chapter titles in essays

How to Write Chapter Titles in an Essay

Shannon cathie.

Almost everyone has memorized a few writing convention rules over the years. Capitalize the first word in a sentence. Capitalize proper nouns such the name of a person, city or country. Some rules, such as how to write chapter titles in an essay, don't receive top priority in our memory banks. Whether or not you look up the rules for writing chapter titles, getting them correct matters for an essay.

Find the correct chapters titles in your book. Use the book's table of contents, or turn to each chapter's beginning to find chapter titles easily.

Copy the chapter titles into your essay. Include all punctuation marks, such as exclamation points and question marks, if they appear as part of a chapter's title.

Capitalize the first word, last word and all important words in each chapter title. Important words to capitalize include all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Capitalize articles--a, an, the--only if they appear as the first or last word in a chapter title.

Place double quotation marks around each entire chapter title. A correctly formatted chapter title would appear as: "A Mid-November Day on the Mountain."

Reference the book author's name and full book title. Either in the body of your essay or in an attached bibliography, give full credit to the author.

American Psychological Association (APA) style uses a different format for chapter titles. It capitalizes only the first word and proper nouns. All other words, such as verbs, adjectives and adverbs, appear in lowercase. APA style also does not use quotation marks around chapter titles.
Some books use chapter numbers instead of chapter titles. In these cases, referencing the chapters by number is acceptable.
If a book uses both chapter titles and numbers, write out the chapter titles for clarity.
This chapter title format works for both the Chicago Manual of Style and the Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook.
1 Loyola Notre Dame Library: MLA Citation Style Sheet
2 Purdue Online Writing Lab: Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition
3 Cornell University Library: Citation Management--APA Citation Style

About the Author

Shannon Cathie has been writing for children, teens and adults since 2004. Her work has appeared in "Highlights for Children," "Ask!" magazine, "The Christian Science Monitor" newspaper, "Writing for Dollars" and "Northwest Baby and Child." She is also the author of several children's books about the human body. Cathie holds elementary licensure and a Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Colorado.

How to Write Book Titles in an Essay

The Great Pumpkin Quiz

In Which Branch of Government Is the President in Charge...

How to Use a Comma in Dates

How Long is the AP Psych Exam?

True or False: Mars Edition

How to Address a Letter to a Mayor

How to Use a Website Picture in a College Essay

How to Properly Write Book Titles in a Report

How to Address a Letter to a Former President

How to Get Beyonce Curls

How to Start an Informative Paper

What Government Body Is Responsible for Interpreting...

Three Sections of the Constitution of the United States

How to Stuff Graduation Invitations

How to Place Captain Bars

How to Use Vocabulary Words in a Sentence

How to Find My Voter Precinct Number

How to Wear the American Flag Pin

How to Write a Letter of Request

Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning. Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Whether you’re studying times tables or applying to college, Classroom has the answers.

Accessibility
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Copyright Policy
Manage Preferences

10 Tips On How To Name Your Chapter Titles

by Nicole C. W. | 20 Mar 2020 | Self-Publishing

As you write your novel, you will definitely break them into chapters.

On top of the usual dilemma of where to break your chapters , there are also times when I face this problem of not knowing how to name the chapter title.

But before I share some chapter title tips, let’s discuss the purposes of a chapter title.

[Self-Publishing Tips] 10 Tips On How To Name Your Chapter Titles

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. I will earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you purchase through these links. Your support encourages me to continue blogging and help with the costs of hosting this site. Thank you!

Table Of Contents

Purposes Of Chapter Titles

A book is broken into easy-to-digest chapters so readers are

given a short break to pause and digest what happened in the story
made aware of transitions in the story (eg. change in setting or story arc)

Therefore, your chapter titles will then

summarize what happened in that specific chapter
intrigue readers and build anticipation of what will happen in this chapter

And of course, the ultimate goal is to compel your readers to continue reading your story . Each chapter title then becomes encouraging words to push your readers to keep flipping the pages.

Now that we know the purposes of chapter titles, let’s move on to some tips on how to name your chapter titles.

Photo by Caio on Pexels

1. Chapters Don’t Need To Have A Title, They Can Be A Number

You can always keep things simple by just naming your chapters as “Chapter 1”. Just a simple number is enough to signal to your readers that this is a new chapter.

However, do remember to keep them consistent . If you use Hindu-Arabic numerals (eg. 1, 2, 3), stick to them throughout your story.

You can also choose to switch this to Roman numerals (eg. III, V, X) or any other languages , especially if your novel is set in a certain country .

In addition, you can remove the word “Chapter” and simply name the chapters as “3” or “V”.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels

2. Not Just Any Number But A Significant One

Besides naming your chapters chronologically, you can also name them after significant numbers .

For instance, you might name a chapter “1978” because the events that occurred in that chapter took place in the year 1978. You could also have “27” as your chapter title, depicting an important event in your protagonist’s life when he or she is 27 years old.

Source: TheSparkArt via Etsy

3. Feel Free To Begin With Something Else, Other Than “Chapter”

There’s no hard rule that we need to start chapter titles with “Chapter” .

You can always change this to “Letter 1” or “Lesson 1”. Whatever seems more relevant to your story.

Hence, do take a step back and think out of the box . You might come up with another word or phrase that’s more interesting and appropriate.

Photo by Pezibear on Pixabay

4. Include Your Characters In The Chapter Titles

If your book is written from multiple points of view (POV) where you alternate chapters with different character’s perspective , do consider including your characters in the chapter titles.

This way, head-hopping will be less confusing for your readers because they know right at the start of the chapter which character’s POV they are reading from.

You can also choose to combine this with the above techniques so that your chapter titles become “Letter From Jane” or “Jane, 1953”.

Photo by Lysons_editions on Pixabay

5. Include Your Setting In The Chapter Titles

Similar to the technique of adding specific years, you can also choose to include setting in the chapter titles.

This can include

time of the day
historical period

Examples include “Spring in Paris” and “Late Brunch in the Woods”.

Photo by Ibrahim Asad on Pexels

6. Add A Spark Of Magic To Your Chapter Titles

If you’ve done exhaustive worldbuilding for your fiction novel, you probably created new names for the places, creatures or items in your story. Or better yet, you might have created a whole new language.

So why not tap into this? Include all these special words and phrases in your chapter titles .

By adding these unfamiliar names from your fictional world , you’ll spark readers’ curiosity and build anticipation .

But of course, you should only add them in the titles if these objects, creatures and locations are playing an important role in this specific chapter.

Photo by peter_pyw on Pixabay

7. Go Back To The Basics: What Exactly Is Happening In This Chapter?

The most common way to name your chapters is based on the event that occurs in that specific chapter .

If your protagonists meet for the first time, you might name your chapter as “Encounter”. If your protagonist confesses his love, you can name your chapter as “Confession” or “Escaping The Friend Zone” (if they’re moving from friends to lovers).

Photo by fauxels on Pexels

8. Resonate With Your Readers By Including Something Familiar

What this means is actually pretty simple.

You could name your chapter titles after something your character said . This could be an important dialogue or monologue. For instance, your protagonist might think or even say “I really regret getting married!” which leads to a major crisis in her relationship with her husband.

By using the exact words spoken by your characters in the chapter titles, you close the distance between your characters and readers . They can then connect and perhaps even identify themselves with them .

There are also other options like including idioms, wise sayings or famous quotations . Such phrases might be suitable if they aptly describe the situation in your chapter or they’re lessons that will be learned in this chapter.

I tried this while writing my fanfiction. But instead of using famous quotations for chapter titles, I use them as subtitles.

I wouldn’t recommend adding song lyrics because you might encounter copyright issues.

Also, let your creativity run free ! You could try adding mathematical formulas such as “E=mc²” or criminology jargon such as “modus operandi” if you’re writing crime fiction.

Photo by rawpixel on Pixabay

9. Punctuate Your Chapter Titles For Impact

Just like how you end your chapter with a cliffhanger, consider doing it to your chapter titles too.

You could punctuate your chapter titles with

Exclamation mark (!): signals strong feelings, high volume (such as someone shouting) or to emphasize something
Question mark (?): makes your readers think about the answer for a question
Ellipsis (…): intrigues your readers with an unfinished sentence or phrase

Of course, you can also choose to not include any punctuation . For instance, you might not punctuate your one- or two-word chapter titles.

Another tip: try not to punctuate your chapter title with a period . Why? Because a period (.) signals the end of a sentence and evokes a sense of finality. By including a period in your chapter title, you direct your readers’ attention to stop there too. And I’m sure this is something you don’t want. You’d rather them go past the chapter title and begin reading the story itself, right?

Photo by Anemone123 on Pixabay

10. Reinforce Your Novel’s Theme By Relating Back To Your Book Title

To be honest, you can’t really do this for every book . It depends on your book title and whether your chapter titles make sense.

Take for example, I included a time-related number, phrase or word in all the chapter titles of my Countdowner trilogy. Luckily, these chapter titles make sense and also aptly describe what happens in those specific chapters.

On the other hand, I can’t do this for my Asphodelus trilogy. I try to include some words or phrases that have a special meaning in this ghostly world. But I can’t do it for all chapter titles. Only some of them.

Thus, it really depends if you can come up with appropriate chapter titles that tie back to your book title and whether you can do this consistently throughout your book and entire series.

You can try but don’t force yourself . Ultimately, your chapter titles should compel readers to continue reading your story.

Photo by Free-Photos on Pixabay

Bonus Tip: Consistency Is Key. Be Consistent When Naming Your Chapter Titles.

Whichever technique you use to name your chapters, do remember to keep it consistent . There should be a pattern behind your chapter titles .

For instance, if you decide to use Roman numerals, do use them throughout your entire book. The same applies to formatting as well. Whether you decide on title or sentence case, stick to it throughout your novel.

Photo by Katrina_S on Pixabay

Now It’s Your Turn

How do you name your chapters? Do you have any chapter title tips to share with fellow writers?

Also, do check out the Beginner’s Guide To Formatting & Breaking Chapters In Your Fiction Novel !

Do consider getting novel planning worksheets. Etsy has many such printables, including word count trackers, novel outlines, character profiles, worldbuilding basics and more.

For more book publishing and marketing tips, consider joining classes like How To Write And Publish An eBook and Sell Your First 1000 Books . Or watch streaming broadcasts of free online classes at CreativeLive !

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I’m Nicole, a fantasy and paranormal author who blogs about starting an online business, marketing your brand/products/services and self-publishing books.

More About Me

Entrepreneurship
Self-Publishing

© 2017-2024 Nicole C. W.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this website’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicole C. W. with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Privacy Policy
Disclaimer & Disclosure

Let's Connect!

Join my newsletter now.

Be the first to know about hot new releases, tips from my blog and more.

You have successfully subscribed!

Want to receive updates, pin it on pinterest.

Good Writing Habits
Inspiration
Writing Groups, Tools, & Software
Writing Tips
Book Design & Formatting
Book Distribution
Printed Books 101
Publishing Industry News
Self-Publishing
Book Launch
Book Promotion & Publicity
Online Book Marketing
BookBaby.com
Publish My Book
Free Catalog

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

You may be good at creating interesting characters, forging addictive plot lines, and building an emotional narrative arc, but have you given thought to how you’ll be titling your chapters? Although your manuscript contains the story , chapter titles can serve as a vehicle of suspense and storytelling as well.

Table of Contents: • How long should a chapter be? • Factors to consider when determining chapter length • Balance pacing and storytelling with chapter length • How to generate chapter title ideas • Aim for brevity • Give readers an incentive • Paint a picture with imagery • How to decide on chapter titles • Proofreading and revising your book

How long should a chapter be?

There are no rules determining how long a chapter should be or attaining an average chapter length. However, a book chapter should successfully communicate a single objective to the reader, whether that’s a new scene, a character, an event, or a creative theme. It wholly depends on the genre of your book, the structure of your story, and what you are trying to illustrate to your reader.

Factors to consider when determining chapter length

There may be more considerations to factor into your equation, but pace and flow are important elements when determining chapter length.

The length of your chapters helps dictate the pace of your narrative. Longer chapters may delve deeply into character development , details about the setting, and progress complicated plotlines, giving a slower pace to your storytelling and the world you’ve built .

Shorter chapters can create a sense of urgency and quick progression. This can better highlight action or build suspense . In this way, the length of your chapters help set the pace at which your story develops.

You wouldn’t leave a sentence unfinished or disjointed, and the same goes for your book’s chapters . Each chapter leads to the next and can connect scenes in the same way sentences connect paragraphs. This flow is another key element in dictating how your chapters should be written to create a captivating reading experience. Your chapters serve as a pathway from the beginning to the end of your book, and your reader should understand and have clarity as to what each chapter is communicating.

Balance pacing and storytelling with chapter length

You wouldn’t tell a story all in one breath; no one would understand you. You also wouldn’t create one, long run-on sentence to tell a tale; it would be incredibly difficult to read. This is why balancing storytelling with pacing and a diverse chapter structure are crucial for your readers to know where to pause as they navigate your book.

Play with sentence and paragraph lengths. Mixing shorter and longer sentences creates a natural ebb and flow. Shorter sentences can create a snappy, staccato feeling and generate momentum during action scenes, while longer sentences can set atmosphere and evoke introspection.

How to generate chapter title ideas

If you’re writing fiction — a fantasy novel, for instance — allow what happens in the new chapter to serve as a title. It can be a featured character’s name, a snippet of dialogue, or a theme you can use to foreshadow developments in the overall trajectory of your novel. Just remember that your chapter titles are part of your vehicle in storytelling. They should guide the reader, provide clues of what is coming next, and pique a reader’s interest in the next phase of your tale.

If you’re writing a nonfiction work that covers history, politics, or recipes, your titles might be more straightforward, though you may still have room for creativity to help stoke interest. Either way, here are three things to consider when crafting chapter titles.

1. Aim for brevity

Short titles will create intrigue for your readers. As a writer, you want the title to sum up the central idea or point of the chapter. Many writers use working titles for the chapters as they write, and then come up with the final chapter title once the writing is complete. Others may title the chapter and use that as a guide for the content within. However you work, choose a brief title that captures the theme expressed in the chapter. For example:

The Robbery
“We need to talk to Tommy”

Each of these examples is short while delivering an idea of what’s coming next. Raise your reader’s expectations and satisfy them as the story builds.

2. Give readers an incentive

Readers are often thinking ahead as they read to what might be coming next. Or, as they wrap up a chapter and are ready to put the book down for the moment, they may read the next chapter title for a clue as to where things are headed for the main character. If you’re writing a fiction novel, use your chapters to satisfy your reader’s curiosity with a clue as to where your story is going.

3. Paint a picture with imagery

Colors, locations, dialect, slang — all these can be used to create atmosphere with your chapter titles. Your prose is not the only place where you can use descriptive imagery and texture. Include sensory language to enhance the way readers experience your writing. Create an immersive experience with words that enrich your reader’s connection to your work.

How to decide on chapter titles

Your work has a central focus, theme, and objective. When you label your chapters, they can serve your story by building suspense, providing foreshadowing , or pointing to important moments in the story arc . Each chapter should progress the story and communicate your themes to your readers.

Titling chapters is ultimately another tool for storytelling and entertaining your readers. Treat them as another opportunity to build your story world and voice.

Proofreading and revising your book

Beta readers can also help you land on the best title for your chapters, and once you’ve completed your manuscript, make sure to have a professional editor comb through your manuscript to make sure it’s in the best possible shape for publication. BookBaby offers expert editing services , and our publishing specialists are just a phone call away. Call us at 1-877-961-6878 or visit us at www.bookbaby.com .

Recent Articles

How to Market a Self-Help Book to Boost Sales

Generate Greater Book Profits in 4 Easy Steps

How To Make Money From Poetry in 7 Ways

Setting Up Your Book for Future Growth

Flashes Safe Seven
FlashLine Login
Faculty & Staff Phone Directory
Emeriti or Retiree
All Departments
Maps & Directions

Building Guide
Departments
Directions & Parking
Faculty & Staff
Give to University Libraries
Library Instructional Spaces
Mission & Vision
Newsletters
Circulation
Course Reserves / Core Textbooks
Equipment for Checkout
Interlibrary Loan
Library Instruction
Library Tutorials
My Library Account
Open Access Kent State
Research Support Services
Statistical Consulting
Student Multimedia Studio
Citation Tools
Databases A-to-Z
Databases By Subject
Digital Collections
Discovery@Kent State
Government Information
Journal Finder
Library Guides
Connect from Off-Campus
Library Workshops
Subject Librarians Directory
Suggestions/Feedback
Writing Commons
Academic Integrity
Jobs for Students
International Students
Meet with a Librarian
Study Spaces
University Libraries Student Scholarship
Affordable Course Materials
Copyright Services
Selection Manager
Suggest a Purchase

Library Locations at the Kent Campus

Architecture Library
Fashion Library
Map Library
Performing Arts Library
Special Collections and Archives

Regional Campus Libraries

East Liverpool
College of Podiatric Medicine

Kent State University
APA Style - 7th edition
Specific Rules for Authors & Titles

APA Style - 7th edition: Specific Rules for Authors & Titles

Basic Information

Rules for Writing Author and Editor Information

Rules for writing titles.

