Titles. We all need them for our books. I enjoy coming up with titles for my novels and stories but it can be a lot of work. Just like writing.
My first library cozy mystery was originally called Death Due. I changed it to Due Death, an attempted play on “due date,” but decided I didn’t like that and changed it back to Death Due as I worked on the first draft. Later, I realized that was too generic, and didn’t jazz me, so I brainstormed a new title.
Almost at once a play on Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying sprang up in my mind: A Shush Before Dying. The novel was set in the eighties, when silence was still enforced at a public libraries. One of the shushers winds up dead.
The second title for book 2 in my library cozy mystery series came almost at once: Book Drop Dead. Sometimes coming up with a snappy title is a snap. However, most of the time for me there’s a lot of skull sweat involved.
Today’s Words of Wisdom tackles titles, giving advice and examples on coming up with ones that will help catch a reader’s interest. We have excerpts from PJ Parrish, Mark Alpert and Ruth Allen. As always, it’s well worth reading the full posts, which you can find linked from the bottom of the respective excerpt.
In twelve years of teaching workshops and doing critiques I’ve have seen maybe one title that I thought really captured the book’s tone. (It was our own Kathryn Lilly’s Dying To Be Thin.) So I know how hard this is. Here is my advice on titles, for what it’s worth:
- Capture your tone and genre. Go on Amazon and look up books similar to yours (cruise the genre bestseller lists). Words have inflection, mood and color. Choose them carefully.
- Grab the reader emotionally. Two titles that do it for me: The Unbearable Lightness of Beingand The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- Don’t settle for clichés. Yes, it’s hard to come up with fresh permutations on old standby words (especially in genre fiction where we rely on “dark” “blood” “death” etc.) But you have to find words that are unique about your story and draw upon them. Here’s a great title that twists a cliché word: Something Wicked This Way Comes.
- Don’t use empty arcane words that you think sound cool. Examples of bad titles: The Cambistry Conspiracy. (about world trade) The Hedonic Dilemma(about psychology ethics). Penultimate to Die. (the second-to-the-last victim). Don’t worry…I made these up.
- Create an expectation about the story. You know why I love this title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? It makes me say, “Oh yeah, buddy? Show me!” and he does.
- Be brief and punchy. Okay, I know I just gave you a bunch of long titles I love but there is something wonderful about short titles and studies show most bestsellers have short titles: Gone Girl So doesTell No One, Lolita and Jaws (original title A Stillness in the Water).
- Make the title work on other levels. This is hard but worth the brain-sweat if you can do it. Consider what these titles come to mean once you get deep into the stories: Catch 22, Silence of the Lambs. But don’t get too clever. I love Louise Ure’s book Forcing Amaryllisand the title is brilliant because it is about a rape and murder. But do most understand that the title is from a gardening term about forcing a plant to bloom early? Not so sure.
- Make a list of key words that appear in your book. Is there something you can build on? For our book A Killing Rain, the title came when I heard a Florida farmer describe that drenching downpour that can kill off the tomato crop and we used it in the book. The title was there all the time and we didn’t see it at first.
- Search existing works — the Bible, poetry, Shakespeare. I found our title An Unquiet Gravein an 17th century English poem.
- Write 20 titles and let them sit for a week or so. Go back and read them and something will jump out. Find some beta-readers you can test with. Titles usually evoke visceral immediate responses. You will know immediately if they connect.
And last: Never get emotionally attached to a title. It’s the worst thing you can do because it probably will be changed. Or needs to be. Because your first title is usually, as T.S. Eliot said, a prosaic every-day thing. You can do better. It’s there. You just have to dig deep. Sweat out that great title that Eliot called the “ineffable, effable, effanineffable deep and inscrutable singular name.”
PJ Parrish—April 16, 2013
Choosing a title for your novel should be fun, right? So why is it often so frustrating?
I think it’s because there are so many requirements for a good title. It has to tell the reader, in a general way, what the book is about. It also has to convey the tone of the book — a light, amusing title for a lighthearted novel, a heavy, ominous title for a dark, creepy thriller. It can’t be too similar to titles of other recently published or very well-known books. And it shouldn’t carry the baggage of unwanted associations. Above all, it has to be catchy.
