Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Bear in the Outhouse. Chapter Titles and You
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
LET’S HANG OUT!
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
JUST CLICK ON THIS LINK AND FIND OUT HOW WE CAN INTERACT MORE.
And to hear our podcast latest episode for DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE about killer trees and writing conflict.
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!
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.
And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.
Here’s the link. This week’s podcast is all about loving places and feeling called to them when you have never been there before.
LET’S HANG OUT!
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
JUST CLICK ON THIS LINK AND FIND OUT HOW WE CAN INTERACT MORE.
And to hear our podcast latest episode for DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE about killer trees and writing conflict.
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!
Brought to you by Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar of Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