Media Sources
Internet Sources
In-text Citations
Reference Lists

There are certain things to keep in mind when writing the author's name according to APA style. Authors may be individual people, multiple people, groups (institutions or organizations), or a combination of people and groups.

You must include all the authors up to 20 for individual items. For example, if you are using an article that has 19 authors you must list them all out on your reference page.
Use initials for the first and middle names of authors. Use one space between initials.
All names are inverted (last name, first initial).
Do not hyphenate a name unless it is hyphenated on the item.
Separate the author's names with a comma and use the ampersand symbol "&" before the last author listed.
Spell out the name of any organization that is listed as an author.
If there is no author listed, the item title moves in front of the publication date and is used.

An item that you use may have an editor instead of an author or in the case of audiovisual materials a writer or director.

For editors follow the same rules above and put the abbreviation (Ed.) or (Eds.) behind the name(s).
For audiovisual materials follow the same rules as above and put the specialized role (Writer) (Director) behind the name.

Zhang, Y. H. (one author)

Arnec, A., & Lavbic, D. (two authors)

Kent State University (organization as author)

Barr, M. J. (Ed.). (1 editor)

Powell, R. R., & Westbrook, L. (Eds.). (2 editors)

here are certain things to keep in mind when writing a title according to APA style.

Book titles are italicized and written using sentence case (only the first word of a title, subtitle, or proper noun are capitalized).
Book chapter titles are written using sentence case and are not italicized.
Journal titles are italicized and written using title case (all the important words are capitalized).
Article titles are written using sentence case and are not italicized.
Webpages and websites are italicized and written using sentence case.

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (book title, American Psychological Association is a proper noun so it is capitalized)

Student perspective of plagiarism (book chapter title)

Internet plagiarism in higher education: Tendencies, trigging factors and reasons among teacher candidates (article title, Tendencies is the first word of a sub-title so it is capitalized)

Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (journal title)

<< Previous: Basic Information
Next: Books >>
Last Updated: Jul 14, 2023 4:23 PM
URL: https://libguides.library.kent.edu/apa7

Street Address

Mailing address, quick links.

How Are We Doing?
Student Jobs

Information

Accessibility
Emergency Information
For Our Alumni
For the Media
Jobs & Employment
Life at KSU
Privacy Statement
Technology Support
Website Feedback

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay (MLA, APA etc.)

Formatting your essay correctly ensures that you get full recognition for the hard work you put into it. Wondering what to do? There are two scenarios that lead you to the question of "how to write a book title in an essay":

You have not been required to use a particular style guide, in which case consistency remains important.
You have been instructed to use a particular style guide. You now simply need to ensure that you are familiar with its rules.

Regardless of which of these scenarios holds true for you, this guide is here to help.

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay

Many style manuals call on writers use title case and italics to format a book title. Title case rules vary slightly from one style guide to the next, but generally capitalize all important words — nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs. Conjunctions and prepositions are not capitalized unless they are very long (generally more than four letters) or they appear at the beginning or end of a book title.

Writers who are not required to work with a specific style manual can't go wrong if they stick to this style. Some examples would be:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals That Protect us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
The Cat With a Feathery Tail and Other Stories by Enid Blyton

If, on the other hand, you're required to use a style guide, it will likely be one of these:

MLA, commonly used in disciplines relating to literature and social sciences.
APA, commonly used in psychology and other sciences.
Chicago, often used in the publishing industry.
Harvard style, commonly used in philosophy and social sciences.

These are certainly not the only "big players" in the style guide world, but they're ones it's good to be familiar with. There is overlap between these styles, but there are also major differences — so knowing one definitely does not mean you know the others, too.

Guidelines for Writing a Book Title in an Essay

Looking for a short and sharp answer, so you can get on with the rest of your essay? This is it.

Writing Style / Format	General Rules of Writing a Book Title
MLA	Italicize the full title of a book and place it in title case (Conrad, Joseph. ). Place the name of a single chapter in quote marks, instead ("The Great Towns" from by Friedrich Engels).
APA	Italicize the book title. Capitalize the first letter, the first letter of a subtitle, and proper nouns. Example: Chapters are placed in title case, but neither italicized nor placed in quote marks.
Chicago	Italicize the full title and use title case: by Jonathan Swift. Book chapters are placed in quote marks, and use title case, as with MLA.
Harvard	The book title is italicized and placed in title case: by Harper Lee. Chapters are placed in single quote marks: 'Rat' from .

This quick guide will help you reference the book title of your choosing in the body of your essay, but what about your Works Cited pages? Each style guide offers different rules, and we'll use the same book as an example to illustrate the differences.

MLA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. Tor Books, 1985. (You only have to detail the city of publication if the book was published before 1900, the publisher has offices in many localities, or the publisher is not known in the US.)
APA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. (Year of Publication). Title of book. Example: Card, Orson Scott. (1985). Ender's game.
Chicago style uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle . Place of publication: Publisher, Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game . Tor Books, 1985.
Harvard uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Initial. (Publication Year). Title . ed. City: Publisher. Example: Card, O. (1985). Ender's Game. Tor Books.

If, after researching, you cannot find relevant information about publication years, publishers, or the city in which a book was published, you may omit it. For a full guide, it is always best to have a physical copy of the latest edition of the style manual you are using. You can, however, get by without this if you need to.

Should you still not know what to do, it will be helpful for you to know that you can "generate" citations for a particular style manual with the help of online tools like Cite Me . These are not always accurate, so if you decide to use one, always check the citation manually.

Why Is Proper Formatting Important?

All of the well-known style manuals ultimately serve the very same set of purposes, although they were each developed for a particular niche. The goals of these style manuals are both explicit and implicit:

Following a style guide ensures consistency throughout a document, in this case an essay.
Consistency ensures that reader's understand precisely what the writer is talking about, without exerting any effort on figuring that out. Clarity is especially important in academic writing.
By using a style guide within a certain discipline, you show that you understand the rules within that discipline. This adds credibility to your voice as a writer. You have done your homework, have ideally bought the style manual, and are part of the "in group".
Sticking to a certain style guide makes it easier for relevant parties to check your references, which they can then use to perform further research.

Students are increasingly asked to refer to style guides at all levels, including in high school. In this case, formatting your essay correctly, in accordance with the right style manual, serves two additional purposes:

You'll lose points if you don't do it right, offering you an additional reason to do your research.
Getting used to these formats prepares you for further education. If you are in high school, it prepares you for college-level writing. If you are an undergraduate student, it prepares you for academic work at the graduate and post-graduate levels.

Can you start an essay with a book title?

Yes, you can start an essay with a book title. This is a valid stylistic choice, but you will always want to consider your introduction carefully.

How do you write a book title in handwriting?

Students sometimes ask whether it is acceptable to underline book titles instead of italicizing them. This practice indeed stems from a time in which most students wrote their essays by hand. Although it has largely fallen out of practice now, you can still underline a book title if you are handwriting your essay.

How do you write a book title and chapter in an essay?

You should mention the chapter title first: "Rat" from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Consult the relevant style manual to ensure you get the formatting right.

Can you shorten a book title in an essay?

Yes, you can. Reference the full title the first time you mention it (for example: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things ). The next time you mention the book, you may simply refer to Furiously Happy .

How to Write the Date in MLA Format
How To Write A Movie Title In An Essay
Someone Walked Over My Grave - Meaning and Origin
14 Tips to Help you Write An Essay Fast
Go Pound Sand - Meaning, Usage and Origin
How to Write a DBQ (APUSH) Essay?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Nancy Peske

Make chapter titles engaging (headers too).

Nonfiction authors typically start writing chapter titles that are as vanilla as can be, but ultimately, you want to make chapter titles engaging for the reader. At the same time, you don’t want your chapter titles to be so creative that someone looking at the list of contents (also known as the table of contents or just “Contents”) to have no clue what’s in your book!

Here’s a solution: You can use a clever chapter title followed by a subtitle that explains the concept a little more clearly.

In Cinematherapy , my coauthor Bev West and I had a chapter called: “I Hate My Life and I’m Moving to Bora Bora: Seeking Greener Pastures Movies .” True, you might not know what Seeking Greener Pastures Movies are, but when you look at all the chapter titles, you can see that each is around a particular theme: Mother Issues Movies, Martyr Syndrome Movies, and so on.

You can use the same trick for headers within the book. In Raising a Sensory Smart Child , one of the headers in the chapter on improving speech skills and picky eating reads “You Say Potato and I Say Topahhhhhhuuuduh”: Problems with Motor Planning”

Use an intriguing quotation within a chapter title or a header. It’s a great way to be provocative and intriguing, but don’t sacrifice clarity.

Writing a memoir? Often, memoir chapters don’t have titles and sections within chapters don’t have headers, but here’s your chance to get creative. You never know what title or header might grab someone’s attention. Think about taking an interesting image from a story you tell, such as “The Purple Rabbit” or “Twelve Pretzels.” Set up a dilemma or intrigue: “The Purple Rabbit’s Whereabouts” or “Twelve Pretzels and a Warning.”

You might also use a quotation—I always loved the sound of “Bora Bora” and think that was the perfect word to use in our funny quote related to movies about seeking greener pastures and getting away from frustrating situations. Think about things you’ve said or a client has said that sum up a concept in an interesting way. Think of things you typically say to your followers and clients.

You can also do a spin on a common saying or cliche. How about: “You Got This (Unless You Need to Freak Out First, In Which Case, Read This Chapter NOW)”?

Or, “Plays Shockingly Well with Others: Five Keys to Improve Your Collaboration Skills .”

Which comes first, the clever section header or the section itself? You decide. But I think you’ll find it’s a good exercise to at least consider jazzing up your chapter and header titles.

Need some help with your book as you write it and set up your plan to get it published? Contact me about my services as a developmental editor, ghostwriter, and book publishing consultant.

Nancy Peske is a ghostwriter, developmental editor, and book publishing consultant who has done editorial work on books including bestsellers and award-winners for over 30 years.

Search Posts

Sign Up for Notifications

Link to facebook
Link to linkedin
Link to twitter
Link to youtube
Writing Tips

How to Write Book Titles in Your Essays

3-minute read
26th May 2023

When writing an essay, you’re likely to mention other authors’ works, such as books, papers, and articles. Formatting the titles of these works usually involves using quotation marks or italics.

So how do you write a book title in an essay? Most style guides have a standard for this – be sure to check that first. If you’re unsure, though, check out our guide below.

Italics or Quotation Marks?

As a general rule, you should set titles of longer works in italics , and titles of shorter works go in quotation marks . Longer works include books, journals, TV shows, albums, plays, etc. Here’s an example of a book mention:

Shorter works include poems, articles, chapters of books, episodes of TV shows, songs, etc. If it’s a piece that’s part of a biggHow to Write Book Titles in Your Essayser work, the piece considered a short work:

Exceptions to the Rule

The rule for writing book titles in italics applies specifically to running text . If the book title is standing on its own, as in a heading, there’s no need to italicize it.

Additionally, if the book is part of a larger series and you’re mentioning both the title of the series and that of the individual book, you can consider the book a shorter work. You would set the title of the series in italics and place the book title in quotation marks:

Punctuation in Book Titles

Do you need to apply italics to the punctuation in a book title? The short answer is yes – but only if the punctuation is part of the title:

If the punctuation isn’t part of the title (i.e., the punctuation is part of the sentence containing the title), you shouldn’t include in the italics:

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Summary: Writing Book Titles in Essays

We hope you’ll now feel confident when you’re writing and formatting book titles in your essays. Generally, you should set the title in italics when it’s in running text. Remember, though, to check your style guide. While the standards we’ve covered are the most common, some style guides have different requirements.

And once you finish writing your paper, make sure you send it our way! We’ll make sure any titles are formatted correctly as well as checking your work for grammar, spelling, punctuation, referencing, and more. Submit a free sample to try our service today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you write the title of a book in a sentence.

Set the title of the book in italics unless the book is part of a larger work (e.g., a book that’s part of a series):

When do you use quotation marks for titles?

Place titles of shorter works or pieces that are contained in a larger work in quotation marks:

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base
Academic writing
Capitalization in titles and headings

Capitalization in Titles and Headings

Published on December 22, 2015 by Sarah Vinz . Revised on July 23, 2023.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

The three heading capitalization styles, capitalize proper nouns (names) no matter what, consistency, consistency, consistency, other interesting articles.

First, you can capitalize every significant word.

Option 1: All significant words capitalized
Chapter 3 Literature Review
Section 3.1 History of Coffee Drinking
Section 3.2 Emerging Coffee Markets in North America Section 3.2.1 High School and College Students Section 3.2.2 Commuting Workers
Section 3.3 Competitors in the Hot Beverage Sector

The list of what is considered significant is quite long; it generally includes all nouns , pronouns , adjectives , verbs , and adverbs .

You may find it easier to instead focus on what usually isn’t considered significant (and thus not capitalized, unless it happens to be the first word in a heading): articles (a, an, the), prepositions (examples: by, for, in), conjunctions (examples: and, or, because).

Option 2: Only first words capitalized
Chapter 3 Literature review
Section 3.1 A history of coffee drinking
Section 3.2 Emerging coffee markets in North America Section 3.2.1 High school and college students Section 3.2.2 Commuting workers
Section 3.3 Competitors in the hot beverage sector

Finally, the third possibility is to use a combination of the other two options. For instance, you could use option 1 for the chapter headings and option 2 for lower level headings.

Option 3: Capitalization varies by level
Chapter 3 Literature Review
Section 3.1 A history of coffee drinking
Section 3.2 Emerging coffee markets in North America Section 3.2.1 High school and college students Section 3.2.2 Commuting workers
Section 3.3 Competitors in the hot beverage sector

Check for common mistakes

Use the best grammar checker available to check for common mistakes in your text.

Fix mistakes for free

Formal names of people, organizations, and places are capitalized no matter what style you use. For instance, North America is capitalized throughout the above examples.

In this regard, note that specific models, theories, and schools of thoughts are not considered proper nouns. The only component that needs to be capitalized is the scholar’s name, when relevant.

Porter’s Five Forces Model Einstein’s Theory of Relativity the Realist school	Porter’s five forces model Einstein’s theory of relativity the realist school

Which option should you choose? If you are following the APA style , the rules are clear. Essentially, you should use title case for APA headings level 1 to 5. MLA also has specific requirements for formatting headings .

If you are free to decide, we recommend option 1 or 2. Why? One reason is that it’s easier, you just won’t have to make so many judgment calls about what to capitalize. A second is that using a lot of capital letters may make the text difficult to follow, especially in longer headings.

Whatever option you choose, the most important thing is to use effective headings that are capitalized consistently throughout your entire document. This applies not only to the main chapters of your dissertation, but also to any supporting materials that come before and after (including the abstract, table of contents, lists of tables/figures, acknowledgements, reference list, and appendixes ).

To make sure that no inconsistencies have snuck through, take a very careful look at your table of contents . Seeing all of the headings together will make any anomalies very apparent. This is especially true if you have used Microsoft Word to automatically generate this list.

Also take care that other aspects of your dissertation layout and formatting are consistent in relation to headings.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy
Deep learning
Generative AI
Machine learning
Reinforcement learning
Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

(AI) Tools

Grammar Checker
Paraphrasing Tool
Text Summarizer
AI Detector
Plagiarism Checker
Citation Generator

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Vinz, S. (2023, July 23). Capitalization in Titles and Headings. Scribbr. Retrieved August 5, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/capitalization-titles-headings/

Is this article helpful?

Sarah's academic background includes a Master of Arts in English, a Master of International Affairs degree, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She loves the challenge of finding the perfect formulation or wording and derives much satisfaction from helping students take their academic writing up a notch.

What is your plagiarism score?

Helping Writers Become Authors

Write your best story. Change your life. Astound the world.

Start Here!
Story Structure Database
Outlining Your Novel
Story Structure
Character Arcs
Archetypal Characters
Scene Structure
Common Writing Mistakes
Storytelling According to Marvel
K.M. Weiland Site

3 Secret Functions of Your Book’s Chapter Titles

As a writer, you’re already aware of the power of your book’s title to identify its genre, allude to its subject matter, and create that first shiny hook to catch a reader’s eye. A title is your chance to stop the feet or finger of a hungry browser in a bookstore or online and to convince him to enter your story world. But the little string of words on the outside of your book isn’t the only phrase with that power. Your book’s chapter titles present chances to play the game again, with linguistic lures that can keep your audience turning pages way past bedtime.

1. Use Chapter Titles to Attract Your Audience

Names you know play this game well. Lewis Carroll points to Alice’s travails with signposts like: “Down the Rabbit-Hole” and “The Pool of Tears.” With even simpler markers like “Nantucket,” “Chowder,” and “Going Aboard,” Melville showers a bit of salt spray onto many of the openers of his tale of the great white whale.