One could argue that novelists shouldn’t worry so much about titles. This is an area where the publisher has the final say, because the title is so important to the marketing of the book. The author can make suggestions, but the publisher has veto power. And I’ve learned that the best titles often come out of brainstorming sessions between the author and editor after the book is finished. But I can’t start a novel without giving it at least a working title. I can’t just call it a work-in-progress. Would you call one of your kids a work-in-progress? (Although that’s what children are, really.)
I’ve written four published novels, and each had a working title that was different from its ultimate title. When I started writing the first book I called it “The Theory of Everything” because it was about a dangerous secret theory developed by Albert Einstein to explain all the forces of Nature. (Einstein himself called it Einheitliche Feldtheorie, the unified field theory.) But that wasn’t such a great title for a thriller. It seemed better suited to a literary novel. (And, in fact, there are several literary novels titled “The Theory of Everything.”) So my editor and I put our heads together and came up with “Final Theory.” That seemed more compelling and yet still true to the subject of the book, because physicists believe that if they ever do discover a theory of everything, it will also be a final theory (because they will have nothing fundamental left to discover).
Mark Alpert—May 17, 2014
Meaning before details.
According to John Medina of the University of Washington, the human brain requires meaning before details. When listeners doesn’t understand the basic concept right at the beginning, they have a hard time processing the rest of the information.
Bottom line for writers: The title and the cover—image plus title—have to work as a unit to explain the hook or basic concept first. Wrong image and/or misfit title confuse the would-be buyer and you lose the sale. On-target image plus genre-relevant title and the reader/agent/editor will look closer.
Your cover indicates visually by color, design and image what the reader can expect inside—a puzzling mystery, a swoony romance, futuristic scifi, or scary horror—but the first words the prospective reader/agent/editor sees are the ones in the title.
Your title tells readers what to expect.
You’re unpublished but your title is awfully close to Nora Roberts’ newest or…ahem…a clone of James Patterson’s most recent? Come on. Get real. Please. For your own sake.
Your book is about a modest governess in 19th Century London who falls in love with the maddeningly handsome Prince who lives in the castle next door, but your title promises hotter-than-hot, through-the-roof sales like, oh, maybe, 50 Shades Of Grey? Really? 51 Shades of Grey is the best you can come up with? Seriously?
If you’re in a quandary about choosing a title for your book here are Anne’s 10 Tips for Choosing the Right Title for Your Book.
You can also research successful titles in your genre for inspiration. Whether your genre is romance or suspense, you will find that certain words recur. Just be aware that most publishing contracts give the publisher the right to change the title. Sometimes the author is pleased.
Other times? Not so much. (Don’t ask me how I know, but horror stories abound.)
If the title you’ve chosen for your book is your idea of the one and only, check your contract to make sure you have the last word on title. The reality, though, is that few author have this right and, if you’re just starting out, you won’t. Sorry about that, but it’s the reality.
If you’re self-pubbing, you control the decision about titles. And, if you think of a better title in the future, you can easily change a title later.
Ruth Allen—May 3, 2021
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- Do you like coming up with titles? Is doing so easy or hard?
- How do you brainstorm your titles? Do you have any particular technique, like finding a famous quote as a starting point?
- Do you research titles of other books in your genre when you work on your own?
Q: Do you like coming up with titles? Is doing so easy or hard?
A: Yes, it’s part of the fun, sometimes easy, sometimes challenging.
Q: How do you brainstorm your titles?
A: By relying on the unconscious mind operating in the time-honored way:
1. Set aside 15 minute blocks of time;
2. Team members must defer judgment; no criticism is permitted.
3. The team should strive for as many ideas as possible.
4. Wild ideas must be welcomed to help create a criticism-free atmosphere.
5. Members should create synergy among ideas by building on previous suggestions.
Q: Do you have any particular technique, like finding a famous quote as a starting point?
A: Yes. I like titles with connections to other works or classical sources. For instance, I named my story of a “bus boy’s” struggle at work, “Arma Virumque Cano,” the opening line from the Aenead, “I sing of arms and the man.” Man stresses that, contrary to his (obsolete) job title, he is, indeed, a man. Arms means that he imagines his work as a dangerous armed struggle against the pitfalls of his profession.
“Investment” riffs off the technique of gaining an ally by urging him to do you a small favor, thus making him invested in you.
