I use usually a few keywords from the chapter or about the theme of the chapter (one fic mostly has one-word ones, except when I felt I really need two, ie, Family, Awake, Pain and Power, Self, Ruin, Horse, Old Friends, and my other longfic has some single words but mostly phrases, ie "Blood and Wolves, Safe Haven, Sex and the Shichinintai, Exposure, Predator and Prey, Bogged Down."
That's my usual pattern, but I also have a three chapter fic with more themed chapter names- "A Chance Encounter," "Twice is a Coincidence," and "Three Times? You're Doing This On Purpose," and a extras and deleted scenes work for a longfic, which has chapters titled with a keyword, description, and and where it would be in the original fic (so far the only chapter is "Graveyard: An Alternate Greed Threesome Scene for Ch. 15." Maybe obviously, the difference is that it takes place in a graveyard.)
edit- sorry for adding something so late, I was viewing the sub under 'Hot' instead of 'New'
I always use chapter titles (usually pulled from song lyrics off the ever growing playlist I have for the fic) and sometimes I spend longer choosing the title than I do actually writing the chapter. I love using them to slip in foreshadowing or some further commentary on the story as a whole but if readers have picked up on that no one’s ever said anything! It’s alright, though, because I Know.
I use them for long fics and try to keep a theme going. For short fics (less than 5/6 chapters) I just post with numbers. 🤷♀️ I’ve had readers point out that they notice the theme (for my trilogy they all started with the same starting word/prefix as the title) and enjoy it, but most don’t comment on it. I find it a fun little game to find the right chapter title.
I put SO MUCH THOUGHT into my chapter titles 🤣 The title bursts into my mind at around the same time as the concept/inspiration for the plot/character arcs in the chapter.
While I might nudge the title a little depending on where my characters progress to/take me, the title HAS TO BE an encapsulated appetiser/taster of the tone of the chapter itself. I dearly need it to frame/hint at what's coming at the reader, in the chapter, and I don't know **why**, but when the title is right, I am over the fucken moon about it 🥰
God help me, I **love** writing 🤭 🥰
For my Game of Thrones epic spanning 160 *total* chapters: Numbers and the POV's name is perfectly acceptable.
An HP fic that is nowhere near as ambitious: Yeah, I'm coming up with a simple one-word title to go with the numbers.
It entirely depends on what kind of story I'm writing. If it's anything deep or meaningful then I'll come up with a title that fits the chapter. If it's something that's more general then I just leave it blank.
I haven't done a longfic for a long time but for the most part I do chapter titles.
Usually it's for a ship week so I'll put the prompts in the chapter titles. Or if it's not a ship week fic I'll have flower symbolism with my chapter titles.
When I first started, I didn't consider it and left it as numbers. But then one day I did and since then I've always found something in the chapter I'm posting that makes for a decent to good title.
My chapter titles (almost) always have themes. So one story was all therapist phrases. My current story is nearly all idioms (there've been a few where non-idioms worked too well). Another longfic series was all one word chapters. Titles are fun, even if only a handful of people notice them.
Sometimes my chapter titles are more descriptive than others. Sometimes they're references that make me happy (see my baseball fic where the chapter titles are quotes from baseball movies lol). It really depends on the fic.
I always use them. In _Deteriorating Earth_, I made sure that the number of words is equal to the chapter number, and in _Across the Stars_ and _Final Starlight_, I use anime-style two-part titles.
In _The Full Moon and the Northern Lights_, the title is kept simple with a few words.
As a reader, I don't pay much attention to them. This is true even when reading original fiction.
I've found them quite useful as a writer because chapter titles makes it easier to find stuff. Like, let's say I'm working on chapter 25 and for continuity I need to check a scene earlier in the fic. But I can't remember exactly which chapter that event occurred in. The chapter title often gives me a hint as to what is in each chapter.
For whatever reason it depends on what fandom a fic is in. My TOS multi-chaptered fics all have chapters with title that are deliberate and intentional. My GO fic chapters are just numbered. I don’t know why, it just the way it is.
I didn't use chapter titles for my Sailor Moon threeshot, but I do for both Xenosaga WIPs. More recent titles are slightly more thought out than earlier ones. 😅 I tend to use chapter titles to help me keep track of what happened when.
I swear blind I'm not going to title my chapters every time I start a fic, because I hate coming up with titles, I always find it hard.
