Up until my most recent novel, I didn’t assign a name to my chapters other than their number (i.e. “One” or “Thirty-Three”). While I generally have an idea of the theme for each chapter, it wasn’t until I switched to using Scrivener this past November that I was forced to actually think about using them; I’m not generally a fan of changing my way of working due to software, but in this case, for the first time it started to make sense that I might want them.
To be clear, the titles I had in place while writing Ditched were not meant for prime time and won’t make it into the final manuscript, but it was fairly cool to look them over and see how the pattern of the story was represented by them. That, and I have a wild sense of humor when it comes to picking them. Much like the actual names of my novels, the chapter titles had a similar dual meaning – the obvious, and then the one that appears as you work through that section. Picking them was actually far harder than I realized, and in some cases, the chapter titles adjusted as I edited to fall in line with the content.
Will I use them?
I don’t know. Maybe? They aren’t that common in the mystery genre, which is my current space, and with good reason. The last thing I want is the reader to be able to divine more than they should simply based on the chapter names… unless the author became particularly devious about choosing them… hmm…