Or in this case, the story. (If you really have a baby to name, there are several sites on line where you can get info on names. And several sites on line where you can get info on names NOT to use. There are also some excellent books and I owe a copy of every one of them. My kids used to get freaked out by finding me reading baby name books. Now they know it’s not [more’s the pity] the expectation of a blessed event, but merely a sign of character in the offing.)
Titles are hard. Particularly for your own stories. And going Indie has, I think, made it harder for most of us, because in the old days you knew the title was not ultimately in your hands. Yes, you may have a wonderful story title, but then the publisher will change it, according to some unfathomable marketing ticker. These were not always an improvement from the artistic pov – my Down the Rushy Glen because Ill Met By Moonlight – and given my experience I wouldn’t bet that it was an improvement in the marketing pov, either, but at least IMBM sounded like Shakespeare while Down The Rushy Glen did not. Though then one wonders why in the name of little children they kept the other two titles, also taken, like Down the Rushy Glen, from William Allingham’s The Fairies. (And the answer children is that publishers move in mysterious way that most of the time not even they understand. Give your sacrifice goat to the high priest and pray that the publishers will be inclined to mercy, or at least rationality.)
But now you’re faced with going it alone. And, oh, my, is it hard. – Says she who woke up this morning thinking that the short story Liberty – a mystery of the Early French Revolution – she put up last night really should have been called Death by Liberty, because right now neither name nor cover signals murder mystery. (Sigh.)
So, let’s look at what a title is and what it must do.
First, remember that like your cover, your title is your marketing tool, NOT your term paper cover. We’ve all been trained in dysfunctional ways by our schooling, and one of the ways we’ve been trained is to think of titles and cover pages (or covers) as miniatures of what’s within. I recently had a cover artist contact me, because he’s suffered the wrath of writers in past for putting a character with the wrong hair color on the cover. Look, unless it’s a long-running, beloved series with crazy fans, that really doesn’t matter. The wrong race can be a problem (like, if your character looks Asian on the cover of a fantasy, people expect Asian magic) because it can “signal” the wrong type of book for the reader. BUT a blond instead of a brunette? Pah. It’s more important that the cover send off the right “buy” signals. What do I mean by that?
Well… If you’re looking for a murder mystery, you expect a knife or a gun or something on the cover. Unless it’s a refinishing mystery, and then you expect a piece of furniture. EVEN if that particular murder has NO deaths (happens. Victim survives) or the murder weapon was a belt. You still expect blood, a gun or a knife.
Titles are like that too. Take someone like me who is new to a genre – regencies which have become my “I’m too fried to read” genre on the principle that I’m unlikely to ever write one. I am starting to know half a dozen names, but I don’t know enough to sustain “popcorn reading” levels. So, it’s late at night and how do I pick a book for the kindle, if I’ve never heard of half the writers and the houses are mostly indie? Easy. I search for one of the “word marks” Rogue or Rake (though the latter also gets you gardening manuals) various nobility titles, etc. Even if I don’t get one of the books with that in the title, it will show me “people who looked at this also looked at/bought” and I can find something that sparkles my curiosity (more on that later.)
Look at the following titles, and tell me where they go genre wise: Call To Arms in Alpha Centauri; Glitter, Glitz and Murder; A Death At the Abbey; To Love a Rogue.
The first is, of course, mil sf. You have arms in the title, then the name of somewhere else in space. (Yes, these are prototypical and don’t exist. More on that later. For now, I wanted to show how we pick up clues.) The second is either a craft mystery involving a seriously malfunctioning glitter gun (unlikely, but I’ve cleaned up after one of those. Glitter gun explosions, not murders. I think.) or a murder mystery set in Hollywood or in the fashion industry. The third one is either an historic mystery or a non fiction – reading the description will solve that, but if I’m looking for either, I’d check the description. The fourth is unabashed regency or it’s signaling seriously wrong.
So, now you know how to create a – yawn – bog standard title. What next?
Next you have to do that sparking of curiosity. You get… interesting.
