Chapter Titles... or no?

[jenna]

I like chapter titles. As long as they're clever...

[Sylvetra_Snake]

I have to admit to liking chapter titles and use them when i write. It helps determine where the story is moving to.

[Mary Hoffman]

I perhaps don't pay that much attention to them when I'm reading someone else's book but my novels ALWAYS have chapter titles.

I like assigning them and I think the fans like them.

Mary

[thaddeus6th]

I like chapter titles, and they can be quite useful sometimes. You could call a chapter "The Traitor Within" or suchlike, and then reveal in the final paragraph that the traitor is someone entirely unexpected.

A number's just a bit sterile.

[The Pelagic Argosy]

I like chapter titles mostly because they help me find favorite passages later.

[Grimward]

In her Wars of Light and Shadow series, Janny Wurts has adopted the convention of including a few short paragraphs (usually 3 separate such, and somtimes they are only a sentence) on each chapter's title page to give the reader a quick scan of what is happening elsewhere in her story at that point. It's an interesting vehicle which I think was adopted to help her move along concurrent sub-plots without having to branch to them within the chapter, although occasionally, one of these snippets serves as an intro to the chapter. I rather like them, but can see how others who don't want such cameos might find them distracting.

[JDP]

I used to use chapter titles as a framework for the tone of the story I was writing. They never stuck around long, though, so now I just use numbers...

[Nesacat]

I like chapter titles if they are intriguing or if they say something for themselves.

For example Italo Calvino's chapter titles in If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, tell a story themselves. In Lord Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, the chapter titles are a short and very intriguing summary of the chapter.

[ctg]

Does one novel really need chapter titles? Probably yes but on the other hand possibly no. As it has been discussed, a writer could easily write under the headlines, but then one would have to do the best on staying under those titles. Without them, a writer would have free hands to do whatever they want.

More interesting question (at least to me) would a author need titles or headings between the acts? I believe that answer is yes, but that's my opinion.

[Omphalos]

Chapter titles, IMHO, are useless save for one situation, and that is where the author makes some pretty big change from one chapter to another. Lots of authors do not do this. Kevin J. Anderson for example. He uses chapters to differentiate different characters point of view at different times, but since he never really changes themes or plot at all within the story, numbers will do just fine. But other authors kind of jump around from idea to idea, and within a piece of prose where that happens, I think chapter titles are great ideas, mainly because they can give a good capsule/lozenge of what is to come. Even where cryptic, I like having them then also because it gives you somehting to reference when discussign the book later.

[Foles]

I like chapter titles to be a metaphor for or reference to what will happen, not an actual title about what happens. Something that makes you wonder without telling you anything at all. But that's always the trick, isn't it?

[Robert T. Knight]

As a reader I'm neutral about chapter titles. As long as they serve a purpose, I'm fine with that. If they're added because a writer feels they need them and nothing more...eh, take it or leave it.

As for me, I avoid traditional chapter titles in my books. Instead, I use dates as the titles, trying to give the reader a since of how much time has passed.

[Shadowmancer]

Like most people, I'd have to agree that chapter titles do lend to a story's telling. I think that for it to work well, the titles should be imaginative and a hint of foreshadowing. I'm sometimes disappointed when there aren't any titles, but it usually doesn't take away from the story.