Simple strategies like that work well, but there are even trickier games to be played. Annie Proulx uses knot names like “Love Knot,” “Strangle Knot,” and “A Rolling Hitch” to tie her readers to her maritime story of redemption in Newfoundland. And in “The Odds,” Stewart O’Nan underscores his theme of a failed marriage’s last chance for success at a casino by calculating the specific probability of events with chapter titles like: “Odds of a married couple reaching their 25th anniversary: 1 in 6.”

These tactics share a common mission to attract readers. But long before your book hits the shelf, chapter titles can play a potent role in shaping it as well.

2. Use Chapter Titles to Find Your Focus

The best-built stories have chapters with a clearly defined mission that works to support its overarching premise . String enough of these together in an organic way that ties cause and effect to escalating tension and you’re well on your way to creating the clean throughline that produces publishable work. The same process of ruthless editing that creates that lean story spine can be used to condense the heart of each chapter to a few key words. Thinking deeply about those words creates focus .

Here’s an example from my novel in progress: Autumn Imago . The story premise is: A loner who has rejected his estranged family to protect himself from the pain of his sister’s death is forced to reunite with them at the scene of that tragedy where he must choose between a life of reconciliation or isolation. Early in the book I present the protagonist’s (Paul’s) potential romantic interest: Cassie, a fellow park ranger.

Paul’s fear of intimacy has him shying away from Cassie when they get too close. Paul’s love of fly-fishing is introduced early on, so the title for this chapter: “Catch and Release” does double-duty in pointing to the story world and serving as a metaphor for Paul’s emotional reserve. When I write a title like this I can easily proof the chapter’s mission’s relation to my story premise. In this case, establishing Paul’s self-imposed social isolation in “Catch and Release” supports the “loner” identity I’ve referenced at the start of his story arc. That point starts him on the path that leads to his choice of reconciliation or isolation. The mission of the chapter aligns with my premise.

3. Use Chapter Titles to Orient to Your Story World

As you dive deeper into your work, chapter titles can also orient you when you’re lost in the story swamp. For me, the writing program Scrivener ’s binder structure serves as the compass that contains the cardinal points that help me navigate through my novel. In the screen shot below, you can see my working manuscript copy for “Catch and Release” in the pane to the right. A quick glance to the left shows where that chapter lives within the larger work I’ve outlined. (I’ve expanded each mission message a bit to illustrate these relationships in the yellow boxes shown.)

By defining and proofing the mission of each chapter in the method described above, I’ve created a map in the Scrivener binder that I can quickly scan to review what’s happening before and after the chapter I’m exploring. This reference helps me build the kind of cause and effect relationships that allow each chapter to grow out of, and into, the one before and after it.

Keep Your Chapter Titles Flexible

Of course flexibility is critical to following the strategies outlined above, and that’s another key to harnessing a chapter title’s power. If I craft chapter titles that sum up the heart of the chapter I’m writing, but their message doesn’t align with my premise, I know the chapters need to be rewritten or cut. In the same manner, if my chapter’s position within the storyline I’ve defined presents problems with plausibility or continuity, it may also need to be cut, edited, or simply moved to a spot where it makes more sense.

Finally, beyond a title’s power to attract an audience, focus your work, and keep you oriented within the world of your story, the simple process of boiling down your book into the short phrases that capture its essence burns your tale deeper into your brain with every chapter title you take on. That kind of intimacy with your subject is the hallmark of a seasoned writer. It’s a sure sign you’re creating chapter titles that will live on the tips of many happy readers’ tongues.

Tell me your opinion: Do you use chapter titles in your books? Why or why not?

Sign Up Today

Bryan Wiggins is an ad agency Creative Director and freelance writer whose personal essays have been published in Canoe & Kayak , Sea Kayaker , and The Maine Review . He also gives regular presentations of “Mastering Your Muse: Strategies and Software for Shaping Inspiration,” an in-depth, illustrated overview of his writing process that has been sponsored by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and “The Muse and the Marketplace” literary conference in Boston. He blogs regularly about writing .

I sort of do in my first book as it’s historical based fiction, going from June 1984 to August 1987, I put each month in the story as a chapter heading. In my latest novel, I definitely use chapter headings. I really like some of the ones I use. For the chapter where the protagonist goes and shoots up his school, I call that chapter “Pop Star for a Day” and the chapter where the lawyers get the victims of that shooting to sue everybody, that is called “The Crocodiles Descend.” Some others are more to the point.

Another reason for chapter titles if they are hyperlinked within the e-book versions is to allow a reader an easier way to find a chapter or scene s/he enjoyed and wants to read again.

Assuming, of course, that anyone would want to read a particular scene or chapter again.

Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Bryan!

My pleasure, Katie. Thanks so much for stimulating the lively conversation around my post!

I absolutely use chapter titles. I think not using them is a wasted opportunity to create suspense, mystery, and world build, whether you’re writing fantasy or an actual mystery. If you do it right, the chapter titles are not spoilers for those readers who are using the “look inside this book feature,” and they could potentially hook a prospective reader.

I’ve been using Scrivener for two years now, and I’m even in the habit of naming scenes. The reader will never see the scene titles, but the titles help jog my memory of when certain events happen within a chapter. I can also see the structure of the story in those scene titles.

I agree on changing chapter titles when the title is promising something different than what the chapter actually contains.

Speaking of moving chapters — As a Scrivener user, I keep a folder titled “Unplaced Scenes,” an idea I found at a Scrivener-user’s site (I can’t remember who). I put scenes in that folder when I’ve written them out of order, and move them to their proper place when I finally get to it. It lets me get that scene out of the way without being disorganized.

As a reader, the biggest hook for me in any book is the chapter titles. I always scan those first, and if any of them look interesting, I’ll go straight to them. If they pique my interest, then I’ll read the whole book. I think chapter titles are a must!

As a writer, I’ve needed this post for SO LONG. I’ve Googled for posts like this, and this is the first one I’ve ever found. Thank-you! My beta readers told me my chapters titles needed some work, and I spent a whole day a couple of weeks ago working on twelve of them. They are much stronger, more cohesive, and more interesting. And your principles explained why. I’m definitely bookmarking this article for future use!

So glad you found the post helpful Schuyler! You’re note about how you browse chapter titles to test-drive a novel provides excellent insight into the marketing power of well conceived titles.

You know, I haven’t. But after reading the first Percy Jackson fantasy, I was intrigued with the author’s use of chapter titles. And fun ones like “I incinerate my Algebra teacher.” I mean, what kid wouldn’t dive into that chapter? I’m writing my own middle grade now, and I may employ this strategy. Thanks for the scrivener tip. That’ll be much easier to understand than “Scene 24.)

I don’t think the Percy Jackson book is a good example. Every one of the chapter titles is a spoiler.

I LOVE the Percy Jackson chapter titles. They do say some of the stuff that happens in the chapter, but usually not the main thing.

I personally though really started to notice the chapter titles when I read the first Gods of Asgard book. Every single one was hilarious.

And the ones in The Trials of Apollo are all haiku, which was really clever

The Percy Jackson chapter titles are amazing, as are the Gods of Asgard’s chapter titles. They capture just the right amount of humor and suspense in them. Yes, they do somewhat give away the chapter, but before reading the book, “I Incinerate my Algebra Teacher” doesn’t really make sense. I am currently writing a book, and I am testing out different chapter titling methods, including this one.

I’ve tried this for a couple of past WIPs, and in the end I had to say RIP to those titles. They were somewhat helpful to me during editing, but I didn’t want a reader to suffer through my chapter titles. I also found it difficult to come up with clever succinct titles that weren’t also spoilers.

I wonder also whether outliners find this easier than pantsers, ahem, organic writers. I’m in the latter camp. : (

To answer your question, I’m a hybrid pantster-planner. I generally know the beginning, a set piece or two, and the end. I do not know how I’ll get there! The chapter/scene titles for me come as I begin to write them, because I generally know what I *intend* to have happen. And sometimes I’ll use a placeholder title, and go back and change it when the story is more fleshed out.

The Representative doesn’t feature chapters:

The nature of its story doesn’t lend to the format.

Thabks for the article Bryan. I use chapter titles in my writing my outline. It really does help. I liked your mapping in scrivener screen shot and am curious where did you put your mission statement in scrivener… The document notes or the chapter card in the corkboard or somewhere else?

Thanks Michael. I use my one sentence premise as my novel’s “mission statement” in Scrivener. It lives at the top of the detailed novel outline I use to guide my tale. That document sits in a dedicated folder that sits above the master “manuscript” folder in the binder. The manuscript folder contains a folder for every chapter of my novel. Each chapter folder contains one document that lists the chapter title, timeframe, mission, and chapter synopsis. I then create as many drafts of the chapter within that folder as it takes to create the final content I’m after. I regularly use Scrivener’s split screen to keep my novel outline in the left pane as I develop my chapter content in the right.

Yes, I do. But I haven’t perfected this yet. 🙂

Thanks for the post Katie. I’ve used chapter titles in each of my four manuscripts. Just something I did with my first WIP and have continued doing since then. Someone recently suggested I didn’t need them as my chapters are fairly short and fast moving but I like them. Sometimes they are working titles that I change later or I might put a couple of options up before I choose which one I like best. I think they help me focus on what and why I’m writing a scene, I like them to be a hook to the reader & am very pleased when they do double duty or have a double meaning (like your Catch and Release).

The second and third “functions” are besides the point, I think. The point should be something that makes it a better experience for the reader.

I have used chapter titles in my novels.

I never use chapter titles in my novels, I don’t know why, seems to me as if they breack up the flow. But I do use them while I’m working on the story.

I don’t use Scrivener, but the program I use, Liquid Story Binder, allowes to break down the story in chapters and scenes and allows to give a title and a short synopsis of few words to each segment. It looks like a huge work to do when you organise the story, but it’s so useful. At least I find it extremely useful. It allows me to name each part and find them easily. It gives me an organic image of the story when I look at the planer and above all, writing down the description of each scene has me really thinking what the core of that scene is and how it relates to all the others. I do think this work made my story stronger on many levels.

Of course, chapter titles or even chapters are not needed for a successful ripping yarn, as Terry Pratchett has shown. 🙂 However, I use them a lot, and they are very fun to play around with.

Late to the party on reading this article – came across it trying to figure out formatting of all things. That said, I found it an interesting read, and wanted to comment.

In fiction work, I do use chapter titles. As other people have mentioned, too much information or spoilers can and do happen (far too frequently in my opinion) just within a few words, and I took that heavily into account when making the do/don’t decision.

Ultimately, I examined the chapters and selected sections of sentences (strictly dialogue) that either I wanted to emphasize, or that the character felt passionately about. Fulfilling the criteria I’d laid out for myself – that they be spoiler-free, sound interesting, have relevance to the chapter, and not be too lengthy – proved to be a big challenge.

I felt it was quite worth it, however, for on feedback draft copies, four of five readers noticed/mentioned the title-to-dialogue connection on their own; of those four, three went on to say once they realized said connection existed, it became a hunt of sorts for them, and they almost felt rewarded when they found the dialogue within the chapter.

Thanks for an interesting article. I write for over fifteen years and have always struggled with chapter (and part) titles. They can be a pain, but I find it much too difficult to navigate the text without them, especially if some chapters were moved around.

Brilliant! Thank you! I always take the name of a character in the chapter (they have names based on words such as Path, Crown, Leaf) and use them to summarize what will happen. For example, when Crown disappears, the chapter is called Crownless, but the chapter also talks about how the duke needs to reign over his land again. I love playing with chapter’s names.

I like to use chapter titles because I think it makes the book more interesting. And it lets the reader know something to look forward to, sometimes (without spoilers).

I usually use my favorite line, either of dialogue or something else, that is either the best part of the chapter or the focus of the chapter.

Yes , I do. For all the reasons you mention and one other: I don’t remember numbers, but I do titles. I’d love to hear about subtitles as well. I also use them to identify for myself whats going on in each scene, but I’m not sure if its something I should submit for publishing YA Contemporary Fantasy.

[…] https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2014/09/chapter-titles.html […]

[…] an interesting article on chapter titles while doing a bit of research for this blog article; 3 Secret Functions of Your Book’s Chapter Titles by Bryan Wiggins. He talks about using chapter titles for finding focus. The titles can, for […]

[…] In a guest post for Helping Writers Become Authors, Bryan Wiggins outlines 3 crucial purposes of chapter names: […]

[…] Link 1 […]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Novel Outlining
Storytelling Lessons From Marvel

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Write Your Best Book

Check out my latest novel!

( affiliate link )

Free E-Book

5 Secrets of Story Structure by K.M. Weiland

Subscribe to Blog Updates

Subscribe to blog posts rss, sign up for k.m. weiland’s e-letter and get a free e-book, love helping writers become authors.

Return to top of page

6 Types of Chapter Names and How to Choose

6 Ways to Name Your Novel’s Chapters

by Lewis / May 11, 2021 / Other

Have you ever given much thought to your novel’s chapter names?

If not, you aren’t alone. Many writers save naming their chapters until the very last minute, often tacking them on as more of an afterthought than anything else. However, this misses an important truth—that, just like every other part of your novel, your chapter names are worth some love and attention.

You see, chapters play a critical role in your novel’s success, and your chapter names are just as much a part of that success as things like structure or pacing. The only question is… How should you name your novel’s chapters in the first place?

The Power of a Good Chapter Name

1 The Power of a Good Chapter Name
2.1 Reasons to Name Your Chapters:
2.2 Reasons NOT to Name Your Chapters:
3.1 The Action:
3.2 The Macguffin:
3.3 The Location:
3.4 The Name:
3.5 The Warning:
3.6 The Phrase:
4 How to Choose the Perfect Chapter Names

Well, while you might not realize it now, your chapter names actually play a big role in shaping your reader’s experience.

These chapter names can:

Provide clues about the what’s coming next
Build anticipation before a big reveal
Bolster and reinforce your novel’s theme
Showcase your unique writing voice
Help you keep your chapters focused
And jog readers’ memories after stepping away from your novel

“The same process of ruthless editing that creates that lean story spine can be used to condense the heart of each chapter to a few key words. Thinking deeply about those words creates focus.” – 3 Secret Functions of Your Book’s Chapter Titles

Of course, your chapter names likely won’t be a make-or-break item for your novel. Still, well-named chapters do show readers that you put extra attention into even the smallest details of your story—and for many, that level of polish stands out.

The question is, how should you name your novel’s chapters?

Well, we’ll be diving into six chapter naming schemes and how to choose the best one for you in just a moment. However, before we get there, we actually have an even bigger question to ask—should you name your chapters to begin with?

Should You Name Your Chapters?

Realistically, not every novel will need chapter names. In fact, in a few rare instances, chapter names can actually hinder your novel. So, how do you decide if chapter names are right for you, or whether sticking with just numbers is best?

Well, for starters, you’ll want to consider the pros and cons of naming your chapters…

Reasons to Name Your Chapters:

As I mentioned earlier, chapter names are great for a variety of reasons, as they’re yet one more way you can refine your reader’s experience. These names allow you to set the stage for your upcoming chapter, priming readers to anticipate certain events before they happen, and thus making those events feel more impactful.

This is extra valuable when you realize most readers will buy your novel online, likely after reading the “Look Inside” preview. These previews are very short, but they’ll frequently be your only chance to hook readers and convince them to buy your book—so, why not use some clever chapter names to quickly grab the reader’s attention?

In total, there are four benefits to naming your chapters:

Chapter names help you hook readers and get them interested in your novel
Chapter names create extra suspense and tension by hinting at major events
Chapter names reinforce the tone and mood of your story
Chapter names make it easier for readers to return to your novel after time away

Reasons NOT to Name Your Chapters:

Unfortunately, naming your chapters isn’t always the right choice, and this is especially true for certain genres. Some genres like young adult tend to favor a bunch of short chapters—anywhere from thirty to forty—rather than fewer long chapters. This means you’ll be coming up with a lot of names, and that many of those names will have less meaning to readers.

Likewise, if all your chapters are short, these names add up fast, meaning readers can start to feel like they’re getting in the way of your actual story.

This creates four drawbacks:

Chapter names can feel redundant if you have a lot of chapters
It can be hard to come up with unique names
Chapter names can accidentally reveal too much if not created with care
Chapter names can start to feel like a roadblock if you have too many

So, should you name your chapters?

Well, ultimately, the answer depends on you. What genre are you writing in? How many chapters do you have? Are those chapters long or short? Only you can answer these questions, but if you do decide chapter names are right for you, let’s talk about a few of the fun chapter naming schemes you can use for inspiration!

6 Types of Chapter Names

The action:.

First up, the action name!

This style of chapter name is a great way to set the stage before your chapter begins. Names such as “A Short Walk” or “Fight or Die” clue readers into the events of that chapter, and this is especially powerful if your chapters tend to focus on a single major event.

The Macguffin:

Next, the macguffin naming scheme is perfect for novels that feature a lot of heavy worldbuilding.