This is one of the things I had practice in from submitting to magazines. The reason I ended up with names like Super Lamb Banana and Sugarbush Soul was that one of the ways to jump out of the slush pile was to have a title that just made you read the story. That’s not so different from what you have to do now, except for one thing: at magazines you usually didn’t have to signal genre, since they only published one. Adding genre in throws another complication in the way.
I suppose I could have called it Time For Superbanana Lamb and Sugarbush Soul and Stars, but… Eh. When in need, I’ll go for the flashy and let the signaling go by. But that’s just me. I’m old school.
However I can tell you that instead of To Love A Rogue, you put in a title like The Rogue’s Twisted Heart I’ll be interested. (Of course, I’d also buy What the Rogue Saw though it sounds like mystery, because I read mystery too.)
The short answer is titling is an art and I’d advise you to go over a lot of titles in your field and genre and THEN to sit down and consider the elements of your book and see what you can call it that will sell it to the right public. It doesn’t need to show the details of what’s inside only the vague outlines.
For instance, the title A Touch of Night came from a Tennyson poem (more on that later.) Is there anything in Pride, Prejudice and Dragons (which was too flip a title, also sounded derivative by the time we came to publish it, because of zombies – yes, we did ours before, but…) that is either touch or night? Well, not really. But A Touch of Night has the right FEEL and well, shifters change at night and romance implies touch, right?
Darkship Thieves was much, much, much harder. It was harder because I was dealing with Athena, front and center as a main character and the pivot of the plot. BUT titles like Athena Rising and The Athena Principle (yes, I tried both) failed to “fit.” Then there were titles with Eden. Let’s not go there. And then, while I was talking to a friend online, I was describing the plot and said “And then she meets the darkship thieves” and my friend said “That’s what you should use for the title “Darkship Thieves.” It’s intriguing and it’s either naval or science fiction.” So, even though Darkship Thieves is what Earth calls the Edenites, and even though the darkships are a small part of the plot, I titled the book that. Seems to have worked. (Grin.)
Then there are the titles that obtrude on you from the first line of the story. Say, A Few Good Men. I fought that title tooth and nail. It doesn’t SAY SF. OTOH you know given the rulers of Earth are called Good Men… well, it fits. And the association with the movie, and the slogan for that matter means “war in the world of Darkship Thieves” which is what the book is, with the added flip that the revolution centers around a few Good Men.
So, what advice do I want for the pilgrim looking for title advice?
Titling is more an art than a science. Here’s what I suggest:
First, read a lot of titles in the genre you’re working in. Go to the bookstore and walk up and down the isle reading titles, or browse the titles on the right section of Amazon. Steep yourself in those titles. Then think of your book and try to come up with a title that both signals right and is catchy.
Second, if you’re still coming up blank, read poetry. Yeah, I know, but this is why I pick up poetry books at garage sales and thrift stores. It doesn’t need to be GOOD poetry, either. But poets, by nature, encapsulate things in a few words, which is what your title needs to do. Read it until something catches in your mind and you go “oooh” – also, if you write shorts or try to, it helps to write down other lines of poetry that seem catchy, then write short stories to go with them. For some reason this is something I have to read on paper to work for titling. Kindle won’t cut it.
Third, Remember that titles aren’t copyrighted. You can ABSOLUTELY use a title that hasn’t been used. Beware though that you should avoid: Classics (if you write The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, you’d best make sure you’re the second coming of Heinlein, Asimov and Pol Anderson, all rolled into one.) Particularly if the classics are in the same genre (so Ill Met By Moonlight was okay because the big classic of the title is a non-fic about WWII. I still got hate mail, but meh.) Recent books in the same genre. This is a courtesy to your readers who will otherwise get confused and hate you. Recent movies in the same genre – because people will assume your book is a novelization and either avoid it or be furious it isn’t. (Signaling, remember?) So, if a title strikes you and it’s NOT in the same field you write in, go ahead, make free of it. For instance, I have two non-fic titles filed away to write as genre fiction books: The Damned Die Hard and The Slicing Edge of Death.
Fourth: in despair make a list of elements and unusual words in your book, then pair them in odd ways and see how it strikes you. Or put your terms in old movie titles and twist. (Yes, yes, I have considered Dimatough Is A Girl’s Best Friend – but who would want to read that? Or Gentlemen Prefer Bios or… Some Like It Dragon… or…)
Fifth: bounce your proposed titles off friends. Try not to have so many they scream and threaten to kill you. But pick two or three favorite ones and see how they strike your friends. This avoids blindspots.
