I like creating titles. I do. But I usually don’t bother creating titles for chapters in my novels. I just number them, as in the case of Old Blood’s Fate or in Last Car to Annwn Station I use a day and date as a countdown. My three completed unpublished novels have followed this format.
But Ghosts of the Places We Live wants something more vibrant. It wants each chapter to have its own title and its own distinct personality. I’m going to tease you a little bit now with the tentative chapter titles, even though I still haven’t actually written any prose to go with them (don’t worry, I have scenes and such for each chapter in my head and plan to start outlining them this week). Some of these many never be used. I may create new titles once the prose is written. But for now, these are the ones I’m working on.
Here, have a taste of what is to come.
“All the Prairie Knows Her Name”
“And None Knew Her to Cry”
“Apparitions of Faded Glory”
“Bereft of Kith, Bound by Kin”
“Dust Bowl Druids of Judgment Day”
“In Hands Softer Than Cotton, We Hold Our Yesterdays”
“Move Along Home, Wandering Son”
“Offerings in Blood and Dust”
“Sleep the Whole Summer Long”
“Sons and Daughters of the Grassy Plains”
“Spectral Letters from a Brass Combination Box”
“The Boy Who Became a Story”
“The Ghostly Dispatch”
“The Girl with the Red-Clay Heart”
“The Heart of the Keystone”
“The Intimacy of Books”
“The King of Crops and the Queen of Dirt”
“The Waitress of the Lake”
“Under Stone We Bury Things Most Dear”
“Waking the Bones of the School”
“Where the Rivers Run Red”
How do you handle chapter titles and headings?
Ghosts Of the Places We Live
Never titled chapters for public consumption, just my own reference. Closest I come is publishing a series of stories which are episodes of a longer story: Night Shift of the Living Dead, His Bright Tonic, and The Adventure of the Toughened Twin — so far.