For instance, names like “The Book of Magic” or “The Dragon’s Egg” can highlight items and objects that play an important role in the story. This would even be perfect for mystery or crime novels—as the protagonist collects evidence, each chapter name could hint at the next clue they’re going to find.

The Location:

The location naming scheme is another excellent choice for novels with a focus on worldbuilding.

Whether literal or metaphorical, these chapter names can be used to showcase your story’s unique and interesting locations. Even better, these location names can also help set the mood for the chapter to come. For example, “A New Horizon” is quite hopeful and cheery when compared to the more foreboding “Witch’s Woods.”

Of course, some novels opt to name their chapters after their characters.

This is common in novels with multiple POV characters , because it reminds readers whose perspective they’re reading from and helps avoid the feeling of head hopping. However, you can certainly use this naming scheme even if you only have one protagonist! Titles such as “The Baker’s Wife” or “King Lear” are great for hinting at who is about to appear next.

The Warning:

Next up, sometimes you want your chapter names to create suspense.

The warning naming scheme is perfect for this situation, as it’s an excellent way to not only foreshadow the events of your chapter, but also create a feeling of anticipation. Names like “The Day the Horses Came” or “Red Dawn” bring with them a sense of intrigue—exactly what you want to get readers interested!

The Phrase:

Last but not least, we have the phrase naming scheme, best seen in examples such as “Well That Went Well” or “I Saw the Rainbow.”

This naming scheme takes a snippet of dialog, an important phrase from the chapter, or even a song lyric and uses it as your chapter name. While this is a naming scheme best used with caution—as you don’t want your chapter names to reveal too much or feel too long—when used well, it’s a fantastic way to add an extra dose of personality to your novel.

How to Choose the Perfect Chapter Names

Overall, naming schemes are a great way to get started when it comes to naming your chapters. Still, actually choosing the right type of chapter name for your story can be tricky.

So, before we wrap things up, here are some final tips to consider:

#1: Think about your story’s tone. What kind of chapter name best reflects the style of your novel? #2: What style of name would strengthen your story, either by providing extra context or by ramping up the tension? #3: Is there anything important you need to signal to your reader? This could be a change in POV or location, or even a major event within your story. #4: Finally, what style of name speaks to you? After all, you have to be happy with your chapter names too!

Of course, before you can sit down and name your chapters, you’ll want to make sure those chapters are as strong as possible. If you’re struggling to create your novel’s chapters, then this article can help: Chapter Structure: How to Write the Perfect Chapter

In the end, chapters are a wonderful tool for creating a more polished final novel. So, I hope this article helped you decide if naming your chapters was right for you—and if it did, I hope it gave you some inspiration for how to name those chapters too. 🙂

How will you name your chapters? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on 6 ways to name your novel’s chapters.

Can chapter names be like a conversation? I thought about doing that, but have you seen any other stories do something like that?

thank you for making a titled chapter in a novel a viable option. so many writers just use numbers or names of the main character in that chapter. if there are 3 main characters interacting in many of the chapters, is it okay to use the word, ALL, rather than one name?

any other words to suggest all the main characters are in the chapter? I believe eBooks do require titles. thanks.

Hi Gail. Typically, chapters that use character names are named based on that chapter’s POV character. As a general rule, you should only have one POV character per chapter to help readers get invested in their story before suddenly jumping to another character. This is especially true if you’re writing in First Person, but still generally applies to Third Person as well.

I recommend checking out my article on POV here: https://thenovelsmithy.com/how-to-choose-point-of-view/

I’m just starting on a book, and I was thinking of using song lyrics for chapter titles, would that be okay or should I do something different?

So long as you keep things consistent (and they fit the vibe of your novel), song lyrics could be a great option!

I just started writing and I use my chapter name to create what to write. When I have a writer’s block, I think of a chapter name that is interesting then use it. But I want to know if giving a long name is good or not?

Typically, you’ll want to trim chapter names down to just a few words, but it’s certainly possible to buck that trend! The most important thing is to keep your chapter names consistent. Don’t name one chapter “Redwood” and another “There are too many trees in the forest.” Chapter names should blend into the reading experience, rather than draw a lot of attention to themselves.

is five words to many for a chapter name?

Hi Ally. I would say no, though I recommend keeping your chapter names consistent. If most of your chapters have single word names, a sudden five word name might be a bit jarring!

Hi Lewis! Do you think that the six Chapter naming schemes need to be consistent across the novel, e.g. could one chapter be based on Location, another on Phrase, etc? Or would this be too obviously hopping from bush to bush and ultimately detract from the integrity of the story?

That’s a great question Philip! I think it depends on how many naming schemes you plan to use. Personally, I would recommend picking just one or two and sticking to them, to try and keep things consistent.

I write LitRPG/Gamelit and have taken to using pop culture references (usually movie, anime, or game dialogue) that is applicable but not quite a giveaway… readers love either calling out the references or trying to guess where they are from.

That’s an excellent idea Riley!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

I’m a writer blog

Guidelines for writing Poems, Stories and Tales

Coming up with Chapter titles

August 4, 2022

Chapter names help you hook readers and get them interested in your novel . Chapter names create extra suspense and tension by hinting at major events. Chapter names reinforce the tone and mood of your story. Chapter names make it easier for readers to return to your novel after time away.

Should I give my chapters titles?

Titles certainly aren’t necessary for individual chapters . Plenty of great novels simply use numbered chapters to break the story into sections. Still, some novelists use chapter breaks as an opportunity to add clarity or another dimension to the unfolding story.

What would have a list of chapter titles?

A novel would be most likely to have a list of chapter titles.

What is a catchy title?

A catchy title is the headline of a content article that contains elements to persuade readers to read it . Writing an effective headline can be an essential element of your content. A catchy title can bring a customer to your article by explaining what’s in it or what value the reader can get from clicking on it.

What are some catchy titles?

Attention-Grabbing Headline Examples for Social Media

Can Twitter Predict the Future? …
Do Media Vultures Perpetuate Mass Shootings?
Do Some Foods “Explode” in Your Stomach?
Is the Life of a Child Worth $1 to You?
Suicide of a Hacker.
Suppose This Happened on Your Wedding Day!
The Child Who Won the Hearts of All.

How many chapters does an average book have?

Most nonfiction books have between 5 and 20 chapters . Any less than 5 and your chapters may be running long or may contain too many ideas. That said, there are plenty of books with 30 or 40 chapters. And some books, usually with very short chapters, can have 50+.

Do novellas have chapters?

If you’re writing a novella, using chapters is at your discretion . If it’s on the shorter side, you may feel that chapters aren’t necessary, and interrupt the flow of your story. Longer novellas, or those with perspective changes and scene transitions, can benefit greatly from inserting chapters.

What is the purpose of a chapter title?

Chapter Title Pros In addition to intriguing readers, increasing tension, and all those other pros of chapter titles, the titles can also act as milestones for readers, helping them keep chapters and events straight . Similarly, some writers use chapter titles to help them focus on an idea or story goal while drafting.

What is a good book name?

Here are 8 ways to come up with book title ideas.

Start free writing to find keywords. …
Experiment with word patterns. …
Draw inspiration from your characters. …
Keep your setting in mind. …
Look for book title ideas in famous phrases. …
Analyze the book titles of other books. …
Don’t forget the subtitle.

How do you list a chapter in a book?

How to Write Great Chapter Titles – Non-Fiction Book Writing …

How do you come up with a good title for an essay?

Here are things you need to remember for your title:

Your Title should be an attention grabber.
It reflects the tone of your essay.
Your readers need to be able to understand what your essay is about.
It should contain some main keywords from your essay.

What is an example of a title?

The definition of a title is the name of a person’s job, the name of a creative work or a word used before someone’s name to indicate his or her status. “Vice President of Marketing ” is an example of a title. The Wizard of Oz is an example of a movie title. “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “Dr.” are all examples of titles.

What’s a good title for a story?

Use alliteration to make your title easier to read and remember. A memorable and light-hearted title adds additional character to your book and is also a great way to attract readers. Catchy titles are memorable, boring titles are not.

What titles can you have?

Formal Titles in English

Sir (adult male of any age)
Ma’am (adult female – North American)
Madam (adult female)
Mr + last name (any man)
Mrs + last name (married woman who uses her husband’s last name)
Ms + last name (married or unmarried woman; common in business)
Miss + last name (unmarried woman)

Names and Numbers: Should You Name Your Chapters?

Whether or not to use chapter titles or numbers is a subjective choice that varies with each novel. This decision typically rests with the writer (if you are self-publishing), and the writer, agent, and publisher collectively (if you are traditionally publishing), who must determine the most effective approach for the story.

Several factors need to be considered when making this choice, including the tone of the story and the intended audience.

Tone : What best reflects your story – titles or numbers? Which one would reinforce the goal you have in writing it? Titles can add depth and context to each chapter, ramping up tension or providing information that adds to the reading experience. However, they should be carefully thought out to avoid making the story feel childish or simplistic.

Is there anything important you need to tell the reader? Titles can signal shifts, such as a change in location or switching perspective-characters.

Audience : Preference for titled or numbers chapters is significantly different across genres and audience demographics. Titled chapters are popular in children’s books, young adult, and fantasy, where they can enhance the story through imagery or contextual details. However, any genre can feature chapter names.

Reaching out to beta readers or hosting polls online can help determine your specific audience’s preferences. Some readers enjoy clever lines and added information in titles, while others prefer how straightforward numbered chapters are.

Let’s take a look at both options to see how they compare.

Numbering – 1, 2, 3

Chapter numbers have replaced the standard of titles that existed a hundred years ago. This is a stylistic choice, as more often writers want to establish a character-focused narrative. They want the reader to feel immersed, not be reminded that someone is telling the story. Numbers can create a seamless story where a reader can move quickly between chapters.

Narrative : Numbers keep things neutral and are effective for stream-of consciousness or character-focused narratives
Length : Ideal for short chapters, keeps a seamless flower
Attention : Not distracting
Navigation : Can be easier to move through, particularly in ebook format
Memorability : Numbers can blend together and are easily forgotten
Navigation : Difficult to remember which chapter to return to or where to find specific content later

How you number a chapter can vary according to your purposes. In the end, it is a stylistic choice that has some effect on the atmosphere of your story.

Here are some common options:

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III
One, Two, Three
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

Titling – What’s in a name?

When you create a book title, there are certain ways to use it to a story’s advantage. You can read more about creating book titles here .

Creating chapter titles – and using them to build on your story – is similar to the process of creating a book title, but on a smaller scale.

Narrative : Titles make it clear that there is a narrator, and they give the reader information before the characters are aware of it
Hook : Can be used to attract the reader’s attention, particularly as a marketing tool before they choose to read the book, but also to tactfully give them intriguing information as they read
Transition : With titles, readers are clearly alerted to when transitions occur, allowing them to take a break and digest information from the previous chapters before continuing
Navigation : Make is easier to find your place (especially if you don’t read in one sitting) or to return to specific scenes or favorite lines later
Narrative : Some readers feel chapter titles act as an intrusive narrator, telling them what to think about, rather than letting the story speak for itself
Content : If done incorrectly, titles can act as spoilers about what will happen next, which can be disappointing
Attention : Some readers feel titles are distracting and take them out of the story
Length : If you have a lot of short chapters, titles can hinder the reading experience by slowing down speed and revealing too much information. At this point, it can be difficult to come up with titles for every chapter and readers find less meaning in each name

A chapter title has many uses, some of which are:

Create mood/atmosphere : These can be used to set up the reader for individual chapters or reinforce the story’s overall tone
Hint at/foreshadow significant events : This builds tension and suspense while tapping into a reader’s curiosity and anticipation
Describe time and setting : This is useful for stories that have split timelines, unconventional timelines, chronological jumps, or that place importance on the time of day, weather, and place that an event occurs
Add personality : The way titles are written can create a sense of comedy or poetry that gives each chapter a unique personality. They can also act as a dialogue directed toward the reader
Play with expectations : This one is tricky, but titles can be used to subvert reader expectations. Be careful here, because it is easy to fall into tricking them too badly, making your story feel cheap
Add theme : A name can reinforce a general theme or create smaller themes for each chapter
Compare to book title : A title can relate back to the title of the book itself, strengthening the premise of its story

Structure and style

Whichever angle you use to name your chapters, it’s important to be consistent. If you use timestamps, make sure they appear in a specific pattern. That can be before every chapter, on journal entries, or only on chapters that are told from a specific character’s perspective.

Other structure examples include:

Short : Chapter titles with 1-5 words
Long : Chapter titles with 5-10 words
Dates : Good for diaries, newspapers, radio announcements, letters
Timestamps : Use if the time of day an event occurred is important (morning, afternoon, evening, or specific times on the clock)
Season and weather : Similar to dates and timestamps
Character names : Important for signaling changes in viewpoint characters, reduces head-hopping
Setting : Country, city, local spot, house, room – can clue the reader in about plot details
Secret messages : Some writers hide relevant details or bonus content in their titles, whether through information or punctuation

Likewise, the style of each title should be the same to avoid confusion and create the feeling of an organized whole. Some things to keep in mind are:

Justification : right, left, centered
Capitalization : capital nouns, first letter capitalized only, all lower case (never use all capitals, as they hide which words should stand out)
Punctuation : Titles can use sentences, questions, exclamations, commas, colons, ellipses, or no punctuation at all. But they shouldn’t include periods, as they make phrases final and stop the reader from thinking more about them

Name and number, please

Some writers choose to use both numbers and titles for their chapters. This can help a reader know how far along in the book they are (ex: chapter 3 out of 20) while also creating memorable sections they can use to sort information (ex: Chapter 3 – I find out zombies don’t like blueberries).

Some writers prefer to title chapters before writing them, using the title as a focus to guide the chapter’s content. Others choose to add titles after writing the chapter, ensuring the title fits the content. This way, they can also draw from specific lines of prose or dialogue for inspiration.

Ultimately, the choice between chapter titles and numbers should be determined by the unique needs of your story and its audience Whether you opt for numbers to remain neutral and present seamless narration or add layers of information with titles, the goal is to enhance the reader’s experience and complement your narrative.

Unleash Your Story

900 State Street, Suite 301C

Erie, PA 16501

(c) 2024 Next Chapter Stories, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Writing A Book Title In Your Essay – The Right Way

Table of contents

1 APA Style: How to Write Book Titles in Essays
2 APA Style Essay: Writing The Name of The Author
3 MLA Style Essay: Citing a Book Title
4 Chicago Style Essay: Writing the Book Title
5 Writing Various Types of Titles
6 Should We Underline or Italicize Book Titles?

When you are writing an academic essay , the book title and author’s name should be written in italics. However, if the book title is part of a larger work (such as a journal article), it should be underlined instead. So, you’re wondering how to write a book title in an essay?

Writing an essay with a book title can be tricky, particularly because each style guide has its own formatting rules for including titles in the main text. Whether you are using MLA, APA, Chicago, or Harvard referencing styles, you will need to consider how to properly format the book title. For more complicated literature-based assignments, seeking assistance from an admission essay writing service may be wise, as they specialize in writing essays that incorporate academic sources.

In this article, we will explore how to write both titles in an essay properly so that you avoid any mistakes!

APA Style: How to Write Book Titles in Essays

When writing an essay, you must follow the style guide provided by your professor. Some teachers may require you to use APA style and others MLA style. There are some rules on how to quote a book title in an essay. You should use italics and quotation marks when writing book titles in essays. For example: “ The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. “

When writing a book title in APA Style , you should be aware of these rules:

Write the book title in italics and place it after the author’s name, which is presented in reverse order (last name first).

Use quotation marks around the headline of a chapter or article.

Capitalize proper names that are not common nouns (names of people, places, organizations), but do not capitalize words such as “and,” “or,” “to,” or “and/or.”

Do not capitalize prepositions that appear at the beginning of titles if they are followed by an article (e.g., “A,” “An”), but do capitalize prepositions at the beginning of titles if they are not followed by articles (“Of”).

The first word of the headline should be capitalized, as well as any other words after a colon or hyphen. For example, “The Elements of Style: Grammar for Everyone” or “Theories of Personality: Critical Perspectives.”

Capitalize proper names and words derived from them (e.g., the names of people, places, organizations), except proper nouns used generically (e.g., ‘a bed’).

APA Style Essay: Writing The Name of The Author

You should always use the full name and surname of the author in your APA essay because this will give proper credit to the writer. If you do not mention the author’s full name, people may not know who wrote what and will think you copied it from somewhere else. This will cause lots of problems for you and your reputation as well.

Make sure that all authors’ names appear in the same format in each entry. For example, if one person’s surname is Smith and another’s is Jones, both have first names starting with “J.” It may seem like they are being cited as different people when they’re actually written differently from each other on separate pages in your paper.

