometimes it's the last line or sentence that someone says. For example, the last chapter I wrote is called "Don't Move."
I always use chapter titles. For my series Im using Nouns in plural. I always look at the chapter after I wrote them, find the overall motives and use that.
Reader here: I think I am weird. I don't even notice chapters. Some booktubers often mention how they think chapters are too long or too short and I'm always like "What????". I often don't even finish a chapter before putting a book down for a break. I just stop at any point. And if my life would depend on it, I would not be able to tell anything about chapters in the latest book I read. So I'm not sure I would even notice chapter titles. But then maybe I actually would start to notice chapters if they had other titels than just names of characters or numbers ... and yes - I just checked the last books I read for chapter titles 🤭
As an author, I think I would enjoy titling chapters, but as a reader ... I often don't read them and usually forget them immediately. I don't know why.
The TV show The Boys did episode names, and episode synopsis, as if the fictional corporation was writing them. It was really entertaining seeing how they tried to 'spin' the events of the show. Another one that was done well which I'm not sure where it'd fit on this list, is from Succession. The episode titled Connor's Wedding is infamous, and though it features Connor's wedding, that's absolutely not why. I'm curious how to pull that off with chapter titles, or if it can be done consistently. Would be great to see examples from books that did something similar.
That makes me think of TV shows that have particular touch in their titles. Like Friends with "The one where/with " or Grey's anatomy with songs titles or The Umbrella Academy (or a whole lot of other shows actually) wher the title is said during the episode
My favorite chapter title isn’t from a book but from a video game, portal2: "The part where he kills you" "Well, This is the part where he kills us." "Hello. This is the part where I kill you." CHAPTER 9: THE PART WHERE HE KILLS YOU Achievement Unlocked: The part where he kills you
I try to come up with chapter titles that have multiple meanings. For example, one of my chapters is called "Saccharine", named after the artificial sugar. It refers literally to a character who uses a perfume that smells sweet but also kind of artificial, yet the title also refers metaphorically to the main protaganist's experience of this character, whom he intially percieves as 'the love of his life', but later once the initial infatuation dies down, he realizes he isn't as compatible with her as he originally thought, and so those sweet feelings of 'having found the one' turned out to be artificial.
Be careful with the Capture the Tone/Playfully Retro though because I read this one book where the chapter title spoiled the major event covered in the chapter and not in a good way.
Something GRRM does to break up the numbering and show a character’s mental state is to switch it out for a character title or assumed name every now and then. My favorite examples are Arya chapters in later books. Instead of Arya III in AFFC we get a chapter called Cat of the Canals.
Im working on a graphic novel that introduces a new character with every chapter. I like to use the names of those characters to name the chapters :) My favorite used of creative titles has to be Mr. Robot.
My placeholder chapter titles are the names of characters either introduced or important and relevant to what transpires in that chapter. The first chapter is the name of the MC. That may change, but it helps me track where I am in the story. And I'm trying to not repeat any names.
Other Chapter Titles That Make Readers STAY UP ALL NIGHT (If your book isn't selling or you're an employee) Chapter 7 Liquidation Under the Bankruptcy Code Chapter 9 Municipality Bankruptcy Chapter 11 Reorganization Under the Bankruptcy Code Chapter 12 Family Farmer Bankruptcy Chapter 13 Individual Debt Adjustment
This was a great set of ideas. For my current novel, it’s less about the clever thing that I might name this chapter and more that I simply do not want the reader to think about the me the author or the book as a book. The last thing that I would want for this particular story is to break the suspension of disbelief. I’ve debated a combination of aesthetic and chapter tease that has 2 levels. The easy level and the one that only makes sense after reading the chapter, and it will probably be a game-time decision during typesetting. :| Maybe I’ll try it. After all, if it’s hot rubbish I can just delete it during the drafting process. XD
I thought titles were considered out of fashion. I use them, but had done so under the impression that they would stand out from the majority who only use numbers.
I usually focus on a metaphore theme in each chapter and name it after that or an object with important symbolism or to point to an object that is going to be important for the plot. Btw I'm swedish so excuse my english.
About strategy number 5, is it legal to use someone else's work as chapter names for your work? I wrote a novel with a certain parallelism with a song by an author from my country. My novel is still unpublished, and the author has since died. I used fragments from the lyrics of that song as chapter titles in my novel, but I'm not sure you can do that.
