Is there a word for when a text is between chapters that enriches the story but is not part of the previous or following chapter?

Question

Is there a word for when a text is between chapters that enriches the story but are not part of the previous or following chapter?

I'm writing fiction and wanted to have in-universe news articles from time to time that are between the character story chapters. I looked to see how others have done so previously, but could not find a proper word for it.

Is there a word for it?

Something like:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

1-2 pages long text not part of chapter 2 or 3

Chapter 3

Is there a word for it, or does that sort of thing just become part of the previous or following chapter? (English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if this reads as an unclear question.)

Answer 1

One of my favorite authors, John Brunner, did this in a number of his novels during the late 1960s and early 1970s -- The Shockwave Rider, The Sheep Look Up, and a couple others as I recall. Robert A. Heinlein also did it in Time Enough for Love.

Apparently these are called an "interchapter". This isn't quite the same as inserting a (real or fictional) quote at the beginning of a chapter (proper epigrams); those are generally selected or created to fit with the text, often symbolically, while these "interchapters" may contribute tone or background, but often don't directly advance the story.

Answer 2

I'm not aware of a word that would specify textual content that lies between successively numbered chapters. I don't believe people think of it this way when they layout books of fiction.

There are two ways to consider this.

1. Your content is the last section of Chapter 2 or the first section of Chapter 3.

In this case you would call it a section. Different formatting might make it appear like it is set off from the chapters.

My e-book version of Frank Herbert's Dune uses this technique. Excerpts from a book, "Manual of Muad'dib," provide lead-in text for every chapter. The text is indented like a quote, then the chapter text follows. So, in this case the text of interest is the first section of the chapter.

2. Your content is a chapter without a heading (or with a heading if you prefer)

My e-book version of Jeff Wheeler's The Druid uses this technique. Between successively numbered chapters he has text that is a journal entry from another point of view. It is treated like a chapter and begins on a new page like chapters. It has no heading. In the table of contents, this in-between chapter appears with the first few words of the text rather than a chapter title. But it has no number.

In my e-book version of Dan Brown's Origin, he includes short news segments (as you are wanting to do) as their own numbered chapter.

While you are free to do whatever you want, when it comes to laying out the actual book, you will probably be required to choose one of these approaches: treating your in-between content as a chapter section or as a chapter on its own.