What's in a Name?
Chapter Titles and Upcoming Events
Hello friends!
It’s a wet and windy autumn here in Northern Arizona, which means delightfully rainy mornings for writing! I’m going to start sharing more about my writing process in these newsletters, and shall begin with a subtle literary device that I adore—chapter titles! So, if you’re curious for a peek behind the curtain, stick around, but before then, I have announcements!
I’ll be at two upcoming book events
The first is for my Flagstaff locals: a literary market at Sosta this Sunday! Local authors will be attending, Adventure is Booked will have blind-dates-with-a-books alongside her recommendation service, and the Page of Cups bookmobile will be selling fantasy, romance, and weird girl lit.
Best of all? Sosta will be serving $1 gelato and all proceeds go to support the Northern Arizona Book Festival! The Sosta literary market is on October 18th from 2:00-5:00pm at 413 N San Francisco St, Flagstaff, Arizona. There’s lots of free parking that far north downtown.
The second event is a huge night market in Mesa, Arizona called Once Upon a Carnival! Put on by Not Your Average Book Club, it will be an actual carnival with performers, fortune tellers, games, food, and specialty cocktails. But it’s all about stories and books! So, nestled within the festivities will be over 70 authors and over 60 bookish vendors. I’m so excited for this event because I know it’s going to be an amazing night—it’s the kind of thing I’d want to attend as a reader!
Once Upon a Carnival is on November 5th from 4:30-10:00pm at Arizona Athletic Grounds (6321 S Ellsworth Rd, Mesa, Arizona). The event is 18+ and ticketed, you can get your tickets HERE!
I have events coming up in the new year, too. You can always see where I’m scheduled to attend on my events page.
What's in a Name?
Now that you know about the fun bookish markets I’ll be attending, let’s move onto a little discussion about the intentionality of writing. It starts, fittingly, with a story.
When I still thought The Lochsmith was going to be a single book and was drafting it back in 2015, my dad asked me how I chose chapter titles. I wasn’t naming my chapters back then and told him so, and his response was a slightly disappointed “I guess some writers do that.” Full of unearned pride and the contrarian tendencies of the young, I defiantly replied “That’s right, some writers don’t title chapters and there’s nothing wrong with doing it that way!”
Indeed, there is nothing wrong with doing it that way. Some of my favorite books are sans chapter titles.
However, I then read The Name of the Wind, and after that, The Wise Man’s Fear, and I discovered how magical titling chapters could be. If you haven’t read these masterpieces of the fantasy genre by Patrick Rothfuss, I highly encourage you to finish this newsletter, then go to your favorite used bookstore and buy a copy.
After having chapter titles brought to my attention by my father and proven to me by Rothfuss, I began considering them in other books. A memory of reading The Hobbit at twelve years old was still vivid enough to recall the novelty of Tolkein using the common phrase “out of the frying pan and into the fire” in the context of both the story’s escalation and the fire indeed found in that chapter. Kurt Vonnegut, who I picked up shortly after reading The Wise Man’s Fear, was as clever and biting with his chapter titles as with every aspect of his writing. I began to enjoy the game of reading a title and trying to predict what it meant.
Here’s the thing, chapter titles set expectations. And, as they provide a very brief pause in the story, are also a tool of pacing. If used poorly, they can trip the reader on their way to the next scene. If used well, they add a layer to the reading experience of anticipation: perhaps fear, perhaps excitement, perhaps bald curiosity, whatever flavor best suits. The expectations may be fulfilled or subverted, but the reader doesn’t know which will be the case until they continue into the chapter and that’s where the fun lies. Sometimes, perhaps even more importantly, the significance of a title doesn’t become clear until the end of the chapter (or after it) because it was used to emphasize symbolism, draw attention to elements of import, or even serve as the punch line of a joke.
As a writer, how do you choose a handful of words to achieve such goals?
One technique for naming chapters (and my personal favorite) is to take words directly from the manuscript. This accomplishes a few things:
It gives the reader an “aha” moment. Similar to the satisfaction of finding titular words within a book, discovering the chapter title within the chapter gives a little burst of triumphant endorphins.
It can pinpoint the significance of the individual chapter and give the reader a reference around which to orient the events in the overall picture of the story.
Simultaneously, it can emphasize the theme of the book by isolating those words from the story and bringing them to the fore of the reader’s mind.
An example of these three points functioning in concert from The Gray Sheep would be Chapter 24—Native Languages. (Note, you don’t need to have read The Gray Sheep to continue and there are no dramatic spoilers ;)
In that chapter Cosette and Desil go back and forth speaking several different languages. Desil laughs off the importance of her native language since she has no memory of where it came from—in direct contrast to Cosette’s deep attachment to her home of Marenburg and her native language. That discussion is groundwork for the final interaction of the chapter in which Desil challenges Cosette to divest herself from her attachments, from her inherent biases—from her Native Language or way of thinking—if she wants to have a true picture of what is happening in Marenburg.
Another simple, yet effective technique for selecting a chapter name is to choose a common phrase that has its own connotations outside the context of the book. A fantastic example can be found in The Wise Man’s Fear, Chapter 121—When Words Fail.
That chapter takes place at a moment in the story when tensions are coming to a head. In the chapter prior the protagonist is in danger and he made preparations that alluded to trickery or a preemptive attack to protect himself. He collected items—some of which had clear purpose and others which were vague, letting the reader make their own assumptions. With the reader led to expect a violent encounter, the protagonist takes them by surprise and goes in a different direction. Instead of acting out in fear, he puts himself at risk and uses music to plead his case to the person deciding his fate.
“When Words Fail” perfectly captures the complexity of the situation - the protagonist’s approach to life, the surprise and appreciation of the character he’s in confrontation with, and the themes of the story as a whole. But the reader doesn't see it coming. Without those three words at the beginning of the chapter, which generally mean the inevitable consequence of violence when negotiations break down, the anticipation of an explosive conclusion wouldn’t have been so strong and the gravity of the character’s actual choice wouldn’t have been as impactful. It was a masterful execution and exceptional use of a chapter title!
Not every chapter title needs to do such heavy lifting. The Gray Sheep has plenty that I wrote with purpose, but that lack the depth of those discussed above. For example, Chapter 7—Bruises, refers to the more obvious physical examination of the injuries Cosette sustained, while at the same time alluding to the invisible bruises to her trust in her neighbors and sense of security. It’s intentional but not dramatically artistic. I don’t think that’s a problem. As I mentioned before, chapter titles are a tool for pacing. "Bruises" is an easy word to flow into after the events of the previous chapters, and it carries the reader forward in the way it’s meant to. The same way each note of a song has a purpose but not every one is part of the crescendo.
Chapter titles are certainly not necessary. As I said at the beginning, some of my favorite books don't use them. But I understand now the disappointment my dad expressed when I told him I wasn’t writing chapter titles. To someone like him, who delighted in clever words and sharp wit, I was missing an opportunity. And thanks to him, and Patrick Rothfuss, it’s an opportunity I decided to take; I’ve found chapter titles are one of my favorite things to write.
That’s all for now. Thanks for being here, friends, and happy reading!
S. M. Somerset
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