Can I use one or two song lyrics as chapter titles? Or will those become a copyright infringement? Or can I somewhat bastardize the lyrics, disguise them but make the reader think, "Hey, I think I know that song"?
I feel like a fish asking about water, but is there a compelling reason why books (almost) always have chapters? They are useful for non-fiction, where you often only need to read specific sections -- but fiction is read linearly. Why don't more writers treat the inclusion of chapters as a technique, and not a requirement?
I sent you an email about my technique that should interest you. As a tease, I have 508 chapter/book titles in a list of my own creative process. The way I put the list together, may interest you for a future video.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I name titles after whatever I think fits and is good. Sometimes they're contradictory, like in one of them the queen dies, but it's titled "Long Live the Queen".
Contradictory titles are an excellent idea. :)
It would be contradictory, if her heir was a prince.
@@clintcarpentier2424I think both scenarios could be viewed as contradictory, but your suggestion seems more ironic.
@@alexanderpeters5242
Given that when a King/Queen dies, the messenger goes directly to the heir and announces to them, "The king/Queen is dead." And then immediately follows it up with, "Long live the King/Queen."
So, if the chapter is about the queen dying, and the heir is a princess, there is no contradiction in the title. "Long live the Queen." I'm just being pedantic here. Worst case scenario, there is no heir; civil war, as the reigning duchies duke it out.
i can't put into words how much i love your channel and your advice. this video is the best example. before watching i wasn't interested in chapter titles. i just wanted to number them and call it a day. now i have so many fun ideas. i just needed inspiration and the very tangible kind of advice you always give. it helps making my story more like my story. packing it tightly with soul and identity. it definetely makes me a better writer because it always forces me to make concious choices. thank you so much!
So glad to hear that!
I came here to say the same thing. Now I want to play with titles to see what works.
@Bookfox i second this. Was missing a massive oppertunity. Your channel has gotten me so much alpha on my book and thought process. Will be donating via patreon before finished
I use song names with slight deviations sometimes. It’s cool bc you can listen to the song when reading and help set a mood. Lyrics can also tie in or mirror
Ooh, I've been thinking about this but it doesn't fit the tone of my current project. This does give me the confidence to use it in the future, though!
Obert Skye's excellent Pillage trilogy (for younger readers and for everyone) (THE SECRET GARDEN but with dragons) does this with three different bands' songs. Queen, The Smiths, The Beatles.
I came here to say I'm doing the same, but I'm using exact titles because my male MC is a '70s pop idol.
Is that a PREEM cyberpunk 2077 reference, CHOOM???
My male MC is a '70s pop idol and I'm using song titles. It's a lot of fun finding songs to fit each chapter.
That kind of character seems very fun to write about, could you tell me more?
@@ss-nu3qf Thank you for asking! It is so fun. The story revolves around Billy Wilde and Wendy Parker. They meet briefly as teens in the late '60s, but their lives take them down different paths. When they are reunited in 1976, they don't recognize each other. Billy is an overworked, stressed out actor/musician, and Wendy has just escaped her deranged husband's cult. They are stranded together on Billy's private island, unaware that someone is out to kill them both. It's an enemies-to-lovers romance/thriller called Wilde & Wendy, due to be published next year.
In my last work I used dialog lines for chapter titles and had so much fun with it. I liked choosing lines that would make readers curious but wouldn't reveal too much :)
If there's a time limit, it can be especially clever to use time as chapter titles to create tension.
In Good Omens, we know when the Armageddon is due according to the prophecy. The titles are the following: In The Beginning, Eleven Years Ago, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. This makes the pacing seem even more intense, given the weight of the danger.
Oh, I LOVE this! Let's add it to the list of good ideas.
The Battle of Armageddon was to happen during the lifetimes of some of Jesus's disciples. It is a failed prophecy.
@JiveDadson first of all, this is a NOVEL. A fantasy one. So is - at least according to most atheists - the Bible itself. Good Omens also has a witch, two witch hunters, and a demon/angel duo who may or may not be gay for each other.
Second of all, there are explanations and interpretations that paint those prophecies as not necessarily failed. In other words, maybe it's legit, maybe not. Statistically, more likely not, but still.
The existence of something can sometimes be proved, but the nonexistence - well, that's a trickier one. Impossible one, to be exact.
Yet, you're so quick to state the nonexistence of something. Look into the difference between atheism and agnosticism; and philosophy (specifically dialectics) in general.
