Thursday, June 16, 2016

About Book Titles

by Linda Thorne

If you follow suggestions for writing book titles, you will be discouraged from writing long titles (more than four or five words). The reasoning, keep them short so they’re easy to remember and easy to post anywhere. I talk about the exception to this, the one-word title, in the next paragraph. After you hear the lecture on size of title, the suggestions go on to include giving your title twists, humor, gusto, anything to find a way to make it memorable and provocative.

When considering short titles, one of the problems with the one-word title is the likelihood of it being duplicated by other people’s books. This is totally legal but many authors don’t want their books competing with a long list of the same title. Another problem is the difficulty of describing your book properly in a single word. Think about how much more defined a book title is when a second word is added. For example:


A couple of two-word titles in Marilyn Meredith's Tempe Crabtree series are Raging Water and River Spirits. The words Raging and River are meaningless standing alone as would be Water or Spirits. The dual words need each other to make sense and give these titles "oomph."

The same holds true of the debut novel by S.J. Francis, Shattered Lies. The two strong words, shattered and lies, would not mean much of anything if not coupled together. Either word as a single title would lose all its zest.  

I could go on and on: Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Now, having spoken on the negatives of titles too long and one-word titles, does any of this matter in the big scheme of things if you find that perfect title? Take a look at these exceptions to the popular advice:

Long

John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden and Good and Evil.
Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop CafĂ©
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Alan Brady’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

One-Word

Rebecca
Shogun
Jaws
Carrie


I had the idea of writing a book long before I actually knew I’d really write one, so I was one of those people (annoying to some) who would occasionally tell others, “I’d like to write a book and I’d call it, The Termination of Jolene Cromwell. My lead character was a career human resources manager, so terminations were part of her job. This was the book in my head back then, in the years long before I started writing. The title is so, so, and rather plain. No oomph, no action, no underlying statement.

When I did start writing the book, the termination of the character named Jolene Cromwell was no longer the story. It was something that happened in back-story, something that gave motivation to my protagonist. The story starts when a no-call-no-show employee is found shot to death. My protagonist, like me, is a career human resources manager and regardless of how any employee leaves a company, they must be terminated. Then death itself is a type of termination. As writers, we’re told to stay away from the word just, but I thought it worked well in my title because it turns out to be anything but just another termination. The addition of the word, just also eliminates duplication of other book titles. When I Google Just Another Termination, I pull up one book and that’s the one I wrote.

The title of my second book, a work in progress, is A Promotion To Die For. My character gets a promotion that requires her to move to a place where she lived close to twenty-nine years earlier. She was in danger then and her move back puts her in danger again. This title is also a play on words. The promotion is a high paying “dream” job that could easily be referred to as a promotion to die for. In this case, the words could hold to their literal truth as well since someone plans to kill my lead character.

10 comments:

Morgan Mandel said...

Another consideration for the title is where in the alphabet the first letter is. My WIP was first called Wide Awake, but I decided to change it to Awake.

authorlindathorne said...

Yes. That's a big point that I forgot. Thank you. It helps in promoting your book (bookstores, libraries, other alphabetical lists) Same with author's names. I'll always keep mine as Thorne, but I've heard of authors using an AKA to be closer to the start of the alphabet.

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

I've used title starting with A, and many with words starting with letters near the end of the alphabet. Nowadays, I don't think it matters as much as it used to.

Sunny Frazier said...

I'm drawn to titles that are a play on phrases we are familiar with or quotes. My titles are "Fools Rush In," "Where Angels Fear," "A Snitch In Time." Readers tend to remember my titles and that's what's important (to me).

Anonymous said...

To me, titles are harder than the story itself! I'm writing an upcoming post on titles, but with a different twist. It's more about which titles intrigue me than on how to come up with one. Linda, I'll add a link to this one.

authorlindathorne said...

Thank you, Maggie, for adding this link to your upcoming post. I'll have to look for it. I believe another post is coming out soon on this site that does a piggy back off of this subject. There's sure a lot that can be said about titles.

Sunny, I knew none of your book titles had any with two words (although your anthology, Valley Fever, does). I'm like you, for books I prefer the 3 or 4 word titles with a play on words. I remember your first two from the song titles and, of course, the most recent from the phrase, "a stitch in time," with the appropriate interjection of "snitch." Your titles are very easy to remember.

Unknown said...

I just came from my favorite used bookstore and thought about what I was drawn to in a title.
I like titles that give me a hint about the atmosphere and content of the book, longer titles give more information.
Your titles "Just another Termination" and "A promotion to die for" lets the reader know right away the subject of the book is an employment mystery. I like knowing at a glance what the book is about, another example is the Jennie Bentley titles "Fatal fixer-upper" or "Home for the Homicide".

authorlindathorne said...

Thank you,Brenda. Yes, Jennie Bentley's renovation series gives itself away with her titles.

SJ Francis said...

Hi Linda! Love this blog post as I always find myself intrigued by titles wondering just how much the book, film, etc. relates to it. That's why I was careful about choosing my title of Shattered Lies for my debut novel. I wanted it to say what the book was about, but without giving the entire story out. I think I succeeded in that, or you wouldn't have mentioned it. Thanks so much for the kudos! I think you achieved the same oomph in your book with the title of Just Another Termination, as it should have been that, but was anything but. Sorry, guys, but I won't give away the story.
Cheers!
S.J. Francis

authorlindathorne said...

All I can say about your title, S.J., is I believe it's the only title your book should've had. If you'd chosen a different title, I doubt it would've worked.