Sixth: Go with the blind spots. What? Well… Take the diner/shifters series. It might have been a mistake to name the books from old diner lingo. Draw One In The Dark doesn’t exactly scream “I’m light fantasy” – and the artists clearly didn’t think so, hence the DARK covers. But oh, heck, it’s picking up fans slowly and besides, it’s what it WANTED. (In my defense, for the second I saw a woman in a mini skirt in silhouette, leaning against a lamp post with a dragon rearing behind. But that might have been even worse.)
Seventh: If you have a song for the book, look carefully at the lines. Of course, if you’re like me this might not work too well, since I suffer from “song for the book” dysfunction. Had Darkship Thieves been titled this way, I’d have ended up with I’m Gonna Tell You How It’s Gonna Be, because that was done to Buddy Holly. And while it fits Kit’s (and Thena’s) personality, it’s certainly not SF. And if I shortened it to How It’s Gonna Be, it sounds beyond dorky. A Few Good Men would be “Forgive Me” which sounds like a confession of some sort. And The Brave And The Free would be called Tell Me That You Want Me Then, which is romance. So, apply this method judiciously.
Eighth: when all else fails practice Bibliomancy. I have about ten versions on my shelves, including a crappy annotated version of the Torah, and a French and a German version, but King James is the go to for titles, probably because of the elegant language. I mean, where do you think we got Stranger In A Strange Land? There’s something to old words that have gotten into the subconscious through centuries of use that will imbue your book title with extra meanings, not there and yet there. Don’t be afraid of those.
Ninth: Surrender to the inevitable. Just like when your character wants a stupid name, your book often wants a stupid title. Go with it. Write it. You can always change it later. Just don’t let your subconscious know that.
Tenth: Don’t overstress the title. Look, children, let’s be blunt here, Ric Locke’s book, Temporary Duty could be a military exploit book, it could be a deep insightful main stream about a woman who undertakes to raise her brother’s children (what? It could!), or it could be kick ass science fiction (Did I mention you SHOULD buy it?) It still found an audience. Look at the classics: Gone with the Wind – where is the reference to the civil war? – or Lolita (incest and pedophilia, really? Sounds like a bilingual book on the order of Dora The Explorer to me. Oh, wait. Lolita WAS Delores. Um… never mind. No, it is not one of my favorite books. Next?) Or Catcher In The Rye. Or The Sun Also Rises. Or … Or, of course, The Bridges of Madison County or … TWILIGHT? Yeah, those benefitted from publisher push (at least the last few ones) but yours can benefit from proper tagging and description. So if the best title for your book is intriguing but doesn’t “signal” just make sure your description signals right.
So, stop stressing and start writing. If the book lets you write it without a title, slap a working one up there (of course, for years Rebecca Lickiss’s program put the “working title” of “A Pretty Bitch” on ALL her stories. This was a software and retunning it thing, but we lived in fear she’d send in a novel with that in the header without noticing. What? Oh. It was a sort story about sentient dogs, but… You know how that goes.) and write. Darkship Thieves didn’t have its proper title till eight years after the FIRST version was written. If it insists on the title, look through the methods above till one clicks. And if the title is generic or stupid, live with it, and make sure your cover and description signal genre and sub genre.
And that’s all there is to it. Sorry, but there is no magic bullet. I’m still slogging in these trenches, right alongside you. Forward, TYPE!
According To Hoyt 
Urban Fantasy/Modern Mythology, series, continuing characters:
Geppetto’s Log
Pinocchia
Genesis
Acts
Apocalypse
Double Switch
Sinfonia de la Inamorata
The Moose Jaw Incident
The Great Crossover Episode
A Dynasty Divine
Odalisque
A Doll’s Odyssey
Armed Citizen
Gabrielle Godslayer
Deicide in Irian Jaya
You Could Spend Years
The Next Story
M
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Somehow titles are something I never stress over. They just come to me. I can’t say whether they’re GOOD titles or not, but they come naturally. I start typing with a generic “Untitled Story #7” or a Chaucerian “The Doctor’s Tale”; but usually by the time I finish the first scene or two, I have the real title. And so far I’ve changed the title on an evolving piece only once: in rereading “The Tempest” because one of my characters made allusion to it, I stumbled upon a phrase that almost perfectly summed up the premise.
