Coming up with titles isn’t easy. It should be fun, but it seems more like work. For many authors, it’s a drag, but it’s your job. I’m sure you have a tentative title saved up on your laptop and its twin copied into the Cloud. But if you’re like me, it’s probably something as bland as “Book 3” or as clunky as “Clumsy wizard needs a new apprentice.” That’s okay while you’re still working on the piece, but when you’re getting ready to publish it, you need something better. You need something catchy.
The real trouble is how to come up with one. As a novelist, you’ve spent months, possibly even years, building up your characters. You’ve played with plot twists and crafted backstories to make your characters more dynamic. You’ve been driving the scenes forward and expanding all these wonderful details chapter after chapter. You have had time to build up the action and suspense.
When you’re coming up with a title, you must take a different approach. You must be pithy. This is a tall order for the novelist, who is usually verbose. That’s why you’re in the novel business. When you’re in a title-making mode, it’s better to think like a poet or an adman. Yeah, I think the title-making part is more like advertising because you want to lure the reader to the book. You want them to pick it and read it. So how do we do that?
Well, a great title certainly helps. But what makes a great title? That’s a very good question, and depending upon who you ask, you are likely to get very different answers. Some titles grab your attention, while others seem to blend in with all the others. The really good ones make you pick up the book and read the first chapter.
You may want to start by jotting down a few of your favorite titles. This gives you something to strive for. I’ll show you mine.
1) Treasure Island
2) Magic Kingdom For Sale
3) Welcome to the Monkey House
4) Heir To The Empire
5) Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas
Now I’ve got my 5 favorite titles in front of me. So how do I come up with my own?
I’ll give you a hint. Stick to lists. It’s the best place to start. Lists help you organize, and they’re easily accessible.
Try a freewriting exercise to build your Title List #1. This way, it doesn’t seem so stressful. Let the ideas flow. When you’ve compiled a page or two, go back and start numbering them in ranking order.
This will help you get a sense of what is working and what is not. I don’t recommend crossing out anything because you are in freewriting mode. You want the creative juices to keep flowing.
It’s good to be clever, but it’s more important that your title is relevant to your respective genre and the meat of your story. The worst thing is to come up with a really clever title, and it bears no relation to the type of story you wrote.
Even though your first title exercise is freewriting, you still need to have an objective. Instead of summing up the whole book, you may want to break it down by chapters. See if you can come up with chapter titles. This is actually more work, but it will get you into the proper frame of mind. Some authors have chapter titles in addition to their main book title.
Hint hint. I happen to enjoy those types of books.
Return to your list a day or two later. This gives you time to reflect upon it in a more meaningful way. Maybe the title is still not jumping out at you, but if you search line by line, you might find working nuggets of wisdom. Move these nuggets around until they fit together.
For your next exercise, you need to be more focused. You need to ask yourself what your book is about. Sum it up using no more than 3 or 4 words. After you’ve got a page or so down, return to your first exercise.
Do any of the titles match up? One of your chapter titles might be baked into the main one. If not, no biggie. It’s ranking time again. Find the 3 best ones. Now it’s medal time. Get ready to dole out the Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
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