I absolutely adore how uncle Rick uses humor in his books, it really makes them 🔥
Meh, I quit reading Percy after the... third book? It's dumb. Boy gets into trouble, calls on daddy, gawd bails him out; rinse, repeat. Oh yeah, mom sticks with abusive spouse cuzz... he stinks too much. Great life lessons all around.
@@clintcarpentier2424 It's a middle school read, in the beginning. It's fun, and as someone who has ADHD, it helped me as a kid really relate to certain struggles. Get over yourself...
Tolkien has always been the high water mark in chapter title excellence as far as I’ve found in decades of reading.
This is a really original topic for a writing advice video. I had decided not to use chapter titles, but after watching this, I may reconsider. Thank you.
I love 'Tekla' by Steven Brust where the chapter titles are a laundry list like "One pair gray trousers: remove blood stain from upper right leg.”"
That sounds brilliant! Good example.
I have duo protagonists for my wip. One character is a silly guy and his chapter titles are humorous lines in that chapter. The other character is more serious with more artful narration, and has artful chapter titles from that chapter
Oh, I love the contrast between the two. Great idea.
I just want to thank you, bro. I sent a manuscript to a publisher a few days ago and I’ve been a nervous wreck. Your videos have been helping me through the anxiety.
Great advice. I feel like my whole draft shines more with using a part of the last sentence as the title. It makes so much sense since it is a little cliffhanger for the next chapter and takes work to use it as an appatizer.
Even long titles are cool this way like
"And so I, Ygareth, Warden of the Wayfarers, do accept thy offer."
Even I am eager to read the chapter and I know what's about to happen.
Tanks for your premium quality videos and tips.
PJO's chapter strategy also is #14 and possibly #6. The titles of the chapters are essentially what happens in that chapter, but summarized in a playful way that gives away nothing. It gives you an idea of what to expect and like #2 it is in the voice of the narrator Percy. You get a sense for his witty personality in how he gives us the sparknotes for that chapter. I also love that the target audience is for kids, so it can be a really clever way to help the author keep kids not only engaged but let them refer to the book easily for book reports and such.
I'm reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros and I really love how she does her chapters. They're just numbers but at the top there's little snip-its of literature from within her fictional world such as character journals, textbooks, battle reports, etc. These works are talked about within the narration, so they're relevant. Also, the narrator is a scribe (turned dragon rider), so she's very familiar with these works. She also reinforces their importance in her dialogue and narration by using the knowledge to help her get ahead at the dragon riding school and reciting the works also helps her cope with the dangers there/ keeps her calm and level-headed. For us readers, it enriches the world building in a clever way. The snip-its are also relevant to what's happening in that chapter, which helps set up expectations and reinforces points the author is trying to make.
Enjoyed that thoroughly. Thank you! Really fun.
I remember The Neverending Story has chapters from A to Z, that start with the letter of that chapter, plus an extra chapter before and after the alphabet. I also love how the author used two colors of text to distinguish between what happens in reality and on Fantasia. It's still one of my favourite books.
The Moomin Family chapter titles are summaries, sometimes quite long, and they are funny and quirky.
I'm definitely using titles on my book!
William Lindsay Gresham titled his chapters after the major arcana tarot cards in Nightmare Alley. They relate to the story and aren't just for show. Plenty of symbolism and metaphor.
Hello John, loving your RUclips videos. They're like small zaps of energy.
Thank you! Unimaginably insightful. With these strategies in mind, I'm tripling up on my titles for my long chapters using soundbites from that chapter; not only do they create expectations but speak to the protagonist's philosophy. My first chapter titles: Keep Moving; Untouchable; No meat. 🙂
Bernhard Schlink uses a pithy phrase from the forthcoming chapter. I always loved that.
Great video, awesome selection of really interesting approaches. One thing I think you maybe understated is how propulsive Martin's chapter naming can be in his books - I spent a few nights caught in the trap of "oh Jon's last chapter ended in a cliffhanger, let's see it resolved here", followed by "oh we haven't heard from Arya in a while, maybe let's just read this one as well"
Great SPECIFIC writing advice on this channel. Always.
Some historicals like Wolf Hall contain the dates the chapters take place in the chapters, meaning people with historical knowledge can get excited over the fact that they know this is when so and so event occurs
I love your channel, John. You have topics I've never heard anyone else talk about. Always in for a good time with your videos :)
Wow, thank you!
