Sophie has lost confidence in the title of her work-in-progress AND the ms that is coming hard on its heels. Maybe inspiration will strike but in the meantime she’s been looking at other people’s titles and trying to learn.
Author Seeks Title is one of the halts along the journey, like Doubting Castle in Pilgrim’s Progress, that every writer has to struggle his/her way through. In my experience there comes a moment when the Subconscious decides to step in with a Jeevesian cough and say, “SO what’s its name, then?”
I will try to ignore it.
But the Big S is persistent.
I try to see it off with a careless, “It hasn’t told me yet.”
That will quieten it down for a bit. Then it comes back with an UNhelpful observation like: “The file and/or directory is still called The Wrong Blonde.”
“So? That’s just a working title.”
It replies nastily, “Wrong Blonde 1, Wrong Blonde 2, WB 3….”
That’s when I shut it up and say Wrong Blonde is only a temporary label, just for the moment.
But the label, points out the Big S in a frankly superior tone that I do NOT appreciate, is taking me further and further away from my story’s currently chosen path.
And, dammit, the Big S is right.
“Blonde-free and nameless, poor thing,” says the Big S smugly.
And buggers off without offering any guidance that would be the least bit useful.
Author Seeks Title: Traps and Truths
I think there are four major traps. At least there are three that I have fallen into – some of them several times.
- Thinking you can find one that encapsulates your whole novel
- Thinking there’s a title formula and that if you analyse enough of the best sellers and/or books you love you can crack it
- Thinking that a truly gorgeous title that you are already in love with can be shoehorned onto your next book, regardless
- Thinking that a title is just a title and it doesn’t really matter, in the end. (Nope, not my mistake ever; though quite a few publishers’ representatives have tried to sell it to me. But then again, see Jane Austen, below.)
The truth is that a title really does have to evolve out of the book.
If you’ve ever tried to write poetry, it’s exactly the same discipline. You want it to be harmonious. The rhythm of a title is tremendously important to me and I suspect that is probably true for more people than consciously recognise it.
You want the key word or words to be exactly right, like a round peg in a tight round hole, not just somewhere in the ball park.
And you want the whole thing to hit the spot.
What Other People Want From Your Title
Now this is the great conundrum. Publishers will tell you that the reader wants to know what ballpark the book is in. And, of course, they’re right. It’s especially true for an unknown author, too. That’s why there are so many detective novels with “Murder” in the title.
Every genre and sub-genre has a number of similar signifier words. They tell the aficionado what she or he will be getting for their money. For instance, “Duke” says Regency romance. “Elf-Lord” indicates romantasy, now hugely popular. “Gone” or “Dark” is likely to net you a psychological thriller. And “Android” has been doing the business for science fiction since at least 1968 when Philip K Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
The difficulty, however, is that the very popularity of these indicator words turn the books into a faceless crowd. (Also, sometimes, ludicrous. Certainly easy to mock.)
Some readers, too, want more than reassurance. To pick up a book, they need to be intrigued, maybe attracted by something evocative or clever. That old human pursuit of picking up stones to see what’s underneath kicks in. The title has to set up in the reader a real need to know more. And to feel something about it, too.
Back to poetry again? Yes, I think so.
Classic Titles — What Can we Learn from Them?
Hmm. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’m not sure there’s much. Most classics, the instantly recognisable classics anyway, were published into a world where there were far fewer books. Now books are like rush hour commuters. They’re all crushed together and they whizz past you before you’ve had time to grasp a thing about them.
Maybe, though, a specific word or phrase that is NOT a generic signifier is a good idea.
Consider Anthony Trollope’s first Palliser novel, Can You Forgive Her? (1864-5). It’s a novel of three stories, each about women making choices that tend to discombobulate the men in their lives, and for a range of different reasons. This is both specific and intriguing. Trollope’s own preferred title The Noble Jilt only covered one of the stories and, besides, contained a mega spoiler. CYFH is actually intriguing. Maybe a bit clunky for today’s market, though?
To avoid clunky, we need to think about something specific but not too obvious. Think 1984. (Published in 1948.) It’s odd. (But not too odd, as we have considered elsewhere on this blog.) Odd in a good way.
Would it have made the same impact if Orwell had gone with the urge to call it The Last Man in Europe? That looks like a spoiler and isn’t. That would have annpyed some readers. Maybe more important, it might actually have sent them off down a path of questioning the associations in Orwell’s use of the word “Man”. No, what he chose was a label without any associationsat all AT THE TIME. And by golly has it been gathering them ever since.!
Jane Austen Author Seeks Title
OK, this is the overflow of powerful feeling on my part. I don’t blame the Blessed Jane for her titles. I mean, they’re not great. They wouldn’t have you falling over yourself to pull them off a crowded shelf, now would you? They are, at best, pedestrian.
The only one that has a sort of intriguing ring to it is Northanger Abbey and that’s because it smacks of the gothic romances that she was taking the piss out of in a big way.
But the first two, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, only make sense in retrospect, once we’ve read the story.
As a selling title they sound horribly like books of instruction to young ladies on behaviour to avoid. (Indeed Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, claimed to be the first novel in English, was intended to be just that, a manual of good behaviour for respectable girls.) Mansfield Park says “this is set in a grand house.” Well, durr. Aren’t they all?
And as for Persuasion, words fail me. It’s the pits. It’s not only a spoiler, it’s a spoiler to what happened in the backstory. And publishers tend to give that away in the blurb anyway.