To write an APA essay without any issues, there are certain rules that you need to follow while writing an author’s name in APA essay:

Use only one author’s name in your paper unless there are multiple authors
If there are multiple authors, then use both their last names followed by the initials of their first names
Only use initials of first names when there are three or more authors; otherwise, use full names with their last names

Example: Johnson, M.C., Carlson, M., Smith, J. N., & Hanover, L. E.

MLA Style Essay: Citing a Book Title

Now let’s discuss how to mention a book in an essay. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition, published by the Modern Language Association (2014), contains detailed rules about how to cite a book title in an essay.

The following guidelines will instruct you on how to refer to a book in an essay in MLA style :

List your sources at the end of your paper, before the works cited page or bibliography.
Use italics for titles of books, magazines, and newspapers, but not for articles within those publications, which should be placed in quotation marks.
Include all relevant book information under two categories: “title” and “author.” In the former category, include the work’s title and its subtitle if there is one; do this even if neither appears on your title page (see below). In the latter category, include only primary authors who have written or edited an entire book; if there are multiple contributors, you should cite them separately under each.

The general format for citing the title of the book in an essay is as follows:

Author’s last name, first initial (Date). Title of Book with Subtitle if there is one. Publisher Name/Location of Publisher; Year Published

Chicago Style Essay: Writing the Book Title

One of the most important things to remember when writing in Chicago style is how to write the title of a book in an essay. To write a good book title in an essay, you should follow these steps:

Write it at the beginning of your sentence.
Capitalize it just like any other noun or proper noun.
Put a comma after the title unless it’s an introductory clause or phrase. For example: “The Firm,” by John Grisham (not “by”) and “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D Salinger (not “and”).
In addition to the book’s name, punctuation marks should also be italicized.

For example: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince: Children’s Edition

Writing Various Types of Titles

Now that we covered how to write a book title and author in an essay, it’s time to look at some different types of titles. When you write a book title in an essay, several things must be considered. Whether it’s a book, series, chapter title, editor’s name, or author’s name, how you write it depends on where it appears in your paper.

Here are some key rules for writing headings for novels:

Use capital letters to write the title of the novel. For example, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett .
Use italics and capital letters to write the name of the author and his/her other works mentioned in a book title—for example, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) .

You should use quotation marks when writing headings of short title poems, articles, and stories.

However, before deciding which format to use, it is important to understand the main idea you want to express in your essay. Additionally, you could use essay papers for sale to help you accomplish your goal of writing an essay effectively.

Should We Underline or Italicize Book Titles?

It depends on which style guide you use. The Modern Language Association and Chicago Manual of Style both suggest using italics, while the American Psychological Association suggests using quotation marks with a few exceptions.

The way you write the title of a book in an essay is different depending on the instructions you were given. For example, if you’re writing an essay in APA style, use quotation marks around the book’s name. If you’re writing for MLA or Chicago style , however, italicize the book’s name instead. If you’re writing a handwritten essay instead of using a computer, capitalize and underline the book’s name.

Readers also enjoyed

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Just fill out the form, press the button, and have no worries!

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.

Jami Gold, Paranormal Author

Where Normal Need Not Apply

June 25, 2020

Chapter breaks & titles: what are our options.

Open book pages with text: Making Our Chapters Count

For all the blog posts and books about writing out in the world, there are comparatively few about chapters specifically. This can be surprising to new writers, as chapters form the backbone of our understanding of stories from our lifetime’s perspective as readers. *smile*

Recently, subscriber Laura L. emailed me with a great question about chapters:

“How does one come up with clever names for the chapters? I’ve seen some novels that are so clever in the way they allude to the story but have no clue how to do it– NOR do I know WHEN to end the story to create chapters.”

I’ve written only one story with chapter titles (and I don’t know yet if I’ll keep them when I publish it), so I’m far from an expert. But let’s see if we can come up with some helpful suggestions for how to structure chapters and ideas for how to name them .

Fiction Chapters 101

In non-fiction, chapter breaks are usually driven by topic. One chapter is about A and another chapter is about Q . But things aren’t as clear cut with fiction.

In fact, the most common question I’ve seen about chapters is “How long should a chapter be?” How do we decide on chapter length when there’s no non-fiction style change in topic, as our book is all one coherent story (we hope)?

However, before answering that question, we might first need to understand why stories are broken into chapters at all.

What’s the Point of Chapter Breaks?

The point of a chapter in fiction is to create a visual break that can signal a shift to readers. That shift might be from one scene or point of view (POV) to another, or it might be an emotional shift (like a mini-cliffhanger) that we want to give readers room to process.

At the same time, the visual break and sense of turning pages faster (due to the half-page formatting) can make our story’s pace feel faster. The feeling of an increased story’s pace can be especially strong if emotional anticipation is built up by the break.

In addition, the break between chapters or scenes allows us to skip the boring parts of our story , such as when a character sleeps or travels. And from a reader perspective, breaks provide the opportunity to pause reading without feeling like a story intermission is happening mid-conversation.

So What Is the “Right” Length for a Chapter?

The answer to that question about chapter length is: “It depends.” And that answer reveals part of the problem with trying to teach a writer how to handle chapters. *smile*

The “right” answer for how long our chapters should be depends on our story and its emotional hooks (those emotional cliffhangers, reveals, questions, or touchpoints we want to emphasize). In addition, the “right” answer can depend on our genre, pacing, voice, style, etc.

An action story might tend toward shorter chapters, just to keep up the sense of a fast pace, while a literary story might have longer chapters or use a mix of lengths. Or a story with frequent POV shifts might keep chapters short so the focus of any one chapter doesn’t feel scattered by going back and forth several times between different POV scenes.

Personally, a chapter of 8-10 pages of double-spaced Times New Roman feels about “right” to me, but I’ve gone as short as 4 pages and as long as about 14 pages due to the needs of my story at each scene. And of course, my opinion is just an opinion, as I’ve seen plenty of advice that calls 20 pages a standard or default length, while others talk about a 2000-5000 word count per chapter.

Well-known published authors have made stories work with chapters of a single page or line—or stories with no chapter breaks at all. Our voice, story, style, and genre can all play a part on what feels “right” to us . In other words, how we handle chapter breaks is completely subjective.

When Should We Structure Chapter Breaks?

As I’ve written about before, while some writers draft with chapter breaks in mind, others save the step of breaking their story into chapters for one of the last steps and instead focus on drafting in scenes . Again, there’s no wrong answer.

Depending on our drafting style, our story might naturally break into chapters with scene or POV changes. Or we might wait until our editing process to see where emotional beats land that we want to emphasize.

As mentioned above, one purpose of chapter breaks is to let readers process an emotional shift. So we might want to wait until our editing step to see where we want those dun-dun- dun s to increase emotions.

Whether we break chapters for a utilitarian reason like a scene or point of view change, or for an emotional reason like a question or reveal, we usually want to end on a hook to make readers want to continue after the break. That said, some writers want their story to flow relatively uninterrupted from one chapter to another, so chapter breaks are only as important as we make them.

Should We Use Chapter Titles?

Now let’s get into the other piece of Laura’s question. Should we title our chapters, and if so, how do we do it?

Obviously, most stories have a label of Chapter 1 or Two or Chapter III at the start of each chapter. Beyond that, do our chapters need a title?

Not really. Whether we add an actual chapter title in addition to the chapter number is completely up to us.

Some genres use chapter titles more than others, and some story styles use chapter titles more than others. For example, a comedy story might use chapter titles just for an opportunity to add another humorous line, or a timeline-focused story might use timestamps as chapter titles.

5 Ways to Brainstorm Chapter Titles

If we decide to title our chapters, we first might want to think about our goals: Why do we want to title our chapters? Once we know that, we’ll have a better idea of what our options are, and we might have more success coming up with ideas.

Do we want to title our chapters to… (and more than one reason might apply)

#1: Provide Information

Sometimes we just want to convey information to readers with our title . For example, we might title with a date or location or timestamp.

With first-person dual-POV stories, authors usually include the name of the viewpoint character as the chapter title. Otherwise, readers wouldn’t know who the “I” of the chapter is, especially as the POV can change from chapter to chapter.

#2: Make Promises

Many stories with chapter titles want to reassure readers that the story will be satisfying . So the chapter title might punch up the style, such as taking the opportunity to add an extra joke to a comedy or allude to how the story will fulfill the “promise of the premise.”

For example, in an absurdist comedy, the title might hint at how the coming chapter fulfills the absurdist “promise,” such as with a line like: The One Where She’s Abducted by Friendly Aliens. Or in an action story, a reference to interesting events in the title will let readers know the story will get to that interesting place in just a few pages.

#3: Intrigue Readers

Sometimes, especially at the start of a book, we might want our chapter titles to be another enticement for a reader to start reading our story. Or an intriguing or mysterious chapter title can give readers a reason to keep reading our story after a chapter break.

These chapter titles might be similar to book titles and work best if our chapters are each mini-stories with a single focus. For example, an intriguing chapter title might be something like: The Other Side of Death. What does that mean? Readers might read on to find out.

#4: Reinforce Ideas

Chapter titles can also be used to reinforce ideas from our story . Stories using this approach might choose titles that emphasize the theme, such as highlighting perspectives of justice, or titles could be used to focus on a character’s motivation.

Stories with a unique setting or story world might use chapter titles of setting/world terminology. For example, a submarine-set story might reinforce the setting with titles like Battle Stations or Dive or Zero Bubble. Or a story about a spy might use chapter titles to act as reports to their handler, such as Report: The Russian Incident.

#5: Increase Tension

Some stories use chapter titles to hint at events to increase tension or dread . We might think of the character’s goal for the chapter for ideas on chapter titles, or we might think about how we can allude to plot events or something revealed or discovered in the chapter without giving too much away.

In other words, we want to give readers a tease of something to anticipate, but we might want to leave out the context that could spoil the plot. For example, we wouldn’t want a chapter title of something like: The Death of Susan. However, we could use something like: An Unexpected Death.

Chapter Title Pros

Obviously, those five ideas above are five ways that chapter titles could add to our story . And that’s what we want, as there’s no purpose to chapter titles if they don’t add to or enhance our storytelling.

In addition to intriguing readers, increasing tension, and all those other pros of chapter titles, the titles can also act as milestones for readers, helping them keep chapters and events straight. Similarly, some writers use chapter titles to help them focus on an idea or story goal while drafting.

Chapter Title Cons

If we decide to use chapter titles, one key “guideline” is to be consistent with the format. For example, if our first few chapter titles start out with a “The One Where She…” format, all the chapters should probably follow that same format.

In addition to that limitation, there are several cons to using chapter titles as well:

Our chapter titles could give too much away for upcoming plot events, acting as spoilers.
Chapter titles can be hard to think up, discouraging us, or they can seem boring, discouraging readers.
Our chapter titles could “feel” meaningful but not have obvious meaning to readers, even after they read the chapter, causing them to get distracted at the end of each chapter by trying to make sense of its title.
Some chapters might work best with one format, while other chapters work best with a different format, yet we need to be consistent.
Coming up with titles can be a lot of work for something that many readers don’t notice—or don’t even read.
Our chapters could be on the short end, so we’d need to come up with a lot of titles (this might be why chapter titles seem to be more common with longer chapters *smile*).
The subtext of using anything more than chapter numbers tells readers that our chapters are special , so our story needs to fulfill that expectation.
Chapter titles that hint at things the viewpoint characters don’t know can disrupt our story’s POV, especially if we write in deep POV, as an omniscient narrator style can’t be used to share the information.
Chapter titles that allude to future events can undermine our intentions if we use the “literary” past tense .

With all those cons, we might wonder if we should include chapter titles. Only we can decide what’s right for our story, but as I mentioned above, there’s no point in including them if they don’t add to our story in some way. *smile*

10 Year Blogiversary Reminder! My blogiversary is coming up mid-July, and that means 2 things: As I announced last week , after 1000+ posts and ten years of publishing articles every Tuesday and Thursday, I’m giving myself the gift of an irregular schedule. So this is a great time to make sure you’re signed up for my blog-post newsletter so you don’t miss any of my new scheduled-when-I-feel-like-it posts! 😉 My blogiversary also means that it’s time to enter my 10th Annual Blogiversary Contest ! The more comments we get on that post, the more winners we’ll have. 😀

Have you enjoyed chapter titles in stories before? If not, why not? If yes, what made them enjoyable, or how did they enhance the story? Have you included chapter titles in any of your stories before, and if so, why? Can you think of any other insights or advice about chapter titles?

Check out these related posts:

Choices, Choices: Debating How a Scene Should Play Out
How Do We Use Sequels with Our Scenes?
Using Tips from Poetry to Strengthen Our Prose — Guest: Pamela Donison
Is Our Story’s Point of View Really What We Think It Is?
What Do Readers Want from a Story’s POV?

8 Comments — What do you think?

I usually have 15 to 16 chapters in a 85-100k word book. But I also have section breaks within the chapters, which are marked with little symbols tied in to the story (for The Wound of Words , a snowflake, for example).

Chapter titles are like any title: frustrating when you can’t find the right one and elating when you do. (I am particularly fond of the fourth chapter in Restoration Day , titled ‘Chemistry’ – its double layer of meaning is aesthetically satisfying.) I tend to go for something which alludes to the content of what follows – ‘Out of the Frying Pan’, say, or ‘Blessing and Curse’ – without giving specific details.

But good titles can be hard to come by – The Wound of Words has two chapter titles which were (a beta reader informed me) previously used by Tolkien.

A timely topic for me. I’m editing a memoir I ghostwrote for a young man. He had chapter titles in his original (very disorganized) text. I changed some of them and also added some chapter breaks, so I had to come up with new titles. With the points from this post in mind, I will be going back through those titles asking the question: do these titles add to the story?

Great advice! I would only add that I tend to make a chapter a scene, and I dislike chapters that break the scene in two; especially if the first one ends on a ‘plot twist line’ and in the next chapter the conversation continues exactly as before I turned the page. If your scene is getting a bit long, think of another way to stage it or break the conversation between POV characters or times of day.

I agree with both of your insights: chapter=scene is usually the default, and we shouldn’t insert a “plot twist” line at a chapter break that doesn’t really mean anything as the scene continues in the next chapter. That said, I think different genres and styles can have different ideas for what feels “right” when that default doesn’t work. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your perspective!

You’re right, Jami–I’ve never seen this addressed anywhere, and thanks to your list of pro(!) and cons, I’ve decided they’d be distracting and do more harm than good. I was torn because I think I could come up with them fairly easily, but they would end up having the effect of saying “Hey, I’m a story! Excuse me while I interrupt the action!”

Yes! Your “I’m a story” quote is exactly what I meant about how chapter titles aren’t necessarily a good fit for many stories. I’m thinking of deep POV stories and how we’re supposed to be so immersed in the experience that we forget we’re reading a story. Chapter titles can undermine that effect. Thanks for sharing!

When I read other books, I don’t usually bother reading the titles. So it’s probably odd that I have named my chapters. But I didn’t do this so much for the reader as I did for myself. When I want to go back to a scene for editing, I want to try to remember which scene it was without having to search through a bunch of chapters.

LOL! I understand. I often skip over chapter titles just because if I’m immersed in the story, I don’t even notice the chapter change. And if I don’t notice the different formatting, I’m not going to notice the extra words on top. 😉

That said, as you mentioned, the one story I have them in, I’ve used them exactly as you do — to remember what happens when in the story as I’m editing. 😀 Thanks for sharing!

© 2008–2024 Jami Gold - All rights reserved. No content on this site may be reused in any fashion without written permission from Jami Gold . NOTICE: This site uses cookies and affiliate links (see our Privacy Policy ).

How To Write Book Titles The Proper Way: A Complete Guide For Writers

February 10, 2022

Book titles within essays or papers can be tricky. There are specific rules that are given for how to include a book title in a way that sets it apart from the content of your writing given by the Modern Language Association. However, as with many other things in life, there are exceptions to the rules. This article will guide you through the rules of the writing style guides so that you can include a book’s title in your paper or essay correctly.

How to write book titles:

Style guides and book titles.

When it comes to book titles within text, there are a few different style guides that have rules you can follow, depending on your writing type. The three types that you will encounter most often are; MLA style, Chicago manual of style, and APA. A writing instructor will usually tell you what style guide you are expected to use for a particular essay or paper.

MLA Style Guide

The MLA handbook states that you should always italicize book titles when styling book titles within your text. The exception to this rule are religious texts. You would not italicize the Holy Bible or the sacred books or titles of other religions. Note the following example.

Pam had stayed most of the summer indoors, re-reading her favorite book series. She was already up to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , and she didn’t regret not being more active or going outside.

In the above example, the book title is italicized. Fiction titles and nonfiction titles alike must be in italics when within the text.

Series Titles in MLA

In the above example, a book from a series was used. But what if the text had not specified which book from the series Pam was reading? Would it still need to be in italics? The answer is: in this case, yes. In other cases, sometimes.

It’s really not as confusing as it seems. When you are talking about a book series but don’t want or need to include the complete series titles for the purposes of your work, you only have to put words in italics that also appear in the book titles. So, because Harry Potter is part of the title of all of the books in the series, you would italicize his name every time you mention the book.