Your content is so well thought-out and researched. I love this one, in partiicular. Thank you!
Love it. I go so far as to title every scene.
I love that this channel is full of super helpful book writing tips that aren't generic. So many channels recycle the same advice, so your videos are so refreshing!
Greatly appreciate this video.This is a really good idea
Thank you very much! Admittedly, as a reader I don't like chapters without titles that much. It feels almost as if the author didn't want to make an effort 😂
id never really thought chapter titles were important but damn they really do hold a sway over the book!! i agree that the last line = chapter name is a great technique!! thank you so much for this great video :D
Great overview! Very inspiring to see what has been done and what that did for the readers.
Right on time! Thank you for this amazing video about chapters!
In a scrapped draft, I was writing about an entity that in a nutshell could rewrite memories and therefore manipulate the scenario, so for every chapter title I gave a quote that was altered by the entity, showing how far it could go.
For example: "Every single memory I had with you just reminds me that I'll (never) be there for you if you're in need." Shows two characters despised each other, but all of their memories had been washed out and rewritten so they would trust each other.
Ps: if anything i wrote seems odd, english is not my native language and i'm writing this at 1am.
Best tips ever! I’ll definitely be using these. Thanks!
I wrote a story about a boy who escaped the prison he was born into. Each chapter had a title about an idiom expression that impacted the chapter. As he discovered real life, he was learning to speak like everybody asking the way. It was very fun to research!
I like to forshadow with chapter titles and / or have parallels where chapter titles work off previous titles. For example, I have one chapter titled, "The Fracture" and a later chapter titled, "The Break."
I was just thinking of chapter titles today, and was too unsure to move on. Perfect timing, thanks
A rather famous composer Benjamin Britten (BB) wrote a symphony with the title Simple Symphony (SS) anf the four parts of this symphony are Boisterous Bourrée, Playful Pizzicato, Sentimental Sarabande, and Frolicsome Finale.
Love the alliteration!
personally, i use something that makes me feel like i’m anticipating the chapter even if i know the whole story. and i make the chapter titles and subchapter titles be a part of it, i make my main chapters extremely large so i use a vague sentence that the chapter will strangely revolve over and i explore multiple meanings of it, (because i write in french, some of my title might not have as many different meanings in English, sorry 😅 i try my best) the title of my second main chapter, is in french « la mauvaise nouvelle »
which could at the same time mean :
« the bad news » but like it’s only one singular piece of « bad news », while the chapter is revolving around deception, multiple pieces of bad news and huge tense between characters situations. the main reason i named it like « a singular piece of bad news » was to make the reader anticipate and be curious about « there is multiple bad news, but what will be THE piece of bad news from it, and at the end of it, it would almost feel like the chapter WAS the singular piece of bad news. it is also the chapter with the most groundbreaking plot twists in my book, and with the most « downgrading » for my characters, exposing their flaws one by one and taking some abilities away from them, forcing them to improve themselves for the future if they don’t want to live the worst kind of futures, the chapter also brings some « good news » but especially good news that could turn bad, or that create anticipation for something to remove the effects of these. making one of the darkest and smoothest descent in my entire book
and the second reason why i named it « la mauvaise nouvelle » is also because in french, it could also mean « the bad novel » making some anticipation for it to be some kind of « deception », while a lot of expectations will be brought by the beginning of the chapter, and will not be resolved in a satisfying way or being contradictory. like the beginning of a great quest about a creature, to figure out that the creature doesn’t seem to exist, for it to reappear unexpectedly later in that chapter and being way worse than it was expected… only for it to ged obliterated, not by the main character but by an unjustly overpowered character that seems to be hiding something and has multiple major flaws that create anticipation about who is the character and what are their flaws hiding.
this chapter is basically in itself, a big expectation followed by deception leading towards greater expectations, that will be achieved during the next chapter instead of this one precisely. it’s a second chapter about oversetting, and it secretly creates a really awkward feeling about what to expect and what to not.
all, followed by the best chapter in my whole book which basically is the huge escalation towards the brutal last chapter
for subchapters i try to make something easier and that just remind vaguely of what the subchapter is about, but i always go further than the original expectation of it. the subchapter « Vampire house » was about the main character getting lost a strange house which is the home of a deadly vampire, the twist is that the house is secretly a portal that leads to every single big city in the world of my book, having the identical strange house in every of these places. and one of the many portals in the house leads to the castle of the entire vampire society. which gets a lot of importance later on, the house also having an unexpectedly important role in my story’s politics.
