What is in a Title?

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What is in a Title?

1LShelby
Nov 16, 2021, 11:53 am

So my current WIP is currently a script for a TV series, but since I have no way of producing a TV series, it will probably end up as four novels. So I spent some time thinking about what those four novels should be called and came up with two different sets of titles: Inception of the Bear, Conjunction of Hawk and Owl, Moon in Occlusion, Red Eagle Ascendant; or - Rouse a Sleeping Bear, Enrage a Hovering Hawk, Guard a Battered Eagle, Catch a Shadowed Tiger.

Months later, I'm still not entirely certain which set I like better.

Which led me to wondering... what exactly makes one title better than another anyway?

Are we going for eye catching, titillating, evocative, descriptive... all four at once?

So I thought I'd ask: what are some of the coolest book titles you've run into, and what was it about them that made you like them so much?

For the authors, how do you come up with titles? Have any of your titles worked out particularly poorly or particularly well?

...At this point, the one thing I am certain that I want in a title, is that it isn't too generic. When someone tries to find my book I don't want to end up at the bottom of a long list of books with almost identical titles.

2Cecrow
Nov 16, 2021, 5:27 pm

I like titles that, when I read them later, bring the whole story back into focus from memory. It might recall the central theme, the central characters, or some other central idea that all the rest of the story is linked to.

It should be appropriate to the genre, too. Reading your titles, I'm thinking it's either something to do with espionage or else aboriginal peoples.

I like your second set better. The first set sounds a bit artificial, whereas the second group has a nice pattern to it.

But unless you self-publish, you're also liable to encounter an agent, editor or publisher who wants you to rethink the whole scheme in any case. No matter what you go with, think of them as "working titles" and don't get too attached.

3reading_fox
Nov 17, 2021, 6:26 am

Book 3 of the first set doesn't seem to match the others. I also prefer the 2nd set. Agree that it's useful/better to have some kind of link between the title and the plot/characters.

I'd suggest always googling (or trying to add on LT by title) anything you think of, there's a lot of duplicate titles out there and it gets very confusing, even thought there's a vast number of nouns/adjectives that can be combined authors seem to gravitate to the same small space.

There's been a recent craze fro longer titles, which are certainly more likely to be unique A short history of tractors in Ukrainian but I'm not sure how well that works for readers. I always think of it as 'that tractor book with the long title'

4thorold
Nov 17, 2021, 10:18 am

>3 reading_fox: Or The left hand of darkness, The sun also rises, Elvis, Jesus and Coca-cola, The short happy life of Francis Macomber, The diamond as big as the Ritz, The standard life of a temporary pantyhose salesman and Even cowgirls get the blues — all titles that you can't get out of your head once you've seen them, even though most of them are books I didn't like all that much. And, dare I say it, The catcher in the rye. The first time you see that it makes you want to read it to find out what it could possibly mean...

As >2 Cecrow: says, the key is to get it right for the people who read your sort of books: I'd find bombastic abstract nouns like "Inception" off-putting, but if your readers like books with words like that on the cover, go ahead. Or pile it on thicker and make it "Ursine inception"...

5LShelby
Editado: Nov 20, 2021, 10:53 am

>2 Cecrow: "I like titles that, when I read them later, bring the whole story back into focus from memory"

I really like that as a criteria. :)

I'm not sure how to know when you've hit on something that works, though. Obviously I will remember my own story by its title.

I know for sure that one of my titles doesn't work. I have a short story, that I ended up titling "Dark Moon Light". Twice I submitted it somewhere and didn't get it back in a reasonable timeframe, so I sent one of my standard notes saying "I sent blahblahblah to you on suchandsuch a date and haven't heard back." Both times the reply said, "Never heard of it" but when I resubmitted I got an "Oh, whoops, yes, we have that one already, it's in the 'consider seriously for publication' pile, that's why we haven't got back to you about it yet.

I think "Dark Moon Light" just too generic for traditional fantasy to be memorable. This would be the flip side of being appropriate to the genre -- that's best, yes, but there is such a thing as being too much. I own a couple hundred regency romances, and to be frank only a few of the titles stand out for me. I mean, girls names... I can tell Arabella from Venetia because they are by a favorite author and I have read them both multiple times, but do you think I can remember who iRegina, Lydia and Georgina are ten years later? Likewise "Her Heart's Captain" must have a military man as the hero, how.... not helpful for a genre set during the Napoleonic Wars. Or "A Prior Engagement" Um... one or the other of the principals starts out engaged to someone else? That's hardly rare.

"Reading your titles, I'm thinking it's either something to do with espionage or else aboriginal peoples."

I haven't nailed down the exact timeline yet, but they aren't aboriginal. More like late medieval? But its not a European inspired setting. There is certainly some spying going on. :)

I thought the first set would "fit" better if I had astrology as huge part of the culture or something like that, but I purposely didn't make astrology a big thing this time, because it features so prominently in Cantata and Pavane.

6LShelby
Nov 20, 2021, 11:13 am

>3 reading_fox: "Book 3 of the first set doesn't seem to match the others."

Because there's no animal? I like titles in a series to match each other but sometimes its tricky. ::sigh::

"There's been a recent craze for longer titles"
I have a story about this. (Okay, okay, so I almost always have a story... how do you think I ended up an author?)

I was talking with Julie Czerneda about a book, (the one I'm hoping to publish next, actually) and I said that the working title is "Lioness", but that I probably ought to come up with something longer eventually. She, having just published IIRC the second book in her Species Imperative Series (Survival, Migration, Regeneration) said rather dryly "Single word titles can also be effective."

I still haven't come up with a longer title. I seem to have decided that Lioness is what it is going to be, but it's true that there are a number of other books out there already called that. :(

Julie isn't opposed to longer titles either though. The first book of hers I read was "A Thousand Words for Stranger". Which I think might make my memorable titles list.

7LShelby
Nov 20, 2021, 12:14 pm

>4 thorold: " the key is to get it right for the people who read your sort of books: I'd find bombastic abstract nouns like "Inception" off-putting"

The reason I came up with the first set, was because I wasn't sure that the first set fit right. The second set seemed to be more down to earth, which I liked, and also seemed to be a clearer reflection of the plot. But I worried that they seemed a bit "Primitive Tribesman", which isn't the right association. I thought about trying a coat of arm based set too, but decided that would feel too european.

But if we are to use >2 Cecrow: Crecow's criteria of helping the author recall the books, I think maybe the initial association would not be an issue, because once you read the book, you already know that the "Bear" is not a wandering hunter type.

As for "appeals to people who read your sort of books"... That sounds tricky. Are there "What appeals to who" rules of thumbs we can come up with to make things easier?

I'm reading over your list of long titles thorold, and the clues that are warning me off of the ones that I'm being warned off of, are actually mood clues, rather than content clues. I'm happy to read books about all sorts of things including panty-hose salesmen and cowgirls but I've started shying away from anything that sounds dark or angsty.

Some of them just rouse my curiosity, but being familiar with the books in question, I know that in the end I will be disappointed. :(

Hmm...
I guess in my case I want to evoke: action, optimism, clever characters, rich cultural worldbuilding... and emotional restraint?

Which means thorold's listed titles, although interesting and memorable, are not a good match for my audience, or at least not my books?