However, if you were talking about Katniss Everdeen, you would not have to do this, as the book series she is featured in doesn’t use her name in the titles of The Hunger Games series. The same would be true of books like the Nancy Drew books.

Quotation Marks

There are instances in which titles should be placed inside of quotation marks within a paper or essay. This is done when you cite the titles of poems , a chapter title, short stories, articles, or blogs.

So, for example, if you were to write a paper that featured a poem from a book, you would put the book title in italics and the poems cited in quotation marks.

An example of an enduring love poem is “Annabel Lee” from The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

Chapter Title

Another time that quotation marks should be used is when using the title of a chapter. If you are citing a specific chapter of a book, you would enclose the title of the chapter in quotation marks, and the title of the book should be in italics.

The desperation and sadness of a man on death row can be seen in the “Wild Wind Blowing” chapter of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song.

Short Stories

Short stories are another case. Much like the title of a chapter or poem, in which the title is placed in quotation marks, while the title of the book or collection it is found in is italics. The same can be said for sections, stories, or chapters cited within a literary journal.

Stepping away from his norm of horror and gore, Stephen King writes of trust, love, and regret in his story “The Last Rung on the Ladder,” which can be found in his short story collection Night Shift.

Punctuation Marks

If you are citing a story or title that includes question marks, you need to make sure to italicize the question mark when citing. Keep all punctuation, such as a question mark, comma, ellipses, colon, or exclamation mark, as it is in the original individual books.

If you want a funny and irreverent read, you’ve got to try Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. Chelsea Handler has done a phenomenal job of being vulgar, relatable, and explaining life from her viewpoint in this hilarious and memorable book.

The Digital Age: Are Book Titles Underlined Anymore?

MLA style used to dictate that a book title should either be in italics or underlined. However, that is no longer the case. As computers started to take over as the major tool used in writing, it became unpopular to underline book titles. Therefore, this rule was dropped from the style guides.

However, it should be mentioned that when handwriting an essay or research paper, many instructors prefer that you underline book titles, as it’s relatively difficult to handwrite italics. If you are in a writing course or a class that is heavy on handwritten work, be sure to ask your instructor or teacher which method they prefer for citing a book title.

How to Come Up with Book Title Ideas

Now that quotation marks, italics, and style guides have been discussed, let’s move on to how you can come up with your own book title. If you’d like a title for your book that sounds interesting and will get a reader’s attention, you may find this article helpful.

Coming up with a good title for your book is a challenging yet essential marketing decision . The right title can make your target audience choose your new book off of the shelf instead of another writer’s work. Your book cover and your book title are quite possibly the most important marketing decisions you will make.

How to Choose a Good Book Title

Certain criteria should be met if you want to have a good book title , and there are specific steps involved in getting there. You may have assumed up until now that titles of books were just spur of the moment decisions made by authors or publishers, but a lot of work goes into writing good titles.

Grab the Reader’s Attention

As a general rule, you want your reader to remember your title and to sound interesting, even without the reader having seen the cover. There are several ways to do this. You can be a little dark with your title, be controversial, provoke the reader, or even be funny.

There are many examples of such works that use memorable and attention-seeking titles. The following are some different titles that are effective and would most likely provoke a reader to grab them from a shelf for closer inspection.

Burn After Writing (Sharon Jones)
Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (Mindy Kaling)
Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea (Chelsea Handler)
The Devil Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger)
Chicken Soup for the Soul (various authors)
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (Kurt Vonnegut)

Shorter Titles

If your full title for your book is long, you may end up boring a reader or creating a situation where a reader tries to remember the title of your book, but it’s too long and ends up getting it confused with another book. Although you should always do your best to make sure that there aren’t books by other authors that share a title or have a title similar to your book (more on that in a minute), you don’t want a person to get confused and get the wrong book instead.

Research Your Title Ideas

It’s a good idea to take the titles you have considered for your book and make a list. Then, do your homework. You can use tools like Google Adwords to test out your title to see if there are others like it, or you can simply use any search engine and plug your title ideas into the search bar and see what similar or exact titles of the same words pop up.

Readers are generally busy people. They don’t have the time or the energy to ensure that writers get a title right. They’ll look for the book they are interested in, and if it proves to be too difficult, or if there are other books written that have the same title, they’ll move on to something else.

A writer really has to make sure that they have a title that isn’t going to be ignored, is interesting, isn’t too long, and isn’t too similar to other works.

The same goes for titles of short works within a larger body of work. Short works, like poems or stories, need to have unique titles as well when included in a larger body of work, such as a collection. If stories are similar in nature, be sure to title them differently so that readers will be able to tell them apart, as well.

120 Motivational Quotes About Writing To Inspire A New Writer Like You

How To Register A Kindle On Amazon To Enjoy Your Ebooks In 4 Easy Ways

How To Market A Self-Published Book And Be Profitable In 9 Easy Ways

All Editing
Manuscript Assessment
Developmental editing: use our editors to perfect your book
Copy Editing
Agent Submission Pack: perfect your query letter & synopsis
Short Story Review: get insightful & actionable feedback
Our Editors
All Courses
Ultimate Novel Writing Course
Path to Publication: Navigate the world of traditional publishing
Simply Self-Publish: The Ultimate Self-Pub Course for Indies
How To Write A Novel In 6 Weeks
Self-Edit Your Novel: Edit Your Own Manuscript
Jumpstart Your Novel: How To Start Writing A Book
Creativity For Writers: How To Find Inspiration
Edit Your Novel the Professional Way
All Mentoring
Agent One-to-Ones
London Festival of Writing
Pitch Jericho Competition
Online Events
Getting Published Month
Build Your Book Month
Meet the Team
Work with us
Success Stories
Novel writing
Publishing industry
Self-publishing
Success stories
Writing Tips
Featured Posts
Get started for free
About Membership
Upcoming Events
Video Courses

Novel writing ,

Chapters in a book: how to structure them well.

By Saul Bottcher

Chapter structure may not sound like the sexiest topic, but it has a significant effect on whether readers enjoy your story. As you strive to become a better writer , examining different aspects of your writing, perhaps you’ve wondered: How long should my chapters be? How do I structure my chapters and make them flow?

In this guide, we’ll talk about why chapters exist, and we’ll look at how you can enhance your reader’s experience by carefully considering the context, pacing, content, openings, and titles of your book’s chapters.

To start off, let’s look at a question whose answer might seem obvious: what is a chapter?

What Is A Chapter?

The most simple answer is that a chapter is simply a marked division of a book .

The origin of chapters is unknown, but they appear to have developed around or before 400 AD, alongside the concept of a table of contents. In many early examples, the front of the book would contain a numbered summary of each chapter. The reader could then find the corresponding number in the body of the book.

In reference books, chapters are still used in much the same way. They form part of an overall indexing and organising system that makes the book more useful as a store of information.

However, in novels and narrative non-fiction, book chapters serve a different purpose.

The rest of this guide focuses on chapters in novels and narrative non-fiction. To begin with, let’s clarify the difference between chapters and scenes.

How Chapters Work

In this section, we’ll look at how chapters work, how they differ from scenes, what they’re for, and how chapter lengths are assigned.

Chapters Vs. Scenes

Chapters and scenes are related, as they are both parts of a book , but they are not the same thing:

A scene is a part of your narrative, where characters experience certain events in a particular time and place.
A chapter is a division of your book, marked by a number or title.

In some novels, chapters contain one scene each.

More often, each chapter of a book will contain several related scenes. In this case, the scenes are usually divided from one another by whitespace, by a typographic ornament, or using a transition phrase in the text itself—but not by a number or title.

What Are Chapters For?

Unlike a reference book, you typically read a novel from front to back, often across multiple sittings. Chapters in novels support this experience in two ways:

Chapters mark appropriate “ pause points ”. These are moments where the reader can safely put down the book and forget those short-term details we normally hold in our heads as we read, like which characters are present, who just spoke, and so on. (A scene break can also function as a pause point within a chapter.)
Chapter divisions make the story more clear by creating a space when there’s a change in focus , such as a change in viewpoint or location, a jump in time, or a new type of action.

These two purposes often overlap.

Chapter Length

There are no hard rules about length when writing chapters. In addition to being functional, chapters in a novel are part of an author’s storytelling style and can be used in a variety of ways. But here are some guidelines to consider:

There’s no specific maximum length for a chapter. If a chapter is too long, you’ll probably notice that the pacing is slow, or that the chapter contains too many unrelated scenes. However, a long chapter can be appropriate for a climactic scene, or a passage that’s meant to feel arduous.
There’s also no specific minimum length for a chapter. Too many chapter breaks can annoy the reader, or come across as precious or grandiose. If a short chapter has the same focus as the chapter before or after, consider merging them and using a scene break instead. However, a short chapter can be appropriate when the action is quick (especially when switching between multiple viewpoints), or when emphasising a specific moment that you don’t want to clutter with details.
(For more detailed advice about chapter lengths, see our guide How Long Should a Chapter Be? )
Remember that chapters are not scenes , so not every scene break requires a new chapter.
When you keep chapter lengths consistent throughout most of your book, you establish a rhythm. You can then break this rhythm at a key moment to create an effect.

Now that we know how chapters work in general, let’s talk about how to structure them.

How To Structure A Chapter

The structure is an important part of how chapters are used, and it can be helpful to plan out your chapters and determine which type of structure works for you.

When To Plan Your Chapters

If you like to plan ahead, or if you like to write from prompts with word counts, you’ll do best by planning your chapters in advance. However, if you find that type of planning too constricting, it’s fine to ignore chapter divisions while you write your first draft. When that draft is complete, you can use your revisions to consider where to insert chapter divisions.

(Now, this isn’t to say you shouldn’t plan at all. See our guide How to Plan a Novel for advice on planning the broad strokes before you write that first draft.)

Structuring A Chapter: A Method For Everyone

Here’s a method anyone can use to structure a chapter. If you like to plan ahead, use these steps while plotting your book. If you prefer to write organically, then organise and revise, use these steps as part of your revisions.

Either way, this method will help you think about how to write a chapter by grouping and linking scenes, and cue you to whether there might be scenes missing that you should add, or superfluous ones you should (re)move.

Keeping in mind that every chapter is both a self-contained experience and also part of the complete story, consider these questions:

How intense was the previous chapter? Do we want to increase, decrease, or maintain that intensity?
What changed or what did the reader learn in the previous chapter? Do you want to elaborate on that immediately (consequences, added details, reactions), or do you want to switch focus (give the reader time to ponder or let their curiosity simmer)?
What was the emotional tone of the previous chapter? Do you want to maintain or contrast that?
Do you want the reader’s mind clear or preoccupied when the next chapter begins?
What emotional state do you want them in? Will the next chapter have its best impact if the reader enters it excited, demoralised, apprehensive, …?
What does the next chapter focus on? Can you prime the reader’s interest by planting questions that the next chapter will address? Can you make the next chapter feel fresh by avoiding unnecessary references to what it will focus on (“topic fatigue”)?
What does the reader need to learn, and how are you delivering that information?
Which events need to happen on-stage, which ones off-stage, and which are flexible?
If you have a multiple-viewpoint novel, which viewpoints are available to relay this chapter’s events?
What length is appropriate for this chapter?

As you answer these questions, you’ll get a good idea of which scenes should be included in a chapter and how they should be presented in terms of viewpoint, tone, and focus.

(Note—if you’re not clear on the overall plot of your novel, you’ll need to get that straight first before you worry about making chapters flow smoothly. See our guide How to Plot a Novel for advice and tools for plotting.)

Two Kinds Of Bad Chapters

Pay special attention to fixing two types of bad chapters: chapters where nothing happens , and chapters where things happen but nobody cares . If you have a chapter that’s not working, try these questions:

What is the most important thing that happens? Is the chapter built to support that event, or does it contain distractions and superfluous material?
Does this chapter exist solely to let you include a scene that you love? Can the story exist without this chapter? If so, try deleting it.
Does this chapter exist solely to move characters to new locations or otherwise “get them ready” for future chapters? If so, always delete it. You don’t need to announce location changes to the reader, you can have them happen off-stage and refer back to them with a single sentence. (“Mary touched down at LAX just as furious as when she took off. She’d decided to fly out the moment she learned of Frank’s act of embezzlement.”)
Is this chapter an infodump? If so, try to delete the entire chapter by diffusing your exposition into earlier chapters. At worst, you’ll tighten it up considerably.
Does this chapter handle its events in a memorable way? If you have a chapter that is focused and does what it needs to plot-wise, but it just isn’t that interesting, that can be a cue to think up a set-piece or a more original way of handling the action of this chapter.

Sometimes, deeply probing a bad chapter will help you to uncover deeper problems in your story structure. (In other words, maybe the chapter is bad because there’s no good way to tell it.) If a chapter feels bad during your early revisions, be a bloodhound and follow the trail until you’re satisfied.

How To Start A Chapter

Starting a chapter can be daunting in much the same way as starting a book . Luckily, some of the same advice applies.

Below is a process you can use for any genre. As before, use it as a planning tool or a reviewing tool, depending on your writing style.

Starting A Chapter- Reader’s Attention Method

Think of a well-planned tourist attraction: its entrance is carefully planned to focus and guide people to ensure their experience is enjoyable. The start of your chapter can accomplish the same thing using these steps: (1) tell the reader where they are, (2) get their attention, (3) put their focus where you need it, (4) lead them on from there.

To tell the reader where they are , use a chapter title, dateline, or opening sentence to provide them with a mental starting point. You might tell them whose viewpoint they’re in, or where the scene is set, or something that’s just happened. This is the equivalent of the tourist attraction’s “Welcome to …” sign.

To get their attention , don’t think “volume turned to 11” so much as “shiny object”. One technique is to force the reader to activate their mind’s eye by giving them a partial image. Another is to engage their analytical mind by creating an open question. Either way, you’re demanding that their mental resources be focused on the story—if half their brain is still on their grocery list, this will help them forget about it.

Now put their focus where you need it . Do you want the reader to watch a particular character’s movements? Speculating about someone’s intentions? Thinking about a particular problem or mystery? Use the image or open question from the previous step to bring their attention where you need it. For example, if you want their attention on a particular character, your opening image might be of something that character is touching, or of an article of that character’s clothing.

Now you’re ready to lead the reader onward . Let the natural action of your chapter begin to unfold.

Starting A Chapter—Example

Let’s create an example for a crime thriller novel. We’ll say our protagonist has been captured, and we want to set up a tense conversation between him and his captor, followed by an exciting escape sequence. We might try this:

Mojave desert, Monday, 2pm The pocket-watch was ornate; Civil War most likely. Jesse watched it swing from the brown suit jacket as the barrel chest paced back and forth in front of him, the voice droning on. Gold. Some sort of flowers or vines engraved on it. Diamond stud. Roman numbers on the face. Jesse looked up. His neck was burning. He hadn’t been able to loosen his wrists at all. McCallum was looking somewhere out on the horizon. Talking about loyalty and betrayal. Jesse was too dehydrated to focus on the details. Then McCallum stopped talking, and Jesse realised he could hear the pocket-watch keeping time—a dutiful witness to his final minutes.

Here’s how we developed our chapter opening:

We tell the reader where they are using a dateline, a common device in thrillers. The phrase “Monday, 2pm” tells us how much time has passed since the previous chapter. The fact that it’s daytime gives us the start of a mental image of the desert.
Now we get the reader’s attention with an initially vague description of the pocket-watch and its owner. Ornate, but how? And why is the owner above Jesse’s eye level?
Now we give the reader answers paired with more questions, focusing them on Jesse’s predicament. They realise that Jesse is tied up, kneeling, dehydrated, and apparently in mortal danger. The reader can see that the immediate concern of this chapter will be Jesse’s desire to escape this situation and that McCallum wants a final confrontation.
Now we’re ready to lead the reader onward to the action of the chapter: words will be exchanged, Jesse will attempt to escape, and the reader will anticipate the outcome.

This is just one way we could have started this chapter. Using the same method, we might instead have started with Jesse waking up in a dark, cramped space; hearing snatches of muffled dialogue; then realising he’s in a car trunk when it’s opened and blinding light streams in. The method is a checklist—your creativity fills in the blanks.

Now that you have a method for writing a chapter opening, let’s look at one final detail: chapter titles.

How To Write Chapter Titles

The first thing to keep in mind about chapter titles is that, unlike a great book title , they’re optional! Plenty of books do without them, so don’t feel obligated to include any if you don’t think it enhances your story.

If you do want to include chapter titles, think about what job they’ll be doing; this will point you toward which format to use.