“The Last Librarian” leads us to a dystopian future where “Last” reverberates.
“The Eight Times Cut Stone” title is designed to evoke reader curiosity.
I also like to use 1 to 3 power words in a title: Moon, Death, Gold, Secret, Search, Song, Silver, Christmas, Peril, Dream, etc. My poetry book is titled, “Moon Over the Lost City.” (I then had to write a poem of that title to justify using it.)
Q: Do you research titles of other books in your genre when you work on your own?
A: Rarely. I mostly avoid accidentally repeating another title. On rare occasions, I like to put a strange word into an older title or phrase, as in, “Out, Brief Candelle.” And I avoid putting the word “Rising” at the end of a title, as in, “Gorge Rising.”
Thanks for sharing your approach, JG. Great tips. Nice how-to-approach brainstorming in a nutshell, too.
When you’ve written only 2/3 of a trilogy in almost 24 years, the title is important – but not something you do frequently.
Pride’s Children is a retelling, in many ways of the biblical Book of Job – with some important twists. For one, Job is a woman…
Job is FULL of great lines – I used
“He beholdeth all things; he is a king over all the children of pride,” Job 41:34 in the King James Version – and played with it for years.
And still found myself chuckling when another book, Pride’s Children, came out after I started but before I published – for a book about two men who adopted two children together, and which I’m honored to share with them.
The Bible has been a classic source for titles. Pride’s Children is a fine one. Fortunately, titles can’t be copyrighted, and I’m glad to see you feel honored to share that title 🙂
Sadly, they don’t seem to have published anything else yet – it’s been many years.
Yes, I research titles in my genre. I also note a clever phrase, whenever I come across one, that might work for a title even when I don’t have a story in mind.
It’s good to note a clever phrase, you never know when it might come in handy.
Only one of my books had a title before it was finished. That should tell you something about how I feel about coming up with them. Enough said.
It can be a struggle, and I know plenty of other writers who don’t like coming up with titles. One thing I didn’t mention was brainstorming titles with writer friends when I’m stuck for one.
my critique partner and I usually have easier times coming up with titles for each other’s books instead of our own.
Titles usually pop into my head with the story. I do a search to see if my title has already been used, but only one of them has been, and it was on a 1980s movie. Another, one of my favorites for a decade, was taken by another writer, and it was a good lesson: Write the book instead of just dreaming about it!
My first book was traditionally published. I submitted it with a title that conveyed the story type, but they published my historical romance with a title identical to a popular Christian devotional book. I still haven’t figured out that decision. Phyllis Whitney wrote that she submitted her books with a list of titles she could live with, but she was famous, so…
“Write the book instead of just dreaming about it,” is a terrific observation, Becky. Your story about your first book’s title change illustrates that a publisher can and often will change a title. Something for writers to keep in mind.
I hate coming up with book titles and I have no ‘system’. Over time as I write the book, I wait to see what comes to me. Sometimes it works out that the title just naturally comes, and sometimes I have to agonize over it.
I’ve got one book I’ve been dawdling over for years and STILL don’t have just the right title in mind.
On the other hand, I’ve got one western/historical fiction I’ll title “Principle Engagement”. Using the wise advice in this post of making the cover work in tandem with your title, I think that title will work for me. Especially since ‘engagement’ can be defined in a few different ways, and my cover will hint at that (I hope).
Sometimes I have titles for books but I don’t have a story for them. LOL! I’ve got book titles for a couple of anthology series but still haven’t written the stories to go with it even though they’re in the back of my mind.
I’m glad titles are not copywrite-able. That would make a difficult task even worse!
I think a lot of us have titles for books we haven’t written yet, BK. Titles are like ideas, we often have more than we can use.
Coming up with titles can be hard–with a series, at least for me, it becomes easier once I’ve established a style for the titles. Cozy mysteries are easier for me because the punny wordplay suits me. Other genres are different.
Great idea for a post, Dale! Thanks for pulling the articles from the archives.
I enjoy creating titles. At the top of my outline on google docs I start a list of possible titles. Every time I think of a new one, I add it to the list. Every day, when I open my outline, I glanced down over the list and shuffle them, most favorite at the top.
I also think of the title in conjunction with the image that will go on the cover. They should work together, so I brainstorm them together.
Have a great day!
You’re very welcome, Steve.
