Everything in a book is ideally there for a reason, and that’s also the case for things as seemingly anecdotal as chapter divisions or titles.
Chapter divisions make the book less overwhelming for the reader than a mass of text, and they also let them know where it’s most ideal to take breaks between reading sessions. Chapters are also a unit, regrouping a moment of the narrative because it means something together, either in terms of temporality or theme.
Chapter titles are also typically there for a reason. They can announce what’s to come, add meaning, or give a new angle to the text that the chapter content doesn’t make explicit.
Pro tip:
Titles are used in particularly clever ways in flash fiction, where the word count is limited. Reading and writing flash can be good practice for the craft of chapter titles and effective, concise storytelling.
Chapter titles can also be more of a bonus: a funny title, a clever turn of phrase, a pretty bit of prose. They can also help with establishing the tone.
And sometimes, titles are just there. They’re not doing much of anything to the tone or meaning. They’re not hinting at what’s coming, because it’s already been established in the previous chapter. In that case, they’re expendable. That doesn’t mean they absolutely have to be deleted, but they can be without altering the book. A lot of readers might skip these titles after the first few.
Consistency tends to be really important in most aspects of the writing craft, because when a pattern is established, either accidentally or on purpose, it tends to create expectations for the reader. Inconsistencies can distract or frustrate, unless they’re applied for a reason and… consistently! (When something is literally always inconsistent, it’s still a consistent pattern, and it can be used for various effects.)
Consider the following scenarios:
- All the chapter titles encountered thus far have seemed unimportant, more placeholders than vessels of meaning → readers are likely to either skip the titles or to pay less attention to them, so if suddenly you have a clever title, or a massively meaningful one, the effect is likely to be missed.
- All the chapter titles encountered thus far have had a function → readers are more likely to pay attention to them and to expect them to have the same role throughout. So if suddenly a chapter title doesn’t serve that function, the reader might be disappointed, or, even worse, stuck trying to decipher the clever meaning of a meaningless title.
As a writer or as an editor, I would look over at the chapter titles to see if there’s a pattern and check if it’s the same throughout so any inconsistency can be dealt with. I would also look at what function the titles serve. If they don’t serve a useful function, perhaps they can be changed to be more interesting, or perhaps they can be let go.
Professional editing and printing are expensive, and the higher word count you have, the higher the cost. So, as much as you can choose to keep titles that don’t serve a function, removing the fluff can make your publishing journey less costly.
My role as an editor
If a client is using chapter titles, I evaluate them and alert the writer of any issue, along with potential solutions.
For a development edit (which focuses on big picture elements), I would suggest a direction for revising the titles, based on what the manuscript is currently trying to do, and give one or two examples of what that could look like. I would also point out which titles work and which don’t, and why. If no title serves a purpose, I would let the writer know so they can decide if they want to keep them as is, or either delete or revise them.
For a line edit, I would use sentence structure and word choice, among other tools, to refine the impact and clarity of each title when needed. If a title is inconsistent or really isn’t working, I would query the author, suggesting they rewrite it.