Writing Chapter headlines

[Thiris]

I just finished my first novel here: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1682111/master-of-magic-master-of-me/

It's a dark romance story and I change the pov in chapters. So my chapter headlines now only includes the chapter number and who's pov that chapter is going to be. I have now little bit look around other peoples writings and noticed that many includes more information in the headline. Something that describes what happens in the chapter. And it got me thinking that should I do the same. I'm about to start writing my second story, so I want to improve myself if possible. I have gotten more readers on my novel than I originally would have thought, but not much comments or feedback. And it's always hard to think about your own story from the readers perspective.

Do you have any opinions on the matter? Is it better for the reader to include something more in the headline? Or is it just going to make the headline too messy when it includes the chapter number, the name of the character and some short name for the chapter?

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Chapter Number are a huge plus for me. Other than that, the choice is yours. I like naming my chapters something funny, or relevant to the chapter. For example;

Space Aged Tractor Simulator w/Cat Herding DLC

The MC, an 83 year old man who got isekai'd instead of the two kids by truck-kun, finds himself in a spaceship and needing to use the tractor beams to load fighter space craft on board. Well didn't the person in charge of the plan of embarking this new crew to his ship, try and schedule everything at the same time, so he herded the cats for the next few hours, getting quite ornery in the process.

 

[DireBadger]

Chapter Number are a huge plus for me. Other than that, the choice is yours. I like naming my chapters something funny, or relevant to the chapter. For example;

Space Aged Tractor Simulator w/Cat Herding DLC

The MC, an 83 year old man who got isekai'd instead of the two kids by truck-kun, finds himself in a spaceship and needing to use the tractor beams to load fighter space craft on board. Well didn't the person in charge of the plan of embarking this new crew to his ship, try and schedule everything at the same time, so he herded the cats for the next few hours, getting quite ornery in the process.

Where can I read this? :)

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Where can I read this? :)

The Deity Entertainment Network. Link should be in my sig

 

[Bishop_Quarter]

I just finished my first novel here: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1682111/master-of-magic-master-of-me/

It's a dark romance story and I change the pov in chapters. So my chapter headlines now only includes the chapter number and who's pov that chapter is going to be. I have now little bit look around other peoples writings and noticed that many includes more information in the headline. Something that describes what happens in the chapter. And it got me thinking that should I do the same. I'm about to start writing my second story, so I want to improve myself if possible. I have gotten more readers on my novel than I originally would have thought, but not much comments or feedback. And it's always hard to think about your own story from the readers perspective.

Do you have any opinions on the matter? Is it better for the reader to include something more in the headline? Or is it just going to make the headline too messy when it includes the chapter number, the name of the character and some short name for the chapter?

Because my story is an anthology, I named my chapters based on the focus character in it, which arc of story, and which part. With that, readers could also just jump around to the characters they liked and read from there.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

It's a matter of personal style. My wife listened to part of (she got sick of it about 30 chapters in) an audionovel where the chapter headers were just a character name and "POV" (and I would not be surprised if that story prompted PocketFM's current "Use Point of View for point of view, not POV, and all chapters must have at least two words and not repeat the title of a previous chapter" rule (that one stood out for me for two reasons: 1) the chapters from the male MCs POV were a bit jarring, given the reader, and 2) the reader, 99% likely a clumsily coded AI, had this soft, British woman's voice that would have been really sexy if she hadn't sounded absolutely bored to tears with what she was reading, which removed 90% of the steaminess and made the passages from the male POV comedy gold instead)