Do you like your chapters named or numbered?

There’s an interesting article linked on The Passive Voice blog about the importance of a table of contents, especially in ebooks.  The article is geared mostly for non-fiction, which is a whole different beast from novels and novellas, but the discussion on TPV got me thinking: for ebooks, is it better to name chapters or to merely number them?

In the comments section on TPV, Jamie makes an interesting point:

With e-books in particular I think there needs to be more care taken with the TOC. I can easily find my place with a print book even without a book mark, but with an e-reader, it’s possible to lose your place very easily, and “loc 4950″ is not going to be committed to my memory banks. I know what happens in the chapter titled “His Grace of Avon Takes Command of the Game,” but I’m not sure if that was chapter 16 or 15 “loc 1730″ or what. I won’t remember the number.

For organizational purposes for my own use I title my chapters, and I believe that readers will appreciate that habit, too, and will be more forgiving if they use the Look Inside feature and see those headers vs. if they just see “1, 2, 3.”

I try to make sure the titles are enticing and pique the curiosity of anyone who would see them in a TOC. They’re not spoilers, because unless you’ve made it to the end of the previous chapter, you’ll likely have no idea what the next chapter’s title is referring to (and if it is obvious, it simply increases the suspense/curiosity). The titles Makes Sense in Context (TM).

When I first learned how to make an ebook, the concept of a table of contents for a novel seemed pretty weird.  I was used to reading print books, which you can flip through much easier and find what you’re looking for just from the feel of the pages.  But with ebooks, obviously that’s much different.  A table of contents is more than just a list of chapters, it’s an important navigational tool that can’t be overlooked.

But if chapter hyperlinks are perhaps the only way to flip through the middle of the book, does that mean that merely numbering the chapters is insufficient?  I have to admit, the concept of naming each chapter seems a bit old-fashioned, but the technology has changed and as writers, we need to change with it.

In the context of a hyperlinked table of contents, numbers are practically meaningless.  They can even be quite ugly, if there’s a huge list of them that sprawls beyond the screen.  Chapter titles can sprawl even more, but they at least provide some idea of what lies on the other side of the link.

I’ve done it both ways.  For example, the table of contents for Genesis Earth looks like this:

Table of Contents

Copyright Page
Table of Contents

The Wormhole | The Mission | Terra | Cryothaw | The Ghost Ship | Trust and Deception | Betrayal and Discovery | Arrival | First Contact | Call and Answer | Earth | Rescue | Emotion and Reason | Planetfall | The Natives | Origin and Destiny | A New Genesis | Epilogue

Author’s Note | Acknowledgments

Most of the chapter titles are pretty mysterious, but I was kind of going for that.  And in any case, is it possible to make them completely unambiguous without spoiling key parts of the story?  It seems like the art of naming chapters is much subtler and more complex than you’d think at a first glance.

In contrast, the table of contents for Desert Stars looks like this:

Table of Contents

Copyright Page
Table of Contents

Prologue
Book I: Dome and Desert
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Book II: Sand and Stars
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

Author’s Note | Acknowledgments

I kept the numbers for the chapters, but divided the novel into two sections or “books” and listed the numbered chapters as minimally as possible, to save space.  I suppose it looks all right, but as a guide to navigating the book, I’m not sure how useful it is–not to mention how hard it can be to click on a hyperlink that’s only one character long, especially on a touchscreen.

For Journey to Jordan, there were so many entries that I didn’t bother listing them all in the table of contents.  Instead, I divided each part into sections based on location, then listed the locations in the table of contents and the posts/chapters at the head of each section, complete with hyperlinks.

As a side note, it’s actually pretty amazing how internal hyperlinks can change the experience of the book.  For one thing, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for alternate endings and “Choose Your Own Adventure” type stories.  Is it possible to list a chapter in the <manifest> without including it in the <spine>?  I don’t think it is (at least, not in a well-formatted ebook), but if you could find a way to do that, you could add all sorts of hidden content and Easter eggs …

In any case, for my shorter Star Wanderers novellas, I think I actually prefer numbered chapters.  The stories are short enough that the numbered subdivisions still have meaning, and the chapter lists aren’t long enough to look too cluttered.  Besides, I’ve already started the series in this particular format so I think it will be better to keep it this way.

But for future books and future series … I don’t know.  What do you think?  Are ebook chapters better off named or numbered?