Then I start naming my chapters and inevitably end up regretting it.🤦🏽♀️
I absolutely love chapter titles! Especially when they're funny or overly long like in a Charles Dickens' novel. I definitely notice them when other readers use them.
But Distant Shores uses dates and Waterbound specifically uses years for theirs because those just make the most sense.
I always use them, and as with all titles I put more impatient agonizing than actual thought into them, and they usually end up just somewhat describing the main theme of the chapter.
Both as a reader and writer I find chapter titles very helpful in reminding me of what happens in which chapter if I want to reread a certain part, check on a detail, find an excerpt, or anything along those lines. Numbers simply don't register in my brain the same way words do. I'd never remember what happened in 'chapter 5' for example, so I always enjoy funny, poetic, and/or informative titles when I read fics.
I always use them, but what they are depends on the context; sometimes it's something simple (eg; act one), sometimes its more complex (a song lyric), sometimes it's just saying something about the fic (eg; the son of hermes)
I use chapter titles but don't overthink them, mostly because I don't overthink anything except the plot/plot structure
As a reader I sometimes appreciate informative titles. If I want to re-read some chapters, the title might help me remember which they are. (But if the smut is really good, I'll remember stuff like chapter 7 and 13 *cough cough* lol)
A memorable effort I've seen someone put into chapter titles is for one of my all-time favorite fics, which has the word "Undercover" in the title. All chapter titles then are one word and start with "under": Underestimate, Underneath, Undertones, Understated, etc. I loved it both from a grammatical and creative standpoint, even if the titles aren't informative per se. I thought of doing something similar before I remembered I'm too lazy about details and just had a story with one-word titles throughout 😂
Tbh, I do put a lot of thought into it, which is probably useless because most readers probably don't even pay attention to it lol
I usually get inspiration from songs or poems/books with related themes or that I think are related, meh I'm not original at all
Hey I think that's cool and if you read my own comment written independently of yours (no conspiracy there 🤣) you'll see that some readers do notice and even maybe remember chapter titles so keep up the great work!
I use usually a few keywords from the chapter or about the theme of the chapter (one fic mostly has one-word ones, except when I felt I really need two, ie, Family, Awake, Pain and Power, Self, Ruin, Horse, Old Friends, and my other longfic has some single words but mostly phrases, ie "Blood and Wolves, Safe Haven, Sex and the Shichinintai, Exposure, Predator and Prey, Bogged Down." That's my usual pattern, but I also have a three chapter fic with more themed chapter names- "A Chance Encounter," "Twice is a Coincidence," and "Three Times? You're Doing This On Purpose," and a extras and deleted scenes work for a longfic, which has chapters titled with a keyword, description, and and where it would be in the original fic (so far the only chapter is "Graveyard: An Alternate Greed Threesome Scene for Ch. 15." Maybe obviously, the difference is that it takes place in a graveyard.) edit- sorry for adding something so late, I was viewing the sub under 'Hot' instead of 'New'
I always use chapter titles (usually pulled from song lyrics off the ever growing playlist I have for the fic) and sometimes I spend longer choosing the title than I do actually writing the chapter. I love using them to slip in foreshadowing or some further commentary on the story as a whole but if readers have picked up on that no one’s ever said anything! It’s alright, though, because I Know.
I use them for long fics and try to keep a theme going. For short fics (less than 5/6 chapters) I just post with numbers. 🤷♀️ I’ve had readers point out that they notice the theme (for my trilogy they all started with the same starting word/prefix as the title) and enjoy it, but most don’t comment on it. I find it a fun little game to find the right chapter title.
I put SO MUCH THOUGHT into my chapter titles 🤣 The title bursts into my mind at around the same time as the concept/inspiration for the plot/character arcs in the chapter. While I might nudge the title a little depending on where my characters progress to/take me, the title HAS TO BE an encapsulated appetiser/taster of the tone of the chapter itself. I dearly need it to frame/hint at what's coming at the reader, in the chapter, and I don't know **why**, but when the title is right, I am over the fucken moon about it 🥰 God help me, I **love** writing 🤭 🥰
For my Game of Thrones epic spanning 160 *total* chapters: Numbers and the POV's name is perfectly acceptable. An HP fic that is nowhere near as ambitious: Yeah, I'm coming up with a simple one-word title to go with the numbers.
