Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Is it confusing to name a chapter after a non-POV character?

I've got another chapter title question. In the first chapter of my story, a significant secondary character is introduced, and I think it makes sense to use the character's name as the chapter ti...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Llewellyn‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question titles chapters
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:47:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/47556
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Llewellyn‭ · 2019-12-08T12:47:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
I've got another chapter title question.

In the first chapter of my story, a significant secondary character is introduced, and I think it makes sense to use the character's name as the chapter title. This character is an established literary figure (and clearly referenced in the story summary), so I expect readers to recognize them by name alone. The character only appears on page near the end of the chapter, but there's plenty of build-up before that.

However, I'm wondering whether that could be confusing, whether readers would expect a character mentioned in the title to also be the POV character.

For what it's worth, my story is written in omniscient third person, focusing on different characters in turn. The titular character does not get a POV in their introductory chapter (which is clear from the start), but will get occasional POV scenes in later chapters. Also, I don't intend to follow the "POV character as chapter title" system anywhere else in the story.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-08-25T14:11:54Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 1