I can't imagine creating chapter names will mean you won't get published. Maybe your editor will ask you to remove them, but I've certainly seen them done recently (as in the book quoted by @EdFromNY.) They may not be everybody's cup of tea, but if required, they can be easily changed to just numbers. Me, I think they add a lot, certainly to a customer's preview of a book. In fact, I just checked ...two of the three just-published novels I picked up last month, after meeting the authors at the Ullapool Book Festival, have chapter names and numbers. Ian Stephen's Death and Fish, and Murray Armstrong's The Liberty Tree. The one novel I picked up that didn't have chapter names was Newfoundland author Michael Crummey's Sweetland. His just has numbers.
If you like keeping a flow of your work, using a name as chapter sometimes forces you to write in conformity with the title as opposed to just writing and using numbers as chapter title to break the work. I prefer using number to coming up with titles. And if you finished writing and then look for a name title for each chapter, you will find out it will take you longer to achieve this because you wrote without a name in mind for the chapter. But to each his/her own I guess.
Numbers. I think one can make a case that names, or the sort of cleverness that @EdFromNY referred to, can get in the way of the story. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. - Ernest Hemingway
True, but when it comes to publishing, it's better to be the rule and not the exception, especially if you're a new writer.
I used chapter titles for one of my novels. A maneuver that started as a way to keep track of events in the story and it stuck. With the exception of a few - The Kandy Kolored Fish ( homage to Tom Wolfe ) most were pretty plain - Leo, The Mermaids, The Velvet Sachet, Simone in the Trash just marking a character's arrival or exit or a bit of evidence for the mystery angle of the story. I wouldn't use titles unless you book is going to be somewhat different. Too me it suggests you're bucking convention but if the book is pretty conventional - what's the point. The last time I noticed chapter titles was in Flowers in the Attic.
Fit it to the book. I'm using dates, time chronology matters in my story that jumps around in time. Names are good to introduce single concepts like the character's name, or a location. Numbers are fine if you don't want any information imparted or you think it would be trivial or distracting.
This is the problem I ran into with Rosa's Secret. Originally, I had names for all the chapters, with each historical chapter being named for its POV character. But as I continued writing, I found that too constricting (plus, I couldn't come up with interesting titles for the modern-day chapters). So, I simply went with chapter numbers, with place and year (no, I hadn't read The Orphan Train yet when I decided to do it) to orient the reader. I don't think numbers v. names is in any way a "rule". I will say I've read more books without chapter names than with, but a good system of chapter naming can help set the tone. I can think of some authors who named chapters in some books but not in others.
Given the agony I go through trying to figure out titles for books, I sure as hell wouldn't want to make myself come up with a whole separate list of titles for chapters! But if you've got good titles in mind, I don't see a reason not to use them.
In the work that I cited, there are two stories, one a memoir set from the late 1920s through the mid-1940s, and one a story of revelation and personal connection set in the present. Date and time indicators are not only helpful, but necessary in order to keep clear what is happening and when. Very similar to my own story. But then, not every story is written that way. That's why there's no rule about it.
But your book title is part of marketing, it's more critical to have the right title. Chapter titles are simpler.
Aye, but this isn't a rule. Is it? I just googled the topic, and the entire first page that came up on the search were of entries that talked about what chapter titles can do for a book, including listing books that use them. NONE were negative about them. I think it's really important not to start assuming things that can be a bar to publication, when they truly aren't. In fact, good chapter titles can actually help sell your book. Why would any publisher reject them out of hand? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Chapter+Titles&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=xM6SVZmOOIaa7gbY_IHIBQ
I don't mean rule as in a literal rule. What I meant was do what most other authors do. While it's certainly not bad to have chapter titles, most books don't use them, especially in the general/literary fiction genre. I don't think you're going to get rejected because you used chapter titles, but the publisher may choose to number chapters instead.
If you're not going to get rejected for using them, why shouldn't you? Sure, your eventual publisher might drop them, but you don't lose anything by including them in the first place, by your own admission.
Yes, it's personal preference, though I'm a firm believer in doing what most others do to maximize chances of publication. Again, I read mostly general/literary fiction, and this is the norm is that genre. In fact, a lot of books in that genre don't even number chapters. The chapter kind of just begins on a new page. Pretty much the only time I personally would consider including titles is if I'm writing something like Faulker's As I Lay Dying, where the POV changes every chapter.
Maybe the vast majority of published novels don't have chapter titles, I don't know, but you said, only a few posts ago, that it doesn't matter at all whether or not you use them because publishers will just get rid of yours if they don't want them. Chapter titles or no have no impact on publication whatsoever; the writing is the decider.
Ummm ...well, no. The two published books I JUST bought are both literary fiction. One is the fictional account of Thomas Muir, the man who, back in the 18th century, led the fight for universal suffrage in Scotland. The other is a fictional story about a fishing family on the Isle of Lewis. One was just published in 2015, the other in 2014 ...by two different publishing companies. Although both authors are 'known,' this is the first novel from either one of them. I agree that it's difficult to find a publisher if you're a first-time author. But I also think people can be made to panic, and start seeing anti-publication monsters lurking under every bed, when in fact, they don't exist. Can you list any agent or publisher who specifically mitigates against chapter titles? If so, they'd have missed out on quite a few bestsellers of the literary type ...a good example being E Annie Proulx's The Shipping News. Another is Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain ...a first novel which not only won awards and became a bestseller, but was also made into a film. If we start constructing these kinds of obstacles to publishing, writing is going to be trapped in such a straitjacket that it will become sterile and meaningless. Like filling in a form. And just about as interesting to read.
OK, but that's only 2 books. I never said all books in this genre follow this trend. I also never stated that publishers will automatically reject you for having chapter titles. I merely said that the norm is to not have chapter titles. That's all.
Who knew? Number 2 doesn't do much for me, but I can see it being helpful for some people. Number 3 is one we've discussed and it makes sense as a necessity for novels that change time frames, place, and POV (like The Poisonwood Bible, told from different characters' 1st person POVs). Number 1 though, we haven't discussed and I find it intriguing. Titles might entice, or set up mysteries. Those are things I would never have thought of, especially the last one with something akin to a quotation/title hybrid.
Makes sense, but a lot of the replies here seem to be suggesting that other-than-numbers chapter designations are for the benefit of the author, rather than the reader, which I think is a mistake.
Fair enough. (Although I could certainly come up with more contemporary literary novels from my own shelves, if I thought it was worth pursuing. Richard Wagamese uses chapter titles, etc.) But I read your original statement— —as a warning flag to people who might be thinking about publishing an adult book with chapter titles—implying that it might be an obstacle. If that's not what it was, I apologise.
You're right. I should have been more clear in my original post because I didn't mean to imply that using chapter titles would hurt your publication chances. I'm glad we cleared that up.
