19 Comments
  1. The big news here is that I’ve finally, *finally* finished the year-plus rewrite of my WIP.

    The WIP itself isn’t finished, because my process (for novels, at least) is to get part-way through and then do a rewrite of the partially-finished draft before going on to produce the first complete draft. In this case I needed to do some surgery on the timing of events, and it turned into a much bigger job than expected.

    But the rewrite started when I had eight chapters plus an unfinished chapter nine, and now (finally!) I’m pushing on with a first draft of chapter ten.

  2. We’re going to need our roof done in the next couple of years too. What fun. (Or maybe: What? Fun?)

    I did something with my latest novel I haven’t seen elsewhere, to add depth and resonance. What do you think of my chapter headings?

    One: When We Take a Step
    Two: Our Shadow Walks Behind
    Three: On the Day We’re Born
    Four: A Darkness Assigned
    Five: Our Eyes Turn from Darkness
    Six: We Try to Walk Away
    Seven: Its Presence Always With Us
    Eight: Absence Must Stay
    Nine: As Time Strides On
    Ten: Our Steps May Slow
    Eleven: Shadowed Closer
    Twelve: We Onward Go
    Thirteen: Wish We To Be Followed
    Fourteen: Yearn To Tread Alone
    Fifteen: Feelings Frustrated
    Sixteen: Reaping, We’ve Sown
    Seventeen: A Journey Shadowed
    Eighteen: Can Leave Us in Dread
    Nineteen: Leading Our Lives
    Twenty: But Secretly Led
    Twenty-One: We Walk—Run—We’re Fleeing
    Twenty-Two: We Try, It Matters Not
    Twenty-Three: The Light We’re Never Seeing
    Twenty-Four: The Fate We’ve Never Sought

    (P.S. I’m not trying to sell anyone anything. I’m retired, and all my work is free now.)

    • Clever. That’s the sort of thing I would completely overlook at first and would later notice it and marvel.

      I personally love chapter titles, which are becoming increasingly rare. They add a dimension lacking in the soulless numbers usually implemented.

      Of course, coming up with chapter titles can be a chore.

      • Thank you.

        I admit I came up with the poem, intending to put it in the front matter, then realized I could make it the chapter headings. 🙂

        I’m rarely satisfied with them, though. In a few words I need to imply something’s happening, but not spoil the chapter. Not easy.

    • That is very cool! Did you do it before or after the chapters were written? Because if I wrote something like that for a prolog, I’d NEVER manage to make the chapters come out right.

      • Thank you very much!

        What I did was, I wrote the poem while I was still working up the story at the idea stage.

        I’d written maybe four chapters, when I realized I could use the poem as noted. I then went back to the four chapters written and made a few changes – but mainly I made sure for those four and the rest going forward that I reflected the wording if nothing more. E.g. Chapter One gives some back story, and I made sure to mention the birth. One protagonist had a problem mother, and I addressed her in Fifteen.

        I think my biggest achievement with the whole thing was coming in around the word length I was aiming at (100k), with 24 chapters, none too short *or* long!! 🙂

  3. Still getting ducks in a row to get a book out the door.

    • Those pesky publishing details always take me longer than I remember! Do you have a release date yet?

      • The plan is one last check for spelling errors after a stay on the back burner so I can see them. These can be unpredictable.

  4. I like the chapter headings too. They’re out of fashion, but you can occasionally do some cool things with them — as in Kevin’s example! (And, if nothing else, they help me remember what was happening in which chapter.)

    Rick

  5. I’m trying chapter headings for the first time on a multi-chapter fanfic I’m writing, and I decided to take a leaf from the Enchanted Forest books and start each one with “In Which…” The story is a take-off on Cinderella, so I thought that would add to the fairy tale feeling.

  6. I’m publishing the first story in a series composed of short stories rather than novels. The stories circle around the events in the Persephone-Hades myth.

  7. I am likewise stuck with roof issues. First, the peaked part of our roof had been assembled without felt, so we spent £30k on everything from new insulation to chimney repointing to bring everything up to code. We moved in and instantly the flat part of the roof started leaking! That’s another £10k upcoming… so I feel your pain, and hope your costs aren’t as horrific as mine!

    • My roof was just old. I could probably have gone another couple of years before replacing it, but I found water in the garage after a rainstorm…by the wall that backs up on the library. And I panicked.

      All done now, except for the city inspection.