Chapter Titles

[magickeyboard.livejournal.com]

Hi all! I’m new to the community and an aspiring author (of course). I’ve been writing forever but have never even come close to finishing a book until now and it’s not a style I normally write so it’s constantly surprising me. I will have plenty more relevant comments and questions later but right now I’m here to ask about a style choice; Chapter Titles.

Until this book I was never one to use them, always sticking with simple numbers, but the first few chapters kind of named themselves and so I’ve stuck with it. There are some good sides to it; the titles can help set the tone as well as providing clues you may not explicitly state in the chapter. However once you start you can’t stop and depending on how long your story is compared to how short your chapters are you can end up spending almost more time coming up with witty, appropriate titles than actually writing the chapters themselves. Or so I’ve discovered.

I was just wondering what other people’s opinions were on the topic, if you prefer no titles or like chapter titles and what elements you think should be included or considered in a chapter title, and what elements should not. Any perks or pitfalls you’ve discovered or noticed. All thoughts and comments welcome!