Chapter Title Ideas

If you want to tease or foreshadow the events of the chapter, you can use your title to describe coming events in an abstract or concrete way. For example:

Chapter 7: In Which Bertie McLannister is Shot, But Survives

Chapter 13: The Showdown at the Mill

Chapter 21: An End to Suffering

If you just want a distinct title so your reader can tell chapters apart , you can pull the title from a memorable piece of dialogue or description. For example:

Chapter 34: I couldn’t forget you if I tried

Chapter 6: The temple, its battered walls defiant

If your novel jumps among multiple viewpoints , you can incorporate the viewpoint character’s name into the title. (Alternately, you can put the viewpoint character’s name in a dateline. This can be a better option if you plan to change viewpoints within the chapter as well.) For example:

Chapter 16: Lucy

Chapter 16: Lucy’s Story

Chapter 12: Jack Carter: The Showdown at the Mill

If time, timing, or location are particularly important, your title can incorporate a date or time. (Again, this information can also be given in a dateline.) For example:

Chapter 3: Mojave Desert, Monday, 2pm

Chapter 3: A dutiful witness—Monday, 2pm

These chapter title examples show some of the most common formats. Other possibilities exist—you can use any format that complements the experience you’re trying to create.

However, be sure to stay consistent. You shouldn’t vary the format of your chapter titles unless you have a good reason, such as two viewpoint characters with different ways of thinking—perhaps one is always acutely aware of the time, the other attuned to their mood.

Crafting Chapters

Using chapters with purpose will make your book (and your writing process) more satisfying.

In this guide, I’ve given you some tools for thinking about the context, purpose, structure, opening, and titles of your chapters. When you’re ready for the next step, one of the best sounding boards for your ideas is speaking with other authors.

About the author

Saul Bottcher is a regular Jericho Writers blog contributor, covering all things indie. He has served the self-publishing market for 8 years as a graphic designer and business advisor. His goal is to empower authors to build the career they want by understanding their business and their craft. For more on Saul, see his Twitter , website , or IndieBookLauncher , the platform he co-founded.

Help with getting published

How to get a book published
How long does it take to sell a book?
Tips to meet publishers
What authors really think of publishers
Getting the book deal you really want
7 Years to Publication

Get to know us for free

Join our bustling online writing community
Make writing friends and find beta readers
Take part in exclusive community events
Get our super useful newsletters with the latest writing and publishing insights

Or select from our premium membership deals:

Premium annual – most popular.

per month, minimum 12-month term

Or pay up front, total cost £150

Premium Flex

Cancel anytime

Paid monthly

Privacy Overview

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cfduid	1 month	The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.
__stripe_mid	1 year	This cookie is set by Stripe payment gateway. This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any patment information on a server.
__stripe_sid	30 minutes	This cookie is set by Stripe payment gateway. This cookie is used to enable payment on the website without storing any patment information on a server.
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
JSESSIONID		Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
PHPSESSID		This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cf_bm	30 minutes	This cookie is set by CloudFare. The cookie is used to support Cloudfare Bot Management.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_gat	1 minute	This cookies is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the colllection of data on high traffic sites.
GCLB	12 hours	This cookie is known as Google Cloud Load Balancer set by the provider Google. This cookie is used for external HTTPS load balancing of the cloud infrastructure with Google.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	2 years	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gid	1 day	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form.
_hjFirstSeen	30 minutes	This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions.

Cookie	Duration	Description
NID	6 months	This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress	30 minutes	No description
_hjid	1 year	This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample	2 minutes	No description
afl_wc_utm_cookie_expiry	3 months	No description
afl_wc_utm_sess_landing	3 months	No description
afl_wc_utm_sess_visit	3 months	No description
CONSENT	16 years 8 months 4 days 9 hours	No description
InfusionsoftTrackingCookie	1 year	No description
m	2 years	No description

Book Titles in Essays: Formatting Rules and Examples

How do you write the title of a book in an essay?

A short answer: You look at the assignment’s requirements, see the citation style you should use, and go to a corresponding manual to see what rules it prescribes for writing book titles.

That’s when you might hit a snag:

Most rules for the main styles — APA, MLA, and Chicago — seem identical at first glance. It’s easy to miss a preposition or punctuation rule, capitalize a wrong word, or forget about italics. The devil is in the details, and the final grade for your paper depends on them.

Why not gather the formatting rules for all the citation styles in one place so that it’s more comfortable to compare them and spot specifics?

We’ve got you covered:

In this article, our essay writers share the guidelines for citing book titles in five styles. You’ll see how to write a book title in an essay and how to introduce authors. For the sake of clarity, examples are also here.

What is the title of a book in an essay?

You have several options for formatting a book title in your essay.

First, you can mention it in the essay’s body if you are quoting or paraphrasing information from the book. Also, when compiling a bibliography of the resources you used for research, you’ll need book titles for the reference list.

A book’s title and the details of its author are also essential components in the structure of book review . You’ll mention it in the introduction before summarizing a book’s plot, characters, and themes.

How to put book title in essay:

Use italics
Don’t underline or use quotation marks, please
Don’t capitalize minor words like prepositions and conjunctions of three or fewer letters ( a, of, to, the, etc.) unless they are the first or last word in a book’s title

How to write a book title and author in an essay?

Details to consider:

Is it an in-text mention or part of a reference list?
Are you writing about an entire book or one of its chapters?
Does the book have one or several authors?
Does the book have a subtitle?
Is it an independent publication or a collection of essays, series, or short stories? Are you introducing a poem in your essay?

The answers to these questions will give you a clear understanding of how to write a book title and author in an essay. The formatting rules will depend on the above factors and the citation style you should follow. (We’ve covered the two main styles — APA and MLA — in our essay writing book , available on Amazon.)

There are also some general rules to remember, regardless of the style. Let’s move to them and explore the principles of citing book titles inside and out.

How to Introduce a Book in an Essay: General Rules

Here’s what all the styles agree on in terms of how to introduce a book in an essay:

1 — Italicize the titles of self-contained books. If you mention a novel, a movie, a stand-alone poem, a play, a database, or a website, there’s no need to use quotation marks. For example:

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
If by Rudyard Kipling

2 — The titles of parts within a book should go in quotation marks: chapter titles, titles of poems inside a collection, acts or scenes in a play, and so on. For example:

The Great Gatsby’s “Chapter 5: The Meeting”
“The Mirror of Erised” from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

3 — Capitalize both stand-alone book titles and the parts within a complete work. For example:

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
“Sometimes They Come Back” from Stephen King’s Night Shift

4 — When the title of a book goes within another title (like in cases with monographs about novels or poems), you should also use italics for independent works and single quotation marks for short stories and parts of books.

For example, this is how to write the title of a journal article containing the book’s title:

“The Unbearable Weight of Authenticity: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and a Theory of Touristic Reading.”

And this is how you’d write a journal article title containing the title of a short story:

“Individualism in O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.'”

When to use a capital letter is the trickiest part of writing book titles in essays. The rules vary between style guides and their editions, which can appear confusing and make it more challenging for students to align with the requirements and ensure consistency.

Below, we’ll explore how to put book title in essay according to five different citation styles: APA, MLA, Chicago, CSE, and AMA.

How to Write the Title of a Book in an Essay: Citation Styles

While most students use APA and MLA citation styles in their academic papers, some institutions also assign alternatives like AMA or CSE. We’ve chosen the five most widespread styles for this guide so that you can have all the rules in one place and see the tiny differences between them for more precise writing.

Here, you’ll find the book title writing guidelines for these styles:

APA (the American Psychological Association)
MLA (the Modern Language Association)
Chicago, aka CMOS (the Chicago Manual of Style)
CSE (the Council of Science Editors)
AMA (the American Medical Association)

We also recommend using an AI essay checker to revise your papers and reference lists once your drafts are ready. Whatever style you use to cite sources, this will help ensure that your text doesn’t look AI-generated. (Believe us, your teachers won’t appreciate it.)

APA is the documentation style that the American Psychological Association uses for citing sources. Originated in 1929, this form of writing is standard for social sciences like psychology, communications, sociology, and anthropology. Sometimes, it also relates to engineering, nursing, education, and other corresponding fields.

APA addresses manuscripts for journals and the academic papers students write in college. It’s the most popular and common citation style for the essays your teachers will assign during a course.

The latest version is APA Style’s 7th edition, released in 2020.

When it comes to formatting the title of a book in an essay, APA style’s requirements are easy to remember. Take a look:

Write the title in italicsDo not use quotation marks (unless you’re speaking about the book’s chapter, not the entire piece)Capitalize the first and last words, proper names, and all words of four or more letters ( etc.)Capitalize words that appear after punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, em dashes, etc.), even if it’s an article or a short prepositionCapitalize the second part of hyphenated wordsDo not capitalize articles ( ) or prepositions/conjunctions of three or fewer letters unless they come first or last
Examples:

Start with the last name, followed by the initials and separated with a commaIf a book has several authors, enumerate them alphabetically; use “&” before the last author in the listIf it’s an edited work, use the editor’s last name and initials and add “Ed.” In the case of several editors, enumerate them alphabetically and add “Eds.” after the namesIf the work has both an author and an editor, place the author in the beginning and add the editor’s name in brackets after the book titleIn the case of a corporate author, write the organization’s name in full
Examples:
Kulish, M.Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Hemingway, E., & Vonnegut K.Black S. . (White A. & Brown L., Eds.)American Psychological Association

MLA is a citation style created by the Modern Language Association and is mainly used in humanities like linguistics, literature, philosophy, and cultural and media studies. It’s the second most used style (after APA), with the most recent manual released in 2021 (the 9th edition).

The manual focuses on the formatting rules for in-text citations, which most users find challenging. It also has expanded guidelines on research papers, grammar mechanics, and inclusive language.

Here’s how to write a book title in an essay, according to MLA:

Write the title in italicsDo not use quotation marks (unless you’re speaking about the book’s chapter, not the entire piece)Capitalize the first and last words, proper names, all significant words, and subordinating conjunctions ( etc.)Do not capitalize articles ( ), prepositions (unless they come first or last), or coordinating conjunctions ( etc.)
Examples:

Start with the last name, followed by the first name and separated with a commaIf a book has several authors, enumerate them like on the title page: Use the last-first-name system for the first author and then name the others in the usual name-surname order. Place “and” before the last author in the listIf there’s a corporate author, use the organization’s name
Examples:
Yohansen, MaikKing, Stephen, and Owen KingModern Language Association

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) is more common for published works than college papers. Many see it as the top one for writers, editors, and publishers to follow when formatting content. Unlike APA or MLA, Chicago style provides two methods for documenting sources:

Author-date , recommended for works in the physical, natural, and social sciences. It requires using parenthetical citations in the text, with a corresponding entry on the reference page.
Notes-bibliography , recommended for works in humanities and some social sciences. It requires using numbered footnotes in the text, with a corresponding shortened citation at the bottom of the page and a fuller citation on the reference page.

The author-date system is similar to APA style and, thus, more common for college essays. When in-text, you mention the author, the date, and the page number (if applicable) in parentheses after the quotation. Like this:

Enlightenment thinkers, such as Kant, believed in the “universal, eternal, and … immutable qualities of all of humanity” (Harvey 1990, 12).

We can almost hear you asking:

“Can you write my essay in this format?”

Yes, we can. Whenever necessary, ask our academic expert for help with your written assignments. When asking your question, provide detailed requirements, including the citation style you need, so that they know what formatting rules to follow.

Below, let’s explore how to put a book title in an essay in CMOS:

Write the title in italicsDo not use quotation marks (unless you’re speaking about the book’s chapter, not the entire piece)Capitalize the first and last words, proper names, and all significant wordsDo not capitalize articles ( ), prepositions, or conjunctions (regardless of their length) unless they are the first or the last words of the title or come after a colon
Examples:

Start with the last name, followed by the first name and separated with a commaIf a book has several authors, enumerate them like on the title page: Use the last-first-name system for the first author and then name the others in the usual name-surname order. Place “and” before the last author in the listIf there’s a corporate author, use the organization’s name
Examples:
Bahrianyi, IvanGolding, William, and Harper LeeUniversity of Chicago Press

Previously known as CBE (the Council of Biology Editors), this style provided formatting guidelines for the editors of biology journals. Today, we know it as CSE (the Council of Science Editors), and it includes many scientific fields in the life sciences, the physical sciences, and mathematics.

As with CMOS, CSE style recommends two systems for documenting sources:

Citation-sequence , listing sources on a reference page according to the order of their appearance in the document.
Name-year , which is similar to the author-date system used in Chicago and APA.

The complete guide is available in Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (8th ed.) by the Council of Science Editors. Below, we’ll explore how to write a book title in an essay according to this citation style.


Do not use italics, underlines, or quotation marks for book titlesUse a sentence case; only capitalize the first word in the title, proper names, acronyms, and initials Examples: Plant cell culture: essential methodsThe man who loved childrenThe bridge of San Luis Rey	Start with the last name, followed by the initials and with no commas or periods between themIf a book has several authors, enumerate them like on the title page; use “&” before the last author in the listIf there’s a corporate author, use the organization’s name Examples: Salinger JDMoore A, Tolkien JRR, & Woolf VCouncil of Science Editors

AMA stands for the American Medical Association, so it’s a standard citation style in medicine. While it’s less popular than APA or MLA, we’ve decided to include it in this guide anyway, given that medical students might find it helpful.

Is AMA citation the same as APA?

Not quite. While sharing some nuances, the core difference between these two citation styles is that AMA doesn’t use an author-date system in the text. Instead, we use a superscript numbering system here. Like this:

“Smith² argues that….”

Also, unlike APA, AMA style doesn’t organize the reference list alphabetically, but numerically, based upon the order of the sources’ appearances in the text.

How to write the title of a book in an essay when you use AMA style:


Write book titles in italicsCapitalize all significant words, including two-letter verbs like “be” or “is”For book chapters, only capitalize the first words, proper names, and abbreviations that you’d typically capitalizeDo not use quotation marks Examples:	Start with the last name, followed by the initials and with no commas or periods between themIf a book has several authors, enumerate them like on the title page; use “&” before the last author in the listIf there’s a corporate author, use the organization’s name Examples: Fitzgerald FSBahrianyi I, Khvylovy M, & Pidmohylny VAmerican Medical Association

How to Format a Book Title in an Essay

Long story short, most citation styles agree on using the same format for book titles in essays: capitalized, italicized, and with no underlining or quotation mark (unless you write about a book’s chapter or a shorter work like an article, an essay, or a poem within a more extensive work).

Speaking of underlined titles:

When googling information on how to write a book title in an essay, you can find questions from people wondering if they need to underline titles in papers. It’s an old-time practice from when essays were written by hand: You can’t italicize when handwriting, so you underline a title to distinguish it.

Check any book review sample online, and you’ll see that underlining isn’t a common practice anymore.

How to format a book title in an essay in your reference list:


	Last name, Initials. (Year of Publishing). Publisher.	King, S. (2019). Scribner.
	Last name, First Name. . Publisher. Year of publication.	King, Stephen. Scribner. 2000.
	Last name, First Name. . Publishing place: Publisher. Year of publication.	King, Stephen. New York City (NY): Viking. 1989.
	Last name Initials. Year of publishing. Book title. Edition. Place of publication: publisher.	Schott J. 2002. Leading antenatal classes: a practical guide. 2nd ed. Boston (MA): Books for Midwives.
	Last name Initials. Publisher; Year of publication.	Gallagher EB. . Temple University Press; 1993.

So, How Do You Write the Title of a Book in an Essay?

Now that you’ve read our detailed guide on how to write a book title in an essay, let’s recap:

Read the guidelines from your teacher before writing: What citation style do you need to follow?
Check the manual for your assigned style (APA, MLA, or any other) to ensure that you format the book titles and author names correctly.
Most citation styles (except for CSE) tell you to italicize and capitalize book titles in essays. Nevertheless, proofread carefully to avoid mistakes with the formatting of prepositions, punctuation, and subtitles.

Are you looking for a title for your next paper? Get help from our essay title generator : Give it several keywords on your topic, and get relevant and creative titles that hook your readers.

Photo by Thought Catalog from Unsplash

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

What our customers say

Our website uses secure cookies. More details

Get professional help from best writers right from your phone

Grab our 3 e-books bundle for $27 FREE

CMOS Shop Talk

From the chicago manual of style, should your novel have chapter numbers or chapter titles.

Close-up of "CHAPTER 1" typed on a typewriter

Earlier this year, Fiction+ considered whether a novel should have a table of contents . Although it might seem to be a matter of personal preference, there are strong practical reasons for including or not including a TOC, depending on a book’s genre and format.

Is the same thing true when deciding whether chapters should be numbered or titled? A survey of my social media turned up a number of reasons to go one way or the other, along with some strong opinions:

Personal preference (“I like the look of numbers,” “I like the look of titles,” “I always use roman numerals, but then I’m weird,” “I hate chapter titles”)
Helpfulness in navigating (“Numbers make it easier to navigate, especially in an ebook,” “Titles make it easier to find my way around,” “Numbers aren’t memorable,” “Numbers are a helpful management feature”)
Reading experience (“I don’t like titles because they’re spoilers,” “I especially like it when titles are clever,” “I think titles are stupid and distracting,” “Titled chapters tell a story,” “A good chapter title compels me to read more”)
Publishing standards (“Titles are for nonfiction,” “Children’s books usually have titles,” “They vary from one novel to another,” “Author’s call”)
Random misinformation (“Agents ask for chapter numbers,” “Your book contract will say which you have to use,” “Fiction almost always has numbers,” “In self-publishing you can choose; in traditional publishing you have to follow the rules”)

Is There a Choice?