another subchapter that i called « the fiery lands », the twist being that the powerful demon who lives in there, thinks that he conquered the entire world because he has never seen the surface, the fiery lands being far under the ground.
yet another subchapter « the demon, the dragon, and the usurper » which is the last subchapter of the first chapter, highlighting the three greatest menaces seen so far… the twist being that it’s only the end of the first chapter, and that the story has many, maaany yet unsolved mountains of problems, mysteries and uncovered secrets. and that getting rid of the most apparently great menace only makes the hidden ones grow bigger and bigger, until they all unfold
in the second chapter « la mauvaise nouvelle », the bad news of those kept up and overlooked problems end up being obviously way worse than expected… and that by badly resolving the first chapter’s problems in a rush, it ended up shaping everything like a keyhole for all the problems that were just waiting peacefully for this exact moment.
I’ve been going back-and-forth on chapter titles versus just putting numbers. I really like the idea of the last line being the chapter title. I don’t know if it’ll work for my current work in progress but something to think about.
You’re making me rethink my choice to not use chapter titles. I have to go look at the last lines of all my chapters, I love that idea!
That’s great! I just renamed a few chapters to
Move #23
1 Campsite and a coffee
The 101 to the Golden Gate Bridge
Gate #17
Marriage #1 meets boyfriend # 1 😅
I LOVE chapter titles. And they work brilliantly.
This is great! But what about your RUclips videos chapters titles? Missed opportunity for prime numbers there
hey John, loved this video! Could you next make a video on the use of extraordinary text formatting techniques, typographic devices or font use that further amplifies the storytelling?
I don't usually write chapter titles as I can't come up with them until I have written the chapter. With some stories I have chapter titles as I have a brief synopsis with each (or most) chapters
So timely. Thank you!
Great timing! I'd just started thinking about whether I should use chapter titles, which is something I hadn't done in my last 18 books. Reading Millennium People by Ballard has just put this notion in my head and your vid has confirmed it, so thanks!
Perfect! Really love Ballard but I haven't read that one.
@@Bookfox Done it on the 28 chapters complete so far ... I just went with the idea of taking an appropriate word or short phrase from the chapter, sometimes directly from dialogue. So it's almost like a game for readers to recognise the chapter title in the prose or dialogue they're reading. Fun!
The protagonist of my dark portal fantasy, Redoubt: Killing Intent, was a bereaved chemistry professor who died early in the first chapter fighting a bitter war to avenge her family. I've chosen to name all 26 chapters consistently after 80's songs which the protagonist would've been into in her first life. Kind of like a Spotify playlist. The song titles also work well as allusions especially since I have a whole decade to choose from. Some are pop songs, some are metal, and so on. Blue Monday, Holding Out for a Hero, Master of Puppets, These Dreams, and Back In Black for example. She isn't really musically inclined so there's not much focus on making music, but she does do a tiny bit of beatboxing in the fantasy setting.
Have been planning an sf book where each of the chapter titles contains a pun; ‘A room of one zone’, ‘lost cores’, etc and have been collecting ideas in a notebook. I think I might actually have to base the chapters on the title to pull this off, but it’ll be worth it.
Very interesting topic and not one I've seen addressed before. It was fun to see all the different types of chapter titles. Just one small correction: GRR Martin's chapter titles don't contain II, III, etc. It's just the character name alone, always. That is, unless that's been changed in later editions.
This is a great topic! I've read a number of books with multiple POVs, such as Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible (the 'parts' or books within the book have Biblical themed titles) and having the character name as chapter title is very helpful. With historical fiction, a date and location (Kansas City, Missouri- April 1859) puts the reader into the setting more quickly, though this could be secondary to the actual chapter title. I'm using my current chapter titles as my own 'outline', being a pantser. I see nothing wrong with going back after the final draft is done and adding to or changing the chapter titles; after editing, what you started with may no longer work! Really fun examples on this one.
Great ideas. I also love when author’s use chapter titles so I can go back to a particular section and reread that chapter again. Advice from Matt’s Bird’s book (The secrets of storytelling) is to name your books or chapters with irony. Having unexpected things together, like the Black Swan (since swans are usually white), or Iron Man (since men usually aren’t made of iron. It causes us to pay more attention than a title like (The Graceful Swan, which would be a boring title because being graceful is expected of swans. Or the Rich Man instead of Iron man, which just sounds less interesting.
