My WIP doesn't have any chapter titles - just numbers. What's the collective wisdom on naming vs non-naming and do you do it as you go, or afterwards?

It's a YA novel, if that makes a difference. I notice a lot of similar novels do have chapter titles, and wondered if I was committing an unwitting faux pas by only numbering.

I do it as I go, but then nearly always change the titles later.

I'd say, use chapter titles if they add something to the experience, otherwise numbers are absolutely fine.

Chris

I don't normally use chapter titles, but did in my last book, for some reason - it just seemed right. Partly because I had a great title for the very first chapter - which I'd have liked to use for the whole book but knew I wouldn't be allowed to! The problems then, of course, is that not every title suggests an obvious name to you, and it can be a pain finding one for all of them. But if in doubt I go simple and literal and descriptive - one word titles, often.

The good thing about them (for the author - though it may only be an argument for having 'working title's for your chapters, not for leaving them in!) is that it makes you ensure that each chapter s a coherent whole - that its various scenes actually hang together and have a clear link or direction or purpose. The bad thing, I have heard some people argue, is that the chapter titles are an annoying hint or clue or prefiguring of what is to happen in the chapter. Some readers just like to be left to read the text as it comes and not be given such hints. But that same prefiguring can also be the strength of chapter titles as well, I suppose, if used well...

Rosy x

<Added>

That was meant to say, 'not every chapter suggests an obvious name...' Brain not working this morning!

Oo interesting. Chris, I find it fascinating that you name them beforehand. I sometimes don't know what direction a chapter will take until I'm halfway through so I wonder if naming before I write would force me to be more organised?

Rosy that's a very good point about helping to shape the chapter into a coherant whole. I wondered too if perhaps it's more important for younger readers, because maybe they make more use of chapters as stopping points, so the whole novel doesn't seem such a daunting chunk?

My first book had the day and date as the chapter heading. It worked very well to ramp up the tension because you could see how quickly everything was happening, but boy did I come unstuck with weekends etc.
HB x

It sounds a bit like 24 Helen! What a clever idea.

I can imagine though, running into a nightmare with clever readers writing in to say "On p25 of your novel I note that the weather in London on 11th Sept 2009 is described as "lashing rain and a bruise-coloured sky". However I would draw your attention to the fact that it was, in reality, a very clement day with no precipitation. Yours sincerely, Dr Timewaster of Tunbridge Wells."

I rather agree with Rosie about the dangers of prolepsis - you have to know exactly what you're doing to indulge in the equivalent of 'little did I know...'. And I personally get annoyed with titles, of either the whole book, or the chapter, which tell me what I'm supposed to be thinking about it. But I also agree with Rosy about the possibilities of using it to indicate the larger structure of the story.

And it can be handy for keeping things straight. I've only ever numbered chapters, for the reasons I've suggested. But in A Secret Alchemy, which has three strands each with a first-person narrator, each has its different timeframe. One chunk of each per chapter. So I did title the new chunk of each strand with the name and the next unit of their time. i.e., the one which was a single medieval day (as a frame for the flashbacks of a life) was titled with the canonical hours ("Antony - prime" "Antony - matins" etc.), the one which was a lifetime was titled with the year (as they did it then: "Elysabeth - the Sixth Year of the Reign of King Edward IV") and the modern one, which we knew from the beginning was a week till she flew home again, with the day ("Una - Tuesday").

The new novel is 10 days of real history, straight through, so the chapters are titled with the date, which is crucial, as with Helen. Nothing like keeping the countdown ticking on the bomb.

Emma

I can barely think up a title for the wip, let alone titles for the chapters, but I do admire writers who can tease the reader with a well chosen word or phrase as a chapter heading.

I liked Rose Tremain's chapter titles in {i]The Road Home. Lots of them were clever and enticing and you only had an idea at the end of the chapter why they were called that.

R x

Gosh, to my shame I've read Rose Tremain's Road Home (in fact wrote something about it) and can't remember a THING about the chapter headings... obviously all the subtlety went straight over my head!

I use chapter numbers plus something about the chapter - at the open house, Chapter 2 - the restaurant, the summer - not because I want to keep them but because when something develops that requires a change earlier it's easier to find. I've also got an open file with character names - X's sister visits in Chapter 2, she calls on the phone in Chapter 8 - what did I name the stupid woman???

Search and find will only do so much.

Interesting, Flora, that you didn't 'see' the chapter titles in The Road Home. I suspect chapter titles are like that - a lot of readers will just pass over them, but they are there for you to notice and muse about if you choose to.

R x