I like to start my chapters with a quote, I know it's not uncommon, but I was wondering what people think about it as a reader? 🤔
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The Last Philosopher: https://books2read.com/b/m0pJYA
Starting chapters with epigraphs suggests that there’s something else with which the text is in conversation. (In historical fiction, this could be real historical sources; in scientific works, it could be earlier theories; in parody, it could be quotes from the target.)
In worldbuilding, you could use real-world quotes to imply that your world is in conversation with the actual world; or you could use quotes from fictional in-world sources to imply that your text is part of a larger in-world literary context. But in either case, it draws attention to the idea that the text is constructed, which may or not be what you’re going for.
@AbouBenAdhem I use quotes from characters made up by me or anonymous quotes from the world I'm writing, so I definitely use it as a bit of extra worldbuilding or "larger in-world literary context."
Not sure what you mean by "the text being constructed" isn't all text? 🤔😁
Not sure what you mean by “the text being constructed” isn’t all text?
It’s pretty common since movies became popular in the 20th century to write fiction in a way that emulates that cinematic sense of immediacy, by removing anything that foregrounds a distinct narrative voice outside the thoughts and sensations of the protagonist(s). By convention, readers take this style of narration for granted and ignore that it’s still a construction (i.e., the narrator isn’t felt as a conscious presence creating the narrative, distinct from the protagonist.)
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I love/hate when the quote is from some fictional 'ancient' in-world text.
love it because: world-building
hate it because: I want to read the whole thing and it doesn't exist.
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It depends how interesting and/or relevant it is.
Dune actually only has quotes (imaginary) separating "chapters".
Most of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have simple scene breaks and no chapter breaks*. Footnotes are annoying in fiction and eventually Pratchett stopped doing them. They also don't work well (or at all sometimes) in real ebooks as they don't have design-time pages.
[* some others seem to lack chapters]
@raymaccarthy I know people don't like footnotes, but I guess I'm the odd one there because Ihonestly I loved the footnotes in Pratchett's earlier works and was sad to see them go...
I guess overall I'm less worried about the design and more about what the quote itself adds to the story 🤔
@NickEast_IndieWriter
I edited a novel with 100s of footnotes.
Many were simply that the author was enamoured with Pratchett's style and the content could be put in dialogue or narration. Short ones work well as a kind of marginalia: put them after the paragraph but slightly smaller, a clean Sans & right justified in [ ].
The remaining long ones as "end notes" after the chapter (but linked by word & number, & linked back) in ebooks, but as real footnotes on paper.
Academic works need them.
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"good if it adds, meh if it doesn't,, blearg if it seems clunky or incomprehensible" - sorry to be vague but it depends.
Nick East (Indie Writer)
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