In _Catch 22_ chapters are the names of characters. For example, the first chapter is named _The Texan._ But the first two lines are, "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love." The third sentence introduces even more questions, but nothing about the Texan. The book starts _in media res,_ and jumps around in time. It does not try to clear up the timeline for an inattentive reader. The book is organized around theme rather than time, and the chapter's eponymous character elucidates the theme. However, the last chapter, _Yossarian_," is also the last temporally. It would be a different book if Heller had babied the reader.
This is an interesting way of looking at chapter titles. I would just number them but this seems fun!
I'm currently editing a book using time and location as chapter titles. Both the address where the chapter kicks off, and X days (or minutes) before or after a pivotal point in the book. Since my novel is non-linear, it helps the reader not get too lost and I find helps to keep the reader asking, "what is it that happens during this moment the chapter headers keep alluding to?"
I almost didn't watch this video, I was thinking 'I don't need to name my chapters anything', and now I am sat wondering WHY I haven't been thinking about naming them, what else have I been overlooking?!
Thanks for the guidance, as always it's worth it's weight in hamburgers.
I have a new idea now! I'm excited to get into edits!
Also, if your book has a wealth of POVs like in ASOIAF, you can still have POV character names integrated into chapter titles that build anticipation or mystery or anything else.
So basically you're revealing POV but you also get to add some of the other ingredients that make chapter titles fun.
I may have to experiment a bit with a few of all the ideas in the video and see for myself how I can come across. Hopefully, I find the right one for my current fantasy book
Meanwhile, my chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
How about 1-1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-5, 5-8, 8-13, etc.?
As always, a very helpful video-thank you!
I’m curious tho, why you only highlight those specific books on your shelf. I’d love to know more about them!
I've been naming mine in a misleading manner that once you know the full story they're all glaring clues. Like a scene named Brother and Sister about a pair of adopted siblings who are members of a religious organization (thus they are both Brother XYZ and Sister XYZ, /and/ brother and sister) but the third person in the scene is actually the sister's biological brother.
I read through my chapter and pick a line from it. It could be something that happens, something someone said, or something someone thought. I think it works quite well. Sometimes it's the last line or sentence that someone says. For example, the last chapter I wrote is called "Don't Move."
Ultimate chapter naming mastery - Moby Dick
Catch 22
I always use chapter titles.
For my series Im using Nouns in plural.
I always look at the chapter after I wrote them, find the overall motives and use that.
Reader here: I think I am weird. I don't even notice chapters. Some booktubers often mention how they think chapters are too long or too short and I'm always like "What????". I often don't even finish a chapter before putting a book down for a break. I just stop at any point.
And if my life would depend on it, I would not be able to tell anything about chapters in the latest book I read. So I'm not sure I would even notice chapter titles.
But then maybe I actually would start to notice chapters if they had other titels than just names of characters or numbers ... and yes - I just checked the last books I read for chapter titles 🤭
As an author, I think I would enjoy titling chapters, but as a reader ... I often don't read them and usually forget them immediately. I don't know why.
Because they are not memorable or thought-provoking?
The TV show The Boys did episode names, and episode synopsis, as if the fictional corporation was writing them. It was really entertaining seeing how they tried to 'spin' the events of the show. Another one that was done well which I'm not sure where it'd fit on this list, is from Succession. The episode titled Connor's Wedding is infamous, and though it features Connor's wedding, that's absolutely not why. I'm curious how to pull that off with chapter titles, or if it can be done consistently. Would be great to see examples from books that did something similar.
That makes me think of TV shows that have particular touch in their titles. Like Friends with "The one where/with " or Grey's anatomy with songs titles or The Umbrella Academy (or a whole lot of other shows actually) wher the title is said during the episode
What about tables of contents, revealing the array of chapter titles, in fiction books?
Patience like a stone waiting for eternity. It’s a title in mine.
My favorite chapter title isn’t from a book but from a video game, portal2: "The part where he kills you"
"Well, This is the part where he kills us."
"Hello. This is the part where I kill you."
CHAPTER 9: THE PART WHERE HE KILLS YOU
Achievement Unlocked: The part where he kills you
For a book set in the '90s I named each chapter a song name that matches the time period, character POV and situation.
