Use Lists To Come Up With The Title For Your Next Book

 

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.  

 

 

A Movable Desk

I’m a mobile scribbler. My movable desk (AKA my lap) finds its way onto buses, planes, trains, and other automobiles. I’ll sit on a rock with my notebook and take stock of the confluence between the world around me and the one passing through my brain.

Yesterday, I decided I needed a real desk. What with my recent move I’ve been typing away on the dining room table. I probably could have kept up for a little while longer, but I’d already been testing my better half’s patience long enough.

My buddy offered me a retro office desk. The thing was as big as a Greyhound. I had no idea where to put it. I needed something simple. Fortunate for me that I live in the neighborhood Furniture Central, Steinway has so many table shops, good stuff, junk, and so-so. You have to have a good eye. The prices are another story. I’m convinced there’s a black hole parked between taste and tacky. Prices not commiserate.

I’m not cheap, but I’m not willing to plunk down a month’s rent for gaudy or impractical. When I veer off onto a side street and see a piece I can imagine in my bedroom/office I poke my head in the shop to inquire on the price. Nobody. I could sweep the desk off the sidewalk and be on my merry way. My bad back is my conscience for the day. I rub my hand over the flat top. Pretty smooth. But, it’s a street model.

A middle-aged man in an ill-fitting fishnet cap and fleshy ears walks to the desk. He has handout written all over his grimy face. I stand my ground.

“Nice desk,” he says.

“It’s ok.”

“How much?” he asks.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

He scratches his fleshy ear and lopes into the shop. At this point, I say to myself you’re not horning in on my desk, bub. When I make it into the shop he is already sidled up to the counter, but there is no attendant to wait on him.

Two can play at that game.

“How much would you pay?’ he asks.
And there’s no way I’ll let him bait me. “You first.”

“Strong pine, last you a long time. Seventy dollars.”

I do a quick mental calculation to make sure I have enough cash on me. My fishnet-hatted foe probably only carries sweaty bills and this place doesn’t look like it takes plastic. When I figure I can beat him by twenty-odd bucks, if the bidding were to go that high, I make a kind of smirk.

Then a skinny kid comes out of the storage room. Finally, we’re going to get a little service around here.

“It come in tan or you like burgundy maybe,” the man says.

“Excuse me?”

“Yuri, go bring burgundy piece for show.”

The skinny kid ducks back into the dusky storage area and then it hits me that this clown is the owner. Somehow I feel more embarrassed for him and the flat beak of his cap that makes me think of a duck-billed dinosaur.

I take two crisp twenties and a crinkled ten out of my pocket.

“Fifty bucks.”

“Strong wood. Yuri carry it for you home and put it together, seventy-five.”

“That’s ok, I can take it myself.”

“Sixty five, we tie it up neat to the roof of your car.”

“I’m walking.”

“You’ll hurt your back.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I take the initiative, put the fifty bucks in his hand. He looks at it briefly as if I’m giving him quarters for the laundry, but then accepts it. Yuri takes his sweat ass time finding the box. They were out of the tan so I settled for the burgundy.

The whole way home, which although wasn’t technically far but it was sure as hell awkward, I reminded myself that I had to put the desk together. And though my back ached, my knees and thighs were bruised from trying to prop the box upright, I had this sweat moment of triumph coming to me. I hadn’t put anything together in as long as I could remember. What better way to get a creative boost than to build my own writing desk.

Banned Book Week

Don't know how you are celebrating Banned Book Week, which technically kicked off yesterday, but it might be a good idea to explore your subversive side. I am going to pick up a copy of "As I Lay Dying" and "Fahrenheit 451". The former is a Faulkner classic and the latter is Ray Bradbury's tour-de-force that tackles censorship and book-burning.

My interest is of course aesthetic, but I do admit to getting fired up by the notion of reading books that are supposedly inappropriate. I will savor these two literary morsels, but I am not speed-reading to have them completed by week's end. In fact, I just might be adding Ginsburg's "Howl" to the list.

Buena suerte!

Seven Minutes in Heaven with Jonathan Ames

This is as a good a time as any to mention my run in with Jonathan Ames back when “I Love You More Than You Know” came out. Groupies lined up to stake their claim in an autographed copy. I’ll be honest, I’d never read any of his stuff so there was no way I was going to impress him with quotes from his favorite author.

