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beruon t1_j1g43pc wrote

Reply to comment by moeru_gumi in What are some techniques used in books that you just love for some weird reason by shorttompkins

Titles I love, excerpt type stuff like in some childrens vook I always HATED with passikn even when I was a kid. "Chapter 3, where Winnie goes over to Rabbit for a tea party". Like even as a kid I was like "CAN YOU NOT SPOIL THE WHOLE STUFF???". For the brief time my parents were reasing to me (brief, bwcause I leanred to read at age 5 lmao) I always asked them to skip that

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moeru_gumi t1_j1g7td6 wrote

Keep in mind that A. A. Milne, who wrote Winnie the Pooh, was born in 1882.

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This reddit thread gathers some information that chapters starting with "In Which Our Hero Goes To Have a Tea Party" etc etc. is a style from the 1700s and 1800s.

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatstheword/comments/8t9hjr/wtw_for_chapter_titles_that_all_start_with_in/

When he had stories read to him as a child, they could have easily been from the 1700s, like Winnie The Pooh, Sherlock Holmes, The Wind in the Willows, and A Christmas Carol are read to us and are over 100 years old now. When he wrote chapters in Pooh that describe the plot in the chapter title, he was probably doing it as a sort of quaint throwback to his own childhood reading. When it bothered you in your childhood, you were reacting to a nearly three hundred year old writing trope.

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beruon t1_j1g7zei wrote

Damn thats interesting. Does not change my thoughts on it, but its really interesting how old id a trope is that! Thanks!

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