We can dispense with the idea that there’s a single right answer for novelists dithering over how to head up their chapters. While drafting this post I checked the chapters of fourteen New York Times best sellers in fiction for that week and found this breakdown:

4 novels used chapter (or part) numbers but no titles
4 novels used chapter titles but no numbers
6 novels combined numbers and titles for parts and chapters

While this is hardly definitive, it confirms that there is a choice, even within traditional publishing. To me it suggests that each writer, perhaps in consultation with an agent or editor, decided the best approach for their book. It’s also possible that the writer decided and no one objected in the course of preparing the book for publication. For what it’s worth, respondents to a quick Twitter poll strongly preferred a combination of number and title.

Table of contents and chapter opener in the Kindle edition of Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (New York: Doubleday, 2022), showing a combination of chapter numbers and chapter titles (e.g., “Chapter 1: November 1961”).

Does the Fiction Genre Matter?

While there are no ironclad rules for choosing between chapter numbers and chapter titles, fans of a given genre might intuit that there are trends. A writer then can decide whether the trend works for them. Every aspiring author will naturally read deeply in the genre they’re writing so as to get a feel for its traditions, whether to honor or flout them. Agents and editors can also be helpful in nudging writers one way or another toward choices that meet reader expectations.

What about Navigation?

When a reader wants to find a specific passage in a book, chapter titles may provide more helpful clues to its location than chapter numbers. The task is even easier if there is a table of contents. Arguably, then, when it comes to navigation, chapter titles plus a table of contents is the best combination for searching in any kind of book, although in e-books the absence of chapter titles will be offset by the ability to search by keyword.

It’s common for novels to have more than one main character and chapters that alternate between their points of view. In those books, readers depend on a title to identify who’s up in the current chapter or to locate other chapters from that character’s point of view.

Since most people don’t read a novel in one sitting, chapter titles can help readers find their place when they come back to a book. Titles also orient readers in the story going forward: the title can name a time and place, hint at or tell what’s going to happen, or create a mood.

Styling Numbered Chapters

Chapter numbers can be expressed in all kinds of ways. I suspect that many writers who number their chapters simply use the automatic numbering feature in their word processor without giving the style much thought. Then, in the graphic design stage of publication, the style might be changed for aesthetic reasons to match the book’s overall design.

1, 2, 3 I, II, III Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III One, Two, Three Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

Writing Chapter Titles

Chapter titles have few rules to follow. You can choose to write huge-long titles, titles that add up to a secret message, titles that are palindromes. Some writers take advantage of the opportunity to be creative with titles in a bid to intrigue or charm potential readers (i.e., buyers). But for most writers, the following basic conventions make sense:

Style chapter titles all the same. “Style” in this sense encompasses a number of choices. If your book has a table of contents, you can use it to quickly compare all the titles for basic consistencies. (At the same time, you can check that your TOC matches the chapter headings exactly.)

Capitalization: If you use title caps for the first chapter (Magic in the Forest), don’t use sentence caps for the second one (Mischief in the clearing).
Appearance: All chapter titles should be either flush left, centered, or flush right, in the same font and type size. That way an odd title won’t be misread as a part title or section title.
Syntax: A roughly parallel structure in the syntax of chapter titles is pleasing to readers. For instance, it’s traditional not to mix simple noun titles (Magic Forest) with sentence titles (Rosemary Goes to the Forest).
Punctuation: Especially when mixing chapter numbers and titles, give them consistent punctuation. Here are some options I’ve seen recently. Notice the variety: periods, commas, colons, and no punctuation at all.

1. The Battered Telephone

Chapter 3: Gloria

THREE Sadie, 2006

IV Better Times

4 Kettle’s Yard

Don’t end chapter titles with a period. Even if they could be a complete sentence (Rosemary Goes to the Forest), traditional chapter titles don’t have punctuation at the end, with the occasional exception of a question mark or exclamation point. This isn’t a rule; it’s just the default. A period at the end of a chapter title will look amateurish unless there’s a motive behind it that readers can discover.

Think twice about including essential information in the chapter title. Plenty of readers dislike chapter titles and ignore them. Keep that in mind when writing a title that conveys essential information that doesn’t appear in the chapter itself. Of course, if all your titles work that way, even recalcitrant readers will have to get on board. (I’m thinking of chapters that identify the speaker in that chapter, or titles like those in Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place Wrong Time (New York: William Morrow, 2022), e.g., “Day Zero, just after midnight” and “Day Minus Six Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight, 08:00.”)

Avoid spoilers. In nonfiction, readers like to know exactly what’s in a chapter. In a novel, spoilers—well, they’re called spoilers for a reason.

Help for Writers

Major self-publishing platforms offer templates that help ensure consistent design treatment of a book’s elements (whether a title is flush left or centered, how far it falls from the top margin, what font and type size it’s in, etc.). Professional book designers look after details like those—and many more—as they prepare a book for publication. Indie writers who aren’t sure of their own skills might consider hiring a graphic designer.

Publishing templates won’t expose errors in the text, however, and graphic designers don’t necessarily proofread for consistency in capitalization, punctuation, or spelling. A professional editor or proofreader can help with that.

Many top-selling novels feature chapter titles or a combination of chapter numbers and titles, at the risk of annoying readers who claim to hate them. While chapter numbers are also a perfectly respectable choice for fiction writers, titles make navigating a book easier and offer creative opportunities for inspired writers.

Typewriter image by WINDCOLORS / Adobe Stock .

Fiction+ posts at Shop Talk reflect the opinions of its authors and not necessarily those of The Chicago Manual of Style or the University of Chicago Press.

Please see our commenting policy .

Advice for Fiction Writers (and Editors), Chicago‑Style

Is a Comma Needed to Introduce Dialogue?

Does Your Novel Need a Copyeditor before Submission?

Discover more from cmos shop talk.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

International
Education Jobs
Schools directory
Resources Education Jobs Schools directory News Search

Can't We Just Print More Money? Lesson 5: Narrative writing

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

6 August 2024

Share through email
Share through twitter
Share through linkedin
Share through facebook
Share through pinterest

Lesson 5 (Chapter 7): Narrative writing. This lesson uses the chapter title: What actually is money? to help students understand ideas about the history of money and its value. Students will consolidate their learning by writing an opening or a chapter of a piece of dystopian fiction.

Part of a series of six-lessons, ‘Can’t We Just Print More Money?’ is based on a book of the same name, which was written by two of Bank of England economists.

The resource supports English Language specifications across a range of UK qualifications. Each lesson uses an extract from the book as the basis for analysis, critical evaluation, and discussion. It was developed in partnership with Jo Heathcote, a former principal examiner for a major UK awarding body.

In each lesson students can explore key economic ideas and reflect on popular literary texts. You can use them to support your school’s English curriculum or cross-curricular studies.

These lessons support specifications for: • GCSE English Language • iGCSE English Language • National 5 English

Creative Commons "NoDerivatives"

Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.

It's good to leave some feedback.

Something went wrong, please try again later.

This resource hasn't been reviewed yet

To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have downloaded this resource can review it

Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:

IMAGES

💣 Strong titles for an essay. How to Title an Essay: Tips and Examples
How to Title an Essay: Tips and Examples
How to Title an Essay: Tips and Examples
🏷️ How to write a title in an essay. How to Title an Essay: Tips and
How to Title an Essay: Tips and Examples
Title Page Formats: MLA Title Page Title Page Format, Title Page

COMMENTS

How to Write Chapter Titles in an Essay
Almost everyone has memorized a few writing convention rules over the years. Capitalize the first word in a sentence. Capitalize proper nouns such the name of a person, city or country. Some rules, such as how to write chapter titles in an essay, don't receive top priority in our memory banks. Whether or not you ...
10 Tips On How To Name Your Chapter Titles
Chapters Don't Need To Have A Title, They Can Be A Number. 2. Not Just Any Number But A Significant One. 3. Feel Free To Begin With Something Else, Other Than "Chapter". 4. Include Your Characters In The Chapter Titles. 5. Include Your Setting In The Chapter Titles.
MLA Titles
Use quotation marks around the title if it is part of a larger work (e.g. a chapter of a book, an article in a journal, or a page on a website). All major words in a title are capitalized. The same format is used in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. When you use the Scribbr MLA Citation Generator, the correct formatting and ...
Tips For Writing Interesting Chapter Titles
Either way, here are three things to consider when crafting chapter titles. 1. Aim for brevity. Short titles will create intrigue for your readers. As a writer, you want the title to sum up the central idea or point of the chapter. Many writers use working titles for the chapters as they write, and then come up with the final chapter title once ...
APA Style
here are certain things to keep in mind when writing a title according to APA style. Book titles are italicized and written using sentence case (only the first word of a title, subtitle, or proper noun are capitalized). Book chapter titles are written using sentence case and are not italicized.
How to Write a Book Title in an Essay (MLA, APA etc.)
Heart of Darkness ). Place the name of a single chapter in quote marks, instead ("The Great Towns" from Condition of the Working Class in England by Friedrich Engels). APA. Italicize the book title. Capitalize the first letter, the first letter of a subtitle, and proper nouns.
MAKE CHAPTER TITLES ENGAGING (HEADERS TOO)
Nancy Peske is a ghostwriter, developmental editor, and book publishing consultant who has done editorial work on books including bestsellers and award-winners for over 30 years. Nonfiction authors typically start writing chapter titles that are as vanilla as can be, but ultimately, you want to make chapter titles engaging for the reader.
Forging good titles in academic writing
Writing effective headings. Although similar, headings are not the same as titles. Headings head paragraphs and help structure a document. Effective headings make your paper easily scannable. Common high level headings in dissertations and research papers are "Methods", "Research results", and "Discussion". Lower level headings are ...
How to Write Book Titles in Your Essays
Exceptions to the Rule. The rule for writing book titles in italics applies specifically to running text. If the book title is standing on its own, as in a heading, there's no need to italicize it. Additionally, if the book is part of a larger series and you're mentioning both the title of the series and that of the individual book, you can ...
Capitalization in Titles and Headings
Capitalization in Titles and Headings. Published on December 22, 2015 by Sarah Vinz . Revised on July 23, 2023. There are three main options for capitalizing chapter and section headings within your dissertation: capitalizing all significant words, capitalizing only the first word, and a combination of the two.
3 Secret Functions of Your Book's Chapter Titles
Your book's chapter titles present chances to play the game again, with linguistic lures that can keep your audience turning pages way past bedtime. 1. Use Chapter Titles to Attract Your Audience. Names you know play this game well. Lewis Carroll points to Alice's travails with signposts like: "Down the Rabbit-Hole" and "The Pool of ...
6 Ways to Name Your Novel's Chapters
Thinking deeply about those words creates focus." - 3 Secret Functions of Your Book's Chapter Titles Of course, your chapter names likely won't be a make-or-break item for your novel. Still, well-named chapters do show readers that you put extra attention into even the smallest details of your story—and for many, that level of polish ...
Coming up with Chapter titles
Here are 8 ways to come up with book title ideas. Start free writing to find keywords. …. Experiment with word patterns. …. Draw inspiration from your characters. …. Keep your setting in mind. …. Look for book title ideas in famous phrases. …. Analyze the book titles of other books. …. Don't forget the subtitle.
Names and Numbers: Should You Name Your Chapters?
Some writers prefer to title chapters before writing them, using the title as a focus to guide the chapter's content. Others choose to add titles after writing the chapter, ensuring the title fits the content. This way, they can also draw from specific lines of prose or dialogue for inspiration. Ultimately, the choice between chapter titles ...
How to Write a Book Title in Essay [Examples]
Use capital letters to write the title of the novel. For example, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Use italics and capital letters to write the name of the author and his/her other works mentioned in a book title—for example, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813). You should use quotation marks when writing headings of short ...
Chapter Breaks & Titles: What Are Our Options?
Chapter titles can be hard to think up, discouraging us, or they can seem boring, discouraging readers. Our chapter titles could "feel" meaningful but not have obvious meaning to readers, even after they read the chapter, causing them to get distracted at the end of each chapter by trying to make sense of its title.
How To Write Titles in Essays (With Tips)
Whether composing the essay's title and subtitles or citing other works, your titling should remain consistent. Essays inspire and inform the reader, and effective titles reflect the mood and purpose. In this article, we discuss how to format titles within essays, along with tips you can use to craft compelling essay titles.
How To Write Book Titles The Proper Way: A Complete Guide For Writers
Book titles within essays or papers can be tricky. There are specific rules that are given for how to include a book title in a way that sets it apart from the content of your writing given by the Modern Language Association. ... Chapter Title. Another time that quotation marks should be used is when using the title of a chapter. If you are ...
Chapters In A Book: How To Structure Them Well
Chapter Title Ideas. If you want to tease or foreshadow the events of the chapter, you can use your title to describe coming events in an abstract or concrete way. For example: Chapter 7: In Which Bertie McLannister is Shot, But Survives . Chapter 13: The Showdown at the Mill . Chapter 21: An End to Suffering . If you just want a distinct title ...
Book Titles in Essays: Formatting Rules and Examples
2 — The titles of parts within a book should go in quotation marks: chapter titles, titles of poems inside a collection, acts or scenes in a play, and so on. For example: The Great Gatsby's "Chapter 5: The Meeting". "The Mirror of Erised" from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Should Your Novel Have Chapter Numbers or Chapter Titles?
Writing Chapter Titles. Chapter titles have few rules to follow. You can choose to write huge-long titles, titles that add up to a secret message, titles that are palindromes. Some writers take advantage of the opportunity to be creative with titles in a bid to intrigue or charm potential readers (i.e., buyers). But for most writers, the ...
Can't We Just Print More Money? Lesson 5: Narrative writing
Lesson 5 (Chapter 7): Narrative writing. This lesson uses the chapter title: What actually is money? to help students understand ideas about the history of money and its value. Students will consolidate their learning by writing an opening or a chapter of a piece of dystopian fiction.

How to Write Chapter Titles in an Essay

About the Author

Related Articles

How to Write Book Titles in an Essay

The Great Pumpkin Quiz

In Which Branch of Government Is the President in Charge...

How to Use a Comma in Dates

How Long is the AP Psych Exam?

True or False: Mars Edition

How to Address a Letter to a Mayor

How to Use a Website Picture in a College Essay

How to Properly Write Book Titles in a Report

How to Address a Letter to a Former President

How to Get Beyonce Curls

How to Start an Informative Paper

What Government Body Is Responsible for Interpreting...

Three Sections of the Constitution of the United States

How to Stuff Graduation Invitations

How to Place Captain Bars

How to Use Vocabulary Words in a Sentence

How to Find My Voter Precinct Number

How to Wear the American Flag Pin

How to Write a Letter of Request

10 Tips On How To Name Your Chapter Titles

Purposes Of Chapter Titles

1. Chapters Don’t Need To Have A Title, They Can Be A Number

2. Not Just Any Number But A Significant One

3. Feel Free To Begin With Something Else, Other Than “Chapter”

4. Include Your Characters In The Chapter Titles

5. Include Your Setting In The Chapter Titles

6. Add A Spark Of Magic To Your Chapter Titles

7. Go Back To The Basics: What Exactly Is Happening In This Chapter?

8. Resonate With Your Readers By Including Something Familiar

9. Punctuate Your Chapter Titles For Impact

10. Reinforce Your Novel’s Theme By Relating Back To Your Book Title

Bonus Tip: Consistency Is Key. Be Consistent When Naming Your Chapter Titles.

Now It’s Your Turn

You may also like

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Recent Posts

© 2017-2024 Nicole C. W.

Let's Connect!

You have successfully subscribed!

How long should a chapter be?

Factors to consider when determining chapter length

Balance pacing and storytelling with chapter length

How to generate chapter title ideas

1. Aim for brevity

2. Give readers an incentive

3. Paint a picture with imagery

How to decide on chapter titles

Proofreading and revising your book

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Recent Articles

How to Market a Self-Help Book to Boost Sales

Generate Greater Book Profits in 4 Easy Steps

How To Make Money From Poetry in 7 Ways

Setting Up Your Book for Future Growth

Library Locations at the Kent Campus

Regional Campus Libraries

APA Style - 7th edition: Specific Rules for Authors & Titles

Rules for Writing Author and Editor Information

Street Address

Information

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay (MLA, APA etc.)

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay

Guidelines for Writing a Book Title in an Essay

Why Is Proper Formatting Important?

Related posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Nancy Peske

Search Posts

Sign Up for Notifications

How to Write Book Titles in Your Essays

Italics or Quotation Marks?

Exceptions to the Rule

Punctuation in Book Titles

Find this useful?

Summary: Writing Book Titles in Essays

Frequently Asked Questions