[General] Chapter Title Capitalization

[MomDee]

When writing a novel should the names of chapters be capitalized?

 

[Tarheel]

Yes. Are you writing a novel?

 

[MomDee]

No, I'm not the author. I'm editing and proofreading for a friend who is writing a novel.

 

[tedmc]

Chapter titles are still titles, so they should be. Have a look at the content page of any book.

 

[MomDee]

Thank you. I agree that they should be capitalized. Unfortunately where I had been inquiring previously, I was getting mixed responses; some yes & some no re: capitalization; some saying just the first word of the chapter title which made no sense to me whatsoever. Thanks again for your response.

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, MomDee.

Traditional rules of capitalisation are frequently ignored for stylistic reasons by authors and publishers. You'll see not only uncapitalised chapter headings but also book titles in lower-case letters.

(Incidentally, '&' doesn't look good in standard text.)

 

[MomDee]

Thank you for your feedback. I'm old school and firmly believe that all titles should be capitalized. I agree, it doesn't look good in standard text. I don't think it looks good in lower case either as it just doesn't stand out like it should. Thanks again!