Named chapters or no?

So this might be a really simple and stupid question, but I've been thinking about if for the last few days...

I've always named my chapters, rather than just writing "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", "Chapter 3" and so on. I really like my chapter titles and feel they mesh well with the overall tone of my MS. But now I'm seriously starting to consider the query-process. I'm not there yet, but think I might be by the time summer hits. And I'm wondering if editors and agents would be okay with chapter titles, or if it's a requirement that my submitted pages are simply called "Chapter 1" and so on. The rules are pretty strict about line spacing and font, I wonder if it's the same with chapter titles?

Thankful for any thoughts on this!

Thanks for the great responses to my silly little question, guys!

D.L. Shepherd said:

This is the only experience I've had with it, so keep that in mind. My first MS was a memoir in which I titled all of the chapters. One of the small publishers who rejected it after reading the full told me never to name chapters, and that it gave away what was going to happen in the chapter, and she would have rather just read the chapters and discovered it for herself. Again, this was only one experience, but since then, I just number my chapters.

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A very good point! Personally, I like to think it can make the reader curious about a chapter, if you name it carefully, but... yeah, I can see where she's coming from.

lizmonster said:

As this is one of he easiest things to change, I strongly doubt anyone is going to reject because you used chapter titles.

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Yeah, hopefully. I mean, it's not like this is a hill I'm gonna die on either way, and like you said, it's easy to change. I was mostly curious what's the consensus around this stuff and interestingly, there doesn't seem to be one. Hmm...

Bufty said:

I don't use Chapter Titles, but if I did I wonder what the answer would be if I asked myself -

Why am I using Chapter Titles?

What difference would it make if they weren't there?

Whose benefit are they really there for?

Does the reader care whether I use titles or not?

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Hehe, the answers to those questions, for me, mostly boil down to enhancing the tone. Think of authors like Diana Wynne Jones, who, in my opinion, used chapter titles masterfully for humor and atmosphere. And no, the reader probably wouldn't care, but they might not mind either. Still, it's not like this is a major issue, I was mostly curious.

folclor said:

In my first project I didn't use chapter titles and in this one I'm trying to. It's a different way of doing things and they may not stick. But I'd agree with lizmonster that you likely won't be rejected for using them.

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Yeah, it's hard to explain, but I do feel like they add a little something extra, at least on certain projects. I've reverted to numbering the chapters before, but in this particular manuscript, I find it feels... right with titles. But again, I don't want to use them if agents are generally turned off by them.

Bufty said:

You like them, so use them. As other's said, it's not going to do any harm and they're easily removed.

High Five- twice!!

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Yeah, that's encouraging! Just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a dealbreaker for agents, like formatting seems to be. :') Thank you so much!

OMG HIGH FIVES!!!1!!!1

SKara said:

Personally, I like books that have titled chapters. I think they give an air of mystery to each chapter (because the titles often aren't that obvious - they don't actually give away the story; they just pique your interest). I can remember a few books that had titled chapters - The Night Circus, A Room with a View, Twilight.

Bertrand Russel's biography (written by Caroline Moorehead) had very intriguing chapter titles. D.L. Shepherd, I don't know why your publisher thought that naming chapters would give away the story. I think it would be perfectly fine to use titles in a memoirs (I especially like them in memoirs - I think they just give a little something extra to every chapter).

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Same! Like with everything else, I guess it's all about how you use them. Maybe not make them too obvious, y'know? My favorite thing is when the chapter titles have several meanings at the same time. I've got a few of those in my MS, and I'm riddiculously proud of 'em. XD

Gaaah! I'm so behind on this thread! Sorry guys, been deep in the revision trenches as of late! It's nice to hear that so many people are in favor of chapter titles, though! I think I am going to include them, but, like some of you have pointed out, I'll polish them a few extra times to make sure they don't give anything away. Here's to hoping I'm clever enough!

Thank you so much to all of you for responding!

blacbird said:

I bang my forehead trying to come up with a sensible reason why anybody asks this question (which we've had here many many times before. The most minimal perusal of novels at the bookstore or library will demonstrate that it is complete nonsense.

caw

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Um... okay? Sorry, I guess...