Sometimes I’m really sweaty-palmed and cottonmouthed when I am in the presence of royalty. Other times I can be a bit of a jackass. I’m not sure how we got on the topic of candy bars, but I filibustererd on lamenting the fact that Whatchamacallit was a dying breed. Find me a corner bodega that’s got a box of them and I’ll trade you my lucky rabbit’s foot. The point was I had unusual candy taste. I think Ames appreciated that. When he looked at the book in my hand “Motherless Brooklyn” he got a little stinkeyed. Wrong Jonathan! Yeah, I know, but Lethem’s my homeslice.

I had the itch to have him sign it, but didn’t. Then I went on about publishing in indies. I said it was fine for him to work with the Big Houses. He’s a household name for crying out loud. I wasn’t asking him to do an air violin for my schmaltzy spiel, but I wanted him to see where I was coming from. He tucked his arms to his chest and let his pumpkin orange brows scrimp.

“Go with your gut kid,” he told me, emphasis on the go.

That’s what he wanted me to do all right, but I didn’t take the hint. I mentioned Uncle Walt self-published “Leaves of Grass” and that Joyce got bounced around trying to place “Ulysses”. I’d be in fine company if I had their stick-to-itiveness and bald-faced determination or I’d be like a gazillion other schmoes with his book collecting dust.

I came to my own merry conclusion and when I stepped off the line I could see he was relieved. But, it was better to be bugged by my mellow yellow consciousness than to shove a manuscript in his face. There’s always those humps who try to push their crappy book on a famous author. Not me.

Before I left, I freshened up in the john. American Standard urinals lined the neutral gray wall. I have a short story in Nexus, Wright State University’s journal, by the same name. It’s about a janitor who wants to make the most magnificent toilet in the universe, a flush to be heard throughout the ages.

Who do you thinks putzes in when I’m taking care of business? The author kept his distance, three pisspots away. And then I breached restroom etiquette, sidling up to the Amesmeister.

“I’m going with your advice,” I said. “I’m sticking with my gut.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll keep you posted.”

I could tell he wanted me to get the hell out of there, but he went over to wash his hands. He wasn’t even rushing and took his time lathering the soap onto his unique lifelines. Before I knew it, we were in a handwashing showdown, Spaghetti Western style. I washed between the crevices of each finger, cracking a knuckle every so often to the mellifluous swish of water in the marble basin. He patted his hair with water on the sides until the wings slipped behind his ears. I bopped the soap dispenser for another splotch and rub-a-dubbed. I soaked my hands until my finegrs were good and prunish. He shook his hairy wet fingers and I dried my hands along the back of arms and elbows.

I made a false start like I was going for the door and instead grabbed a roll of paper that made my hands stink like butcher paper. Ames, clearly miffed, but relieved, shuffled off and I trailed, a few paces behind him.

We didn’t say goodbye, shake hands or anything, but I have to say if I never met him in person I’m not sure I’d ever pick up one of his books.

Brooklyn Book Festival

The Fourth Annual Brooklyn Book Festival was kind of a madhouse, but I mean that in the best way possible. I've been going since '06 and this year lines snaked around corners. No joke. Whether you wanted to check out readings or panel discussions in St. Francis College auditorium, the Courthouse, even the Community Room was jam packed. Okay I'll admit it, I didn't stick around long enough to hear Jonathan Lethem. He went on at 5 o'clock and I'd already skedaddled. I had to catch Del Potro and Nadal.

The big highlights for me were snagging free copies of Poets and Writers back issues (don't worry I'm waiting for my new subscription) and watching a fierce contest of name that author hosted by the National Book Critic Circle. Martha Southgate blew away the comp with 30 points. She took home a cool medallion.

I did have the chance to attend a panel discussion covering Literature in a Digital Age held in the Community Room. John Freeman editor-in-chief at Granta was one of the panelists and Maud Newton moderated. Basically, the Web 2.0 has fractured and yet at the same time connected us in a more profound way. Yup. During the Q and A an audience member asked how long it will take for the U.S to have Cellphone text novels like in Japan. Nobody wanted to touch the question with an Analog nor a Digital signal, but my feeling is this, even if it does get to that point, which it will- seeing as many people totally gaga over printed books and the writers and editors who love them too made me breath with a sigh of relief.