...that style of presentation in a novel, where you list at the beginning of each chapter, short descriptions of the scenes it contains. For instance...

Chapter One
Felix delouses
A penny for them.
Take me out to the ballgame.

...and so on. It occurs to me that I've written a four-hundred page novel using that technique and I don't know what (if anything) it's known as.

thanks
f0zz

Think maybe it's just called a sub-heading. I'd say by-line but that's too newspapery.

JB

You mean like in Then We Came To The End? he lists scenes at the top of each chapter. Haven't a clue what it's called though.

When writers use a quotation at the beginning of a chapter, such as a couple of lines from a poem or a bit of Shakespeare, etc., it's known as a Chapter Epigraph.

I don't know of a different phrase to cover a sort of summary of the chapter's content as you're talking about here, but I suspect Chapter Epigraph would cover it.

In quite ancient literature of an allegorical nature, there would often be an 'allegorical explanation' following the chapter title but preceding the actual text.

This explanation would, I believe, be known as the 'legend', in the Latin sense of the word 'legendum', the gerundive of 'legere' - 'to read', meaning effectively 'that which is to be read'.

Unfortunately, you couldn't use the term 'legend' now because everybody will read it as the other kind of 'legend', although you find it used in word processing manuals to describe the text accompanying an illustration, for instance, which is quite close to the meaning you have in mind.

The accuracy of the above is not guaranteed!

Chris

Ok, I'm intriqued. Sol Stein recommends doing this in a chapter of his book Solutions for Novelists - summarising each scene to ensure each is pulling it's weight, and as an aid for writing the synopsis - but are you intending to have it published like that?

- NaomiM

Yes. It's literally a one-line 'teaser' for each scene within that Chapter, sub-headed below each chapter heading. I've seen it done in numerous stories, I even recall one of Stephen King's ('Talisman' I think, or possibly 'It' ) having that style.

The lengthier scene summaries, together with salient indicators of tension, humour, relevancy and quality are there too, but of course they won't be seen in the finished result. I do like the teasers, though. I think they'll stay in.

For anyone who's interested, I used yWriter for this, a lovely (free!) app by fellow writer Simon Haynes. Very good for keeping track of all those loose ends in a big twisty plot with lots of characters and viewpoints.

It's a long tradition - all those old novels with 'In Which We see how Liliana met Sir Gawain and Overcame him' or whatever. Though I mostly think I've come across it used as a joke, in Winnie the Pooh, for instance...

Emma

Yes, along those lines, but a bit more oblique, in order to entice the reader. I might add that this is for a fantasy adventure, with a touch of "Boy's own" derring-do about it, so it seems entirely in context to use it. Perhaps that is where it mainly belongs too.

I just wondered if there was a term for it, if anyone here may have used it, or if anybody has an opinion about it. All entirely trivial, of course.

Thanks for the answers so far.

Yes, it would be great in that kind of story, where knowingness is part of the fun.

In academic writing I think you'd call it an abstract.

Emma

The representation or anticipation of a future event as if it has actually happened can be referred to as 'prolepsis'. Although this would not describe the actual sub-title device itself, it probably does apply to the function of it, which is to reveal to the reader to some extent what is about to happen in order to make him or her look forward to finding out about it properly with greater anticipation. You've obviously written the book with the feeling that these 'teasers' are an important part of it so, if they do excite anticipation without giving the game away, keep 'em in!

Chris

I like the word 'teaser' used in this context and think it describes it well. Why not stick with that? Or simply call it 'the bit that goes at the start of each chapter.' There's nothing at all wrong with plain English!

It does, however, remind me of how they title episodes of Friends: 'The one where Rachel ....' etc.

I love the way it's done in Three Men in a Boat, with a witty little precis at the beginning of each chapter, but it doesn't seem to be used today. I think it should be brought back, so all power to yer elbow (or typing fingers)...

I'm guessing, but could it be called a "programme"? Or possibly "preview"? "Abstract" is defined by my encarta dictionary as 'a summary of a longer text, especially of an academic article' - so that sounds like it covers it. It says 'especially', not exclusively.

It's not a preamble, is it?

Emma