Question 12.20 of the mastodon #WritersCoffeeClub tag is: Do you name or number your chapters? If you name them, how do you decide on a name? Since the question is something I am particularly enthusiastic about, (I love chapter title themes, they can be fun) I decided I’d do another longer post to answer the question.
With my original fic, I tend to default to numbers. (The original fic that actually gets long enough to acquire chapters that is.) I also tend toward numbers for my fan fic, though if I come up with a thematic pattern of some kind, I’ll go back and name all the previously unnamed chapters. (Yeah, all of my examples are pretty much going to be from my fan fic.)
One of my early fanfiction stories was in a braided format between several point-of-view characters and past, not quite distant past, and present. As the story continued, the times go from concrete (day/month/year) to more vague (then/now). Each of the chapters referred to one of the characters: The Op, The Magus, The Angel and so on. Further, each chapter has a veiled reference to something that happens in the chapter. (“The Op: Marching Orders,” “The Magus: Aurora Australis,” and so on. )This was a fun chapter title format, only I borked the pattern toward the end because I am a “by the seat of my pants” writer and do very little outlining or plotting.
I have not had cause to use this kind of braided format since, but it was pretty fun, and extremely challenging. (Fortunately there was a site I could use to mess around with the dates. Otherwise I would have completely lost/embarrassed myself.)
Another chapter title format I’ve used a few times is “In which [someone] does [something] and [something as a result.]” This is a super funny format for me and a perfect vehicle to snark about whatever is going on in the chapter. (Because if you can’t make fun of the Situations you put your character in, of what utility is writing?)
For a more recent story (well recent subjectively, I have a pile of neglected fan fiction works-in-progress that I update sporadically) in the Homestuck fandom, I went with “Chapters that refer to incidents in the chapter in tones of vague exasperation/mockery.” This has led to chapter titles like:
- Clan of the Cave Hobbits
- Aayla Invents Everything
- Exercises in Attempting to Keep Two Idiots from Killing Each Other
- Strider to the Infinite Power
- The Rogue Joins Your Party!
- The Long Long Battletruck from the Eighties Post Apocalyptic Road Warrior Movie
And so on. These are not the funniest chapters, just the ones that might be best understood by non-Homestuck fans. The Teal Deer is that I really really like coming up with chapter titles, and coming up with themes for chapter titles. Or just titles in general. (I may at some point write about writers I like who have done fun chapter title themes.)
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