And my Idea Pile currently has two entries which are nothing but titles. I have no idea what those stories are yet, but they’re titles I want to read!
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You sure can’t rely on movies as examples now. Movie title now has to be short and dull. John Carter could not be John Carter of Mars “because the girls wouldn’t go see it” and could not be A Princess of Mars “because the boys wouldn’t go see it.”
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somehow Persons of Mars doesn’t have the right feel.
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And OT, but I have no intention of ever seeing that movie, for the same reason that I find the illustration plates in the early editions completely out of line. All of the women, and most of the men, in the Mars books would make Thena feel positively overdressed for the occasion, and I can’t see even modern Hollywood attempting that.
Regards,
Ric
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Since it is probably expected to be a series, mebbe they should go with The Martian Chronicles. Then every subsequent film could be titled TMC: Another Damn Fine Story or TMC: There’s Still Milk In The Cow.
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Well, having been mentioned —
What I originally conceived as the title (and, in fact, the working title and what I use for abbreviation) was just “TDY”. My friend Michael convinced me that the fraction of potential readers who would both (a) recognize/understand the acronym and (b) have a clear idea of the distinction between “TDY” and “TAD” closely approximated zero, so spelling it out helped make it a little more generic and therefore understandable and hopefully intriguing. (For those not familiar with military terminology but who have read the book, the protags are TDY, the other humans are TAD. The distinction is meaningful, but only to a teeny fraction of military people, let alone civilians — although it serves as a sort of directrix or Strange Attractor for how the story works out.)
In the ideal case, the cover image and the title work together — and both are sometimes subject to the misconceptions of newbies. The title literally cannot convey the entire content of the book, just as the cover cannot be a literal representation of the story. Others may disagree, but to my mind the cover image the artist came up with for Temporary Duty perfectly depicts what the story is about, at least at the beginning, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that the scene depicted never actually occurs in the text. Similarly, those determined that the title be an accurate summary or precís of the story might as well just reduce the whole thing to 0.001 point type so it would fit on the front of the book. That ain’t what a title is for, folks.
And do watch out for first conceptions and/or working titles. I have a fantasy, probably more complex in structure than I’m capable of at this moment, which I literally cannot work on — I’ve tried! — because the working title refers only to a scene-setting bit in the first chapter that has little or nothing to do with how the story goes, and I can’t get it out of my mind. Keep it fluid, lest it tie you in knots.
Regards,
Ric
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Very much on that last bit. This is why I say “if it wants a title, go with it, you can always change later.” Also why I’m stuck with Winter Prince for an SF adventure, while that title signals fantasy. (Actually this is a matter of making sure the COVER is SF.) For now Winter Prince which has nothing to do with either setting/action/plot fits the “feel” so I’m keeping it. (Mind you, they end up in a hunting lodge in winter, so…)
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Winter Prince could be sci-fi . . . post apocolyptic sci-fi dealing with nuclear winter, or global warming maybe.
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No. Global warming in the way of becoming what the ice-age-is-coming books were in the seventies. Yes, I remember them. Winter Prince takes place in another world under alien invasion.
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*beth leans around her monitor to look at the framed poster-prints of The Summer Queen and The Snow Queen*
At the risk of a pun, I’d say those are, er, poster children for “title may signal fantasy; cover signals SF.”
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A couple of stories “rattling around in my head” have working titles of “Kali’s Story” and “Tam’s Story”. Doesn’t tell you much. [Wink]
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Brainstorming titles is fun stuff. Sarah, the fact that you go looking for reading material by searching for titles with “Rogue” in them, is awesome. I like rogues, they are fun characters. This Summer, when you go searching, you will undoubtedly come across Rogues in Hell, (an awesome title) the latest anthology in the Heroes in Hell shared world series, edited by Janet Morris & Chris Morris. It will include my short story “Ragnarok & Roll” which I think is a damn catchy title if I do say so myself. Okay, I know it has been used before in various forms of media from music, to print, and even the name of a band’s concert tour. But I think it’s still punchy.