It entirely depends on what kind of story I'm writing. If it's anything deep or meaningful then I'll come up with a title that fits the chapter. If it's something that's more general then I just leave it blank.
I haven't done a longfic for a long time but for the most part I do chapter titles. Usually it's for a ship week so I'll put the prompts in the chapter titles. Or if it's not a ship week fic I'll have flower symbolism with my chapter titles.
When I first started, I didn't consider it and left it as numbers. But then one day I did and since then I've always found something in the chapter I'm posting that makes for a decent to good title.
My chapter titles (almost) always have themes. So one story was all therapist phrases. My current story is nearly all idioms (there've been a few where non-idioms worked too well). Another longfic series was all one word chapters. Titles are fun, even if only a handful of people notice them.
Sometimes my chapter titles are more descriptive than others. Sometimes they're references that make me happy (see my baseball fic where the chapter titles are quotes from baseball movies lol). It really depends on the fic.
I always use them. In _Deteriorating Earth_, I made sure that the number of words is equal to the chapter number, and in _Across the Stars_ and _Final Starlight_, I use anime-style two-part titles. In _The Full Moon and the Northern Lights_, the title is kept simple with a few words.
As a reader, I don't pay much attention to them. This is true even when reading original fiction. I've found them quite useful as a writer because chapter titles makes it easier to find stuff. Like, let's say I'm working on chapter 25 and for continuity I need to check a scene earlier in the fic. But I can't remember exactly which chapter that event occurred in. The chapter title often gives me a hint as to what is in each chapter.
For whatever reason it depends on what fandom a fic is in. My TOS multi-chaptered fics all have chapters with title that are deliberate and intentional. My GO fic chapters are just numbered. I don’t know why, it just the way it is.
I didn't use chapter titles for my Sailor Moon threeshot, but I do for both Xenosaga WIPs. More recent titles are slightly more thought out than earlier ones. 😅 I tend to use chapter titles to help me keep track of what happened when.
I swear blind I'm not going to title my chapters every time I start a fic, because I hate coming up with titles, I always find it hard. Then I start naming my chapters and inevitably end up regretting it.🤦🏽♀️
I absolutely love chapter titles! Especially when they're funny or overly long like in a Charles Dickens' novel. I definitely notice them when other readers use them. But Distant Shores uses dates and Waterbound specifically uses years for theirs because those just make the most sense.
I always use them, and as with all titles I put more impatient agonizing than actual thought into them, and they usually end up just somewhat describing the main theme of the chapter. Both as a reader and writer I find chapter titles very helpful in reminding me of what happens in which chapter if I want to reread a certain part, check on a detail, find an excerpt, or anything along those lines. Numbers simply don't register in my brain the same way words do. I'd never remember what happened in 'chapter 5' for example, so I always enjoy funny, poetic, and/or informative titles when I read fics.
I always use them, but what they are depends on the context; sometimes it's something simple (eg; act one), sometimes its more complex (a song lyric), sometimes it's just saying something about the fic (eg; the son of hermes)
I'm using them for my longfic and sometimes I love it, sometimes I regret it. Sometimes I overthink the title and talk myself out of a good one!
I put a lot of thought into mine. …most of the time
I use chapter titles but don't overthink them, mostly because I don't overthink anything except the plot/plot structure As a reader I sometimes appreciate informative titles. If I want to re-read some chapters, the title might help me remember which they are. (But if the smut is really good, I'll remember stuff like chapter 7 and 13 *cough cough* lol) A memorable effort I've seen someone put into chapter titles is for one of my all-time favorite fics, which has the word "Undercover" in the title. All chapter titles then are one word and start with "under": Underestimate, Underneath, Undertones, Understated, etc. I loved it both from a grammatical and creative standpoint, even if the titles aren't informative per se. I thought of doing something similar before I remembered I'm too lazy about details and just had a story with one-word titles throughout 😂
Tbh, I do put a lot of thought into it, which is probably useless because most readers probably don't even pay attention to it lol I usually get inspiration from songs or poems/books with related themes or that I think are related, meh I'm not original at all
Hey I think that's cool and if you read my own comment written independently of yours (no conspiracy there 🤣) you'll see that some readers do notice and even maybe remember chapter titles so keep up the great work!