I try to come up with chapter titles that have multiple meanings. For example, one of my chapters is called "Saccharine", named after the artificial sugar. It refers literally to a character who uses a perfume that smells sweet but also kind of artificial, yet the title also refers metaphorically to the main protaganist's experience of this character, whom he intially percieves as 'the love of his life', but later once the initial infatuation dies down, he realizes he isn't as compatible with her as he originally thought, and so those sweet feelings of 'having found the one' turned out to be artificial.
I think I like the combination of two of them: Making it an in character question. Chapter 3: Oh god why did I do that?
Be careful with the Capture the Tone/Playfully Retro though because I read this one book where the chapter title spoiled the major event covered in the chapter and not in a good way.
Check out the chapter heading style of Dart Thornton‘s “Bitterbynde” series. It’s really exquisite.
And there are interesting titles of episodes on TV shows, like with Friends.
Something GRRM does to break up the numbering and show a character’s mental state is to switch it out for a character title or assumed name every now and then. My favorite examples are Arya chapters in later books. Instead of Arya III in AFFC we get a chapter called Cat of the Canals.
Please make a video on writing good preface for my novel.
Im working on a graphic novel that introduces a new character with every chapter. I like to use the names of those characters to name the chapters :) My favorite used of creative titles has to be Mr. Robot.
Or the Mobie "NOPE", names of animals that will die each chapter.
Your RR Martin reference may just have broken a deadlock I found myself faced with.😊
My placeholder chapter titles are the names of characters either introduced or important and relevant to what transpires in that chapter. The first chapter is the name of the MC. That may change, but it helps me track where I am in the story. And I'm trying to not repeat any names.
Other Chapter Titles That Make Readers STAY UP ALL NIGHT (If your book isn't selling or you're an employee)
Chapter 7 Liquidation Under the Bankruptcy Code
Chapter 9 Municipality Bankruptcy
Chapter 11 Reorganization Under the Bankruptcy Code
Chapter 12 Family Farmer Bankruptcy
Chapter 13 Individual Debt Adjustment
This was a great set of ideas. For my current novel, it’s less about the clever thing that I might name this chapter and more that I simply do not want the reader to think about the me the author or the book as a book. The last thing that I would want for this particular story is to break the suspension of disbelief. I’ve debated a combination of aesthetic and chapter tease that has 2 levels. The easy level and the one that only makes sense after reading the chapter, and it will probably be a game-time decision during typesetting. :|
Maybe I’ll try it. After all, if it’s hot rubbish I can just delete it during the drafting process. XD
I thought titles were considered out of fashion. I use them, but had done so under the impression that they would stand out from the majority who only use numbers.
I usually focus on a metaphore theme in each chapter and name it after that or an object with important symbolism or to point to an object that is going to be important for the plot.
Btw I'm swedish so excuse my english.
Dont forget about the punk poodle 😂 (-in PJO)
About strategy number 5, is it legal to use someone else's work as chapter names for your work? I wrote a novel with a certain parallelism with a song by an author from my country. My novel is still unpublished, and the author has since died. I used fragments from the lyrics of that song as chapter titles in my novel, but I'm not sure you can do that.
Pretty iffy, legally. Any quoting of song lyrics gets litigious.
@Bookfox That's what I thought. Thank you.
Titles of others' works are free game. Lyrics wade into the murky waters of fair-use.
@JiveDadson Oh, I see the difference. Thanks.
@Eduarodi You're welcome. You might try writing to the rights-holder and explain what you want to quote and why. Who knows? They might reply.
Don't you think this is overly formulaic, though?
I kind of want to steal the using last line for chapter title
what about how Terry Pratchett does it?
Subjectivity, subjectivity, *subjectivity*
Can I use one or two song lyrics as chapter titles? Or will those become a copyright infringement? Or can I somewhat bastardize the lyrics, disguise them but make the reader think, "Hey, I think I know that song"?
Copyright is really strict with song lyrics.
@@Bookfox Good to know! And thank you.
Are chapter titles necessary?
No, but they're a wonderful opportunity.
I feel like a fish asking about water, but is there a compelling reason why books (almost) always have chapters? They are useful for non-fiction, where you often only need to read specific sections -- but fiction is read linearly. Why don't more writers treat the inclusion of chapters as a technique, and not a requirement?
I try to use cliched idioms, but I'm worried that they are, well, cliches.
I sent you an email about my technique that should interest you. As a tease, I have 508 chapter/book titles in a list of my own creative process. The way I put the list together, may interest you for a future video.
Number 6 sounds like clickbait titles.