Bear in the Outhouse. Chapter Titles and You

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This week on Carrie’s blog, carriejonesbooks.blog, she’s talking all about chapters and so we’re talking about them on the podcast, too, because Carrie’s controlling like that. And what we’re talking about specifically is chapter titles. You can divide your books into chapters and just label them numerically, 1, 2, 3… But you can also give them a title like: Chapter One Surviving the Podcast Here’s the thing. Chapter Titles Help Your Readers How do they help your readers? In a lot of ways. GRAB ATTENTION. You put these bad boys at the top of the chapter. And the reader thinks, “Ah! Look at that! I am paying attention.” TELL READERS WHO THEY ARE FOCUSING ON NOW. If you have a story with multiple point of views, you can put who this chapter is focused on here. SHOW LOCATION OR TIME CHANGES. You can give the reader some help. If you have a time jumping, place jumping novel. You can use this space to say, “Hey, we are in sexy Scotland in 2021.” Or you can say, “Look, we’re in Zambia in August.” SHOW THEME OR THE FUTURE. It’s like a happy little spoiler where the reader goes, “Oh, that’s what this chapter is about.” This can be about theme, too. SHOW ECHOES. A chapter title can be a first sentence. Summing it up: And there you go. A quick bit about chapter titles and what they can do for you. WRITING TIP OF THE POD Chapter titles are good tools. Use them. DOG TIP FOR LIFE Use whatever you can to communicate things to your human. Wag. Growl. Bark. Spin in circles. Hit them with your paw. They are stupid and need a lot of help understanding what you’re putting down. IN OUR RANDOM THOUGHTS WE TALKED ABOUT Bears in the outhouse Snake in an Inhaler SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. Our latest episode of LOVING THE STRANGE is here. It's about spontaneous combustion and poop styles. The visuals for our podcasts are all on Carrie's YouTube channel. You can like and subscribe there, too! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support