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Most of Bradbury’s better know stories have two or three titles. “Come into My Celler/Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in YOUR Celler!” I remember that alternate title, complete with two screamers and caps.
I’m rather proud of that moment at the Kris and Dean workshop I attended when Dean lectured us on the importance of grabbing the editor’s attention with the title, while he was looking over the anonymous MS’s we’d given him, and he paused and said, “Ok, who wrote ‘Gooble Gobble, One of Us?'”
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Well, I knew there was a lot of fuss ad bother about cover art and titling, Sarah, but I never in my life there was that much worth writing about. However, you just proved me wrong! I have a naturalist painter friend of mine who does all of my cover art on canvas. I visit him one day and describe a few prominent scenes in whatever novels I’m working on and he’ll work up a few sketches until we both see something we like. Then we’ll discuss stuff like the time of day, where the light is coming from, what goes in the foreground and so on. When I drop by a few months later he’s got my cover art ready, and he is a very, very good artist indeed. Titles? It’s odd, but I start all of my stories with a single photograph – Then I ask what’s going on in the photo, where the people were before the photo was taken and where they went afterward. The title just hows up somewhere along the way. At shows and events, the cover art grabs the readers eye. Then they read the back text. Then they look at the title. Then they ask if I’m the author (everybody has their priorities, I guess).
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In a way, it’s important to get the minor details of hair color and skin color, because that lends credence to the *other* details — and that anything left out was left out for a reason of artisticness, and anything put in… is there for a reason. Basically, if the little details are right, the “buy” signals are more likely to be right, too. (Rather than, say, a case where the publisher had the art lying around and just slapped it on and never-you-mind that the center character is no one in the book. See also the original cover for Bujold’s The Warrior’s Apprentice… Which at least did get the right character added… to the corner… *facepalm* )
But I’m fussy about such things and make flailing happy noises when the cover and story match in… Hm. In the “trivial” details and the overarching ones, and the middle details are subsumed to the plot.
And I don’t blame the artist, since I know that few of them actually get to even *look* at the text before the art goes in; I recall that Whelan was one of the few who was powerful enough to insist on reading the book first, and succeed. (And even then, marketing apparently tried to get their way; as the story goes — assuming I didn’t timejump from the wrong timeline — they picked which All the Weyrs cover they wanted, told McCaffery that was the one he wanted to do, told Whelan that was the one McCaffery wanted, and only afterwards did they get together and compare notes…)
BUT! To the REAL TOPIC! …one day, I will figure out a title for the one that’s currently “[character-name]’s Road Trip” and “[Other Character Name]’s No Good Road Trip.” And “Succession” was an okay working title, but is totally not going to work after all, and my next-up was considering just using one of the main character’s names…
Ungh. Maybe I can think of something better with the various ideas here, though. Thanks.
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I seem to have less of a problem with book title than series title. To use an example, “Shatterglass, a Circle of Magic novel”. (At least, I think I remember it correctly.)
My working title for my current novel and the first in a series is “Regina” because it’s about the character’s joining and learning the ropes of a group of the same name. It also defines the main character, indicating she is this more than she is her own race. The working title for the series is “Hierarchy of Feathers” because the movers and shakers in this world are the angel-like race. (Being vague for brevity’s sake.)
I’m more certain I’ll be keeping the book title (I even have the plots for the next two books thumbnailed out with working titles – and feel 80% sure about book 2’s working title and 50% sure about book 3’s title) than I am the series title. I’m hoping that as I finish working on the first novel, I’ll have a better idea if the series title has the sticking power. I like the phrase “Hierarchy of Feathers” a lot, so I know I’ll use it. I just don’t know if it’ll stay the series title or if it’ll become a book title for another in the series.
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I’m having serious trouble coming up with a title for my future history. Right now it’s Forever Fighting, but I hate it. Of course Jim HAS been suggested. And Bob.
