Novel Chapter Titles

[TheKillingAlice]

Welcome to my TED Talk,
or whatever you'd call it,
​

so I just wondered, because I'm starting to translate my finished first volume (season 1, basically) of my Crazy Daughter story into my native language. When I was at it, I wondered: Do I want to translate the Chapter titles, though? And I came to the conclusion that, no, not really.
Reason for that is that - even if people don't generally notice it - I really love putting Easter Eggs into my Chapter titles and they would literally get lost in translation.
Things I have done in the past: Every Chapter title begins or ends the same way. One unfinished novel had titles that would always go "One Last Day", "One Last Guest", "One Last Minute", etc. Another would always contain the word "Shadow". Another would always be just a single word and it would end with "-less".
In my oldest story (not written, but planned - I've been plotting this world in my head for more than 20 years, though I have only started writing it around 10 years ago and I haven't done Volume 2 ever since - yes, I hate myself, but I AM currently working on it), which makes it the one most dear to me, I chose titles that would always be about half a sentence or a short sentence in and of itself. If you put all the titles together, you can read it like a sort of poem. It isn't perfect, but it's easy to realize that it rhymes. And, sure, titles are supposed to fit the story, but if you actually read those lines, and you know the story already, you will realize that, abstractly, this "poem" tells you the entire story; the progression of the Protagonist and their journey in the book from start to finish. Every volume is going to be done that way.
Even when I don't do anything obvious, like with CrazyDaughter, and the titles are mostly normal, there's still Easter Eggs within it. Like, two titles have the word "Turn" in it and both chapters feature the same enemy. Two consecutive chapters are titled "Miles to go, before I sleep" and "As I have Promises to Keep", which is an insider, as I always find ways, normally, to shoehorn a poem into my books that I love. Not in this one, as the protagonist isn't the type, so I did it this way. It's an hommage to one of my favorite poems, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by my one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost. The last verse of the poem says:
"These woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go, before I sleep
And miles to go, before I sleep"
So, well, if you know, you know.
Sure, they don't need to be understood, it's fine if only I know these things are there. But I really love doing it.
What's yours? Or do you even do shit like that?

 

[great_sloth]

Making the chapter titles into poem is such a good idea! Let me note that down. As for right now I'm not doing things like that, I just wrote whatever comes to mind.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

Making the chapter titles into poem is such a good idea! Let me note that down. As for right now I'm not doing things like that, I just wrote whatever comes to mind.

Glad I gave you an Idea.

 

[JHarp]

What's yours?

If I had the time and energy to focus on writing I'd continue doing my version of titles, sometimes references, sometimes songs I'm keeping in mind, or sometimes things I come up with.

I spent years when camping, typing up in my old phone little poems about different things, dead of night, no light pollution, just me in the fields or forest, leaning against a beam or tree, just staring out, letting my mind wander and writing little pointless poems that I'd never put anywhere properly.
Just doing it for the sake of being able to express myself, while accidentally helping me later on with how I design some of the stuff I did.

Catching hypothermia, frying bread after making some bacon and sausages, sitting near a stream with the fire lighting up the rapids.
It's probably why I have a higher standard on the youtube scenery videos, usually snowfall and river videos for white noise, I dislike the ones that do an hour loop or change scenery constantly.

I've not had someone clue in on very obvious song references though, so I expect most people don't put in enough time into reading chapter names. Personally I don't trust an author half the time to put something coherent in their chapter titles, especially with how many people seem to skip putting thought into it.
Naming a character in that scene or a well known saying that summarises in 3 neat words what the chapter is about, doesn't make it an interesting chapter name.
Technically I'd argue the same for the same repeated sentence with a few minor variations, repeating the same line with minor variations doesn't encourage engagement with that title.


As for my own chapter names in the past, I've got a few songs I can remember off the top of my head, usually ones I was listening to for a mood piece while writing:

[Song name] - [My chapter name]
Dream sweet in sea major - Bring a Second Chair and Dream Sweetly in Sea Major
Dark Disquiet - Disquieted and Liberated Strings
Jericho - You feels so safe inside till the walls fall.
(Ken ashcorp) Pvp - From the ruins to the flag
On Mercury - Lemon trees of iron and mercury
White Rabbit - We follow like Alice, diving down the hole.

Theres a few others but I can't recall right now what they were a reference to, and any chapter that isn't a reference is usually a poem or line I've created to represent something in the moment about the chapter, the contents or the theme.

And thats ignoring the fact I've been building an ARG on the webnovel site which I'm pretty sure people haven't found yet, I should put some time into that when I'm able to focus again.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

In this world of generative AI assisted translation, there is a false perception that languages are interchangeable. This forum has seen three translation related topics in the past three days. Yours is the first that at least obliquely acknowledges the problem.

Well, yes, because translation wasn't meant to be the point of the topic, so it's just a side note.
I could have technically translated them okay, but the Easter Eggs would have been unrecognizable and I didn't like that, so I kept them English. If one does not understand, it will not matter, for they are merely chapter titles.

Technically I'd argue the same for the same repeated sentence with a few minor variations, repeating the same line with minor variations doesn't encourage engagement with that title.

It always depends. I like patterns, so I'm into that type of thing. In the end, I just feel like doing something with it, mostly for funsies, because people don't normally pay attention. That's why they are Easter Eggs.

And thats ignoring the fact I've been building an ARG on the webnovel site which I'm pretty sure people haven't found yet, I should put some time into that when I'm able to focus again.

An ARG? What's that?

 

[JHarp]

An ARG? What's that?

ARG in general use is about Alternate Reality Games
Or as most would know it, secret codes/messages and other games, structured into a story for people to puzzle out and follow. Interactive media based game that changes as people explore it, first person exploration, sometimes a team effort.

You get a lot of ARG content on youtube from different horror stories where people will do things similar to the SCP foundation, but base it in the real world. Sometimes people set up websites, will hide messages in audio, different video URLs and other content as a game for people to solve.

In my case, it is a story theme I wanted to try using the more niche mechanics of the scribblehub website, but I technically need to flesh it out more to get somewhere even if it is currently visible on my main-site profile.

Technically 0 chapter stories are ghosts in the system unless you drag them out secretly to add information and details to the different parts that people don't normally check.

 

[Madkins]

I love my chapter titles. I can't call them a poem technically. They are hidden easter eggs though and i use more complex language combined with words that have double meaning. I like the idea of literary nonsense though. For example:

Foreordained Chaos of Predeterminism​

Prophetical Heresies of Fallacious Gods​

Stupidly Stupendous Steward Stu Stubbornly Struggles Stumbling​

Usually, I write the chapter titles before I ever write the chapter itself.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My titles are generally either a reminder to myself what the chapter is supposed to be about (if I start with the title), wordplay of some sort relating to the transition between the last and current chapters, a song reference of some sort, or something I slapped on at the last minute just to not leave the "Chapter Title/Chapter Name/Episode Title" field blank...
With no discernable pattern between them.

Then again, two of my stories are over 100 chapters long, with one about 50-60% complete, and one about 25% finished, so ... well, that would be a LONG poem...