Keeping a list of titles at the top of your outline is a great idea. I do something similar with the cover, too.
Have a wonderful day, too!
At a certain point in the process, my publisher sends me a marketing/PR form to fill out & one of the slots is list possible titles for your manuscript, feel free to point out the one(s) you like the best. I worked in PR for 22 years and brainstorming titles reminds me of the brainstorming sessions we had for position lines and logos to go with promotional campaigns. One idea plays off another. I go to bible verses that explore the underlying theme of my novel. Then I research song titles that have a word in them that is key in my story. Invariably something will click and a favorite will float to the top. Then the titling committee meets and plays with my ideas and theirs. Sometimes one of mine gets chosen. Sometimes they come up with something they think is better. Sometimes it is. Either way, it’s a collaborative effort, which I truly appreciate.
One thing they’ve told me is that they haven’t had good sales with titles that are “literary” or don’t really give the reader a sense of what the story is about. I wanted to use The Absence of Time for my women’s fiction novel published last year. They finally chose The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos, a title suggested by my agent. I like it, but I still have trouble saying it in the right order . . . .
My biggest tip would be to be flexible and open-minded. Titling committees include sales/marketing folks and they have a world of experience in what works. It’s not just a creative endeavor, but a business decision as well. We all want the title to help sell the book. We’re on the same team.
Thanks for sharing your experience with your publisher, Kelly. Being flexible and open minded when working with them is an excellent tip.
FWIW, even as an indie author, I find that an excellent approach. When I workshop my titles its important to listen and consider what’s best for the book.
“A Dictionary of American Idioms” is a good source for title ideas.
Thanks for the handy resource!
This is a great post, Dale . . .
. . . because my WIP that’s on the back burner right now has a *groan** title IMHO. It’s more like a placeholder until I write some more of the story.
I’m going to start a list of possibles for it. Don’t know why I didn’t think of doing that.
Happy weekending!
That was weird! When I first commented, it said “waiting for moderation”. So I checked it, and it was doing a “spam check”. Never saw that happen here.
That’s a puzzler for sure, Deb. I didn’t see that on my end.
The software sometimes sends replies to an oubliette, never to be seen again. There may be a place to look for such, but I’ve had three or four replies sent to Whoopsland instead of the blog. Links are a possible factor.
Glad this is a timely post, Deb.
Happy weekend!
Such great advice and suggestions from the archives, Dale. Thanks so much.
I hate coming up with titles. I’d rather write a whole book than think of its title.
My last book had the perfect title Deep Fake until a much better known author published that title a month before mine came out. Aaargh! Had to change it to Deep Fake Double Down which is not nearly as good.
Current WIP is set in a cherry orchard on Flathead Lake, Montana. Tentative title is Fruit of the Poisonous Cherry Tree, a variation of a legal doctrine “fruit of the poisonous tree,” meaning evidence that’s illegally obtained and can’t be used. But does it sound too cozy? It isn’t.
You’re welcome, Debbie.
Personally I like Deep Fake Double Down, it has a nice ring to my ear.
For what it’s worth, Fruit of the Poisonous Cherry Tree doesn’t seem too cozy to me. I like it!
Thanks, Dale! A librarian’s input is valuable!
IMO, Deep Fake Double Down is more gripping than Deep Fake.
Love your titles, Dale!
For my Grafton County Series, I dreaded coming up with titles. Since I used a one-word title on book one, I had to continue the trend. Now that I concentrate on my Mayhem Series, I keep a list on my phone. Whenever I stumble across a compelling word that goes well with “Mayhem” I jot it in Notes. With each new book, I scroll through the list for a title that encompasses the plot. And I always use the title somewhere in the storyline. 😀
Thanks, Sue! One word titles are challenging IMHO. I love that you keep a list of title candidates on your phone and use the title somewhere in the storyline.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Great selection of wisdom, Dale. I especially like the titles you came up with for your library cozies.
I love coming up with titles. Don’t know that I’m particularly good at it, but my husband and I brainstorm possibilities before the final decision. The working title for the third book in my Watch series was Killing Tyme. A couple of months before publication, I thought I might come up with something better, so I sent a list of possibilities to friends and colleagues, and the consensus was Time After Tyme. I like that better.
Thanks, Kay!
Killing Time is a great title!