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“On the evidence, peace is a purely theoretical state of affairs whose existence we deduce because there have been intervals between wars.” — J. E. Pournelle (although I have no idea whether it’s actually original with him or not)
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of course, which is why it sucks as a title for my “not series” or interlacing serieses or whatever they are. It used to be called “Sarah’s Future History or why the Serpent always bites someone’s tail.” But that was when I was young and took myself WAY too seriously.
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Just FYI: to this particular literalist country boy, “Hierarchy of Feathers” conjures up something much closer to Miss Piggy leading the Muppet farmyard chorus in “If You Ain’t Got Elegance” than it does anything angelic. My sincere apologies, but truth must out.
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This country boy also tends to agree. Hierarchy of Feathers is not something that would interest me, unless I already knew and liked the series (might work as book title later in the series but not as a first title) And for some reason, though I picture angels with wings, I have never pictured them with feathers (and no I don’t picture them as reptiles either, I just don’t examine their wings closely)
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Angel wings? Light. Feathers? CHICKENS. And man oh man, I hated chickens and their little reptilian hateful eyes.
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er… sorry. I should explain I GREW UP with chickens around. There were exceptions, mind you. A couple of pet chickens. But as a rule, they were nasty beasties.
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And dumb as rocks.
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No worries – the Angelus aren’t “angels” – and there are “real angels” and they really do not have wings, much less with feathers. ;)
I appreciate the feedback on “Hierarchy of Feathers” – I have at least a month and a half to think it over. :3
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Short stories are easy. The major character usually struts forward and says, “YOU ARE CALLING IT THIS!” Okay, yells.
Novels, well, they can be a bitch, with apologies to the bitch who is currently snoring curled up against my left foot. My protagonist isn’t telling me anything, other than he’s happy with his marriage. Sigh.
Just wait till next chapter. He’ll be scared shitless.
Wayne
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Keep in mind that, after a point, if you are really successful, the title don’t matter. Rowling could have called her last book pretty much anythile swo (I swear to G-d that I typed “anything and” there – I think my keyboard has Tourettes) the sales would have been the same. Or with later Heinlein, so long as his name was prominently on the cover, it sold. I mean, Friday??? Really? Does that scream “Buy Me NOW”?
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Okay, what about series titles? I’m about to put out a prequel to A Wind out of Indigo, and all I can think of is A Wind out of Escalon. Which only has a connection to the plot if you squint through the bottom of a shot glass.
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Late to the story, but I have often had fits of what I call Chandlerism. Raymond Chandler had a notebook of nothing but potential titles, many of them quite good (“A Few May Remember”, “Lament, But No Tears”) and some that were cheesy but quite evocative (“The Man With The Shredded Ear”).
I don’t do that all the time, but at times I just sit down and toss onto paper whatever comes to mind. And usually there’s at least a few that eventually apply nicely to something that didn’t have a title to begin with. Which is good, because I have a tough time beginning actual writing without a title that feels right. It can change later, but if I can’t say to myself “Okay, time to get writing on Dry Rot Gulch,” it’s nearly impossible for me to get going. :)
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Pinned to the corkboard on the wall to my right are several pages of nothing but titles. In fact, I keep a notebook in my purse to write those down when they occur. Often it’s enough to spark a story.
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Glitter, Glitz and Murder could be a true crime or a mystery set against the background of the American Music Video industry of the 80s and 90s. (I just love the image of death by an exploding glitter gun…) A Death At the Abbey could also be an Agatha Christie knock off or some other English country mystery.
There are some beautiful titles which probably would not sell now, unless the author already has a solid following. Fritz Leiber’s Space-time for Springers so perfectly fits the story, but would it catch in the market? I can see it: ‘This must be a time travel story — what is this about Gummitch?’
Have you recently been watching a bunch of Marilyn Monroe movies?
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No. I grew up with movies from that time. On Sundays, Portuguese TV (EXCEPTIONALLY) stayed on all day. The afternoons were taken up by black and white movies. Since our house was the gathering center for relatives and the movie came on JUST after they’d left (after the big Sunday lunch) I’d lie down on the sofa to enjoy the house being more or less (often completely, since my parents tended to go for their Sunday outing at that time to) empty and watch a movie.
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