Persuasion is possibly my very favourite book of all time. And the title is terrible.
So there you are. Sometimes the title genuinely is irrelevant. I suspect you need to be a genius first, though.
Back to the drawing board it is, then.
Sophie
I’m sorry to say, Sophie, I don’t agree with you about the titles Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion. I think they both raise questions in the reader’s mind. With P&P one wonders who is proud and who is prejudiced, with Persuasion, who is doing the persuading and why. It doesn’t matter that you don’t understand until you’ve read the book — in fact I think it’s better that way.
The titles intrigue us, subtly and cleverly.
They’re much better than Jane Austen’s original titles — eg. First Impressions for P&P. I can’t recall what she first called Persuasion. Though I know I often call my manuscripts by the main characters’ names, as she did with Sense and Sensibility.
And the titles are nicely linked — in the same way writers now link series, only more subtly. You can immediately see how Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, are linked. No doubt Indecision and Intrepidity would be a bit “on the nose” for Persuasion.
I shudder to think of what titles some modern publishers would give them.
The Snob and the Spinster.
The Captain and the Spinster.
The Lord and the Lady — even though Darcy wasn’t titled — they’d probably make him a duke.
Second Chance at the Captain.
Return of the Mariner . . .
I love your riff on the Austen titles, Anne, although I think it would have to have been The Return of the Mariner Earl – obviously Wentworth would have been given an Earldom for some incredible deed on behalf of the Crown. 🙂
Well, I agree that P&P is more evocative than First Impressions, Anne. A very good point.
But I remember running away from both for years — well, much longer than I need have done. It made me furious when I did eventually read S&S. I ONLY did because there was nothing else left that I hadn’t read on my grandmother’s small bookshelf and it was Sunday and the library was closed. I thought both sounded preachey. Which in Regency England was probably a useful disguise for a comedy of manners I suppose. OK, I was pre-teen at the time. But they still sound a bit distant and judgemental to me.
But you’re quite right. Modern publishers would undoubtedly have enobled Darcy and advertised the book as an Enemies to Lovers Romance, into the bargain.
Love your alternatives. Still giggling here.
Titles…The only one of Anne Weale’s that I remember is Thai Silk, which tells you nothing except that it has an exotic setting. Genre titles are all so similar these days. They have all the hook words jammed in and, as a result, sound the same as every other title. I get it. They are pitched at women – mostly – who have 30 seconds to decide which one she’ll buy when she’s doing the weekly shopping. Easy to hide the small cost of that comfort read in the grocery bill. What will it be this week? Duke, Virgin, Sheikh… I wanted to call my last romance Honey’s Garden for the Broken-Hearted. Not even close.. There can, apparently, be no negative words in romance titles.
Goodness, I didn’t know that about no negative titles in romance titles, Liz. A Garden for the Broken-Hearted sound wonderful to me. Comforting too. Though now I come to think of it, Jacqui Bianchi did apologise to me for letting me keep the title A Shadow Princess. Marketing told her that sales were disappointing because the readership recoiled from the word “shadow”. Weird.
It is that instant decision, Sophie. I’d be tempted to retitle mine when/if I get the rights back while I’m still up for the task, but not sure it would be the best idea.
My very first book for M&B had a negative title A Penniless Prospect but I think that was because my editor retired after she’d done the contract and her successor thought it had all been approved. BUT in spite of the title that book sold well and still does. So maybe editors aren’t right about negative words
Joanna
I love A Penniless Prospect, Joanna. And I love the title too. It’s a true reflection of the book and I don’t find it negative in any way. A prospect is, after all, just somewhere to start.
I would have bought A Garden for the Broken-Hearted in a heartbeat, Liz.
And I well remember a wonderful speech Sophy gave in Australia, where she talked about an old romance called Driftwood Dragon — and sent half the audience madly scrambling to find it.
Oh, I love The Driftwood Dragon, Anne. If my raving about it sent people out to track it down I’m delighted. I used to be able to quote it from memory, it was so brilliant. Completely perfect title too, steeped in the literal story and still emblematic and intriguing.
Marvellous heroine, grumpy and brave and utterly grounded. Fabulous hero with flaws, vulnerabilities and a really alpha public image. Great story, with real-life stresses I totally believed in and those heart-stopping moments you remember for ever, some uplifting, some profoundly sad. Made me cry in places but it was so beautifully written, I didn’t grudge a single tear, it was all part of the experience. Pretty much like re-reading Jane Ausen, in fact.
You’ve made me realise that I haven’t re-read it for too long. Shall excavate it from my For Ever shelf and do so this week.
Fascinating discussion, so thank you for kicking it off with your post, Sophie! I struggle with titles for my own work but rarely worry about what other people call their books. Personally I like an intriguing title. One that stands out in my mind is the biography of a famous Spanish bullfighter. As a very poor boy starting out, he apparently said the words to his mother before an important bullfight: he was going to win or “I’ll Dress you in Mourning”.
Goodness, that’s dark. Evocative though, by the bucketful.
I’m with you, Sarah. I like an evocative title.
And preferably a memorable one, too. I love the Murderbot series but have to work really hard to remember which title goes with which book. They’re all appropriate, like All Systems Red (the first) to Platform Decay (the latest) but I had to check both before I quoted them. Every one is really worth reading, though, so I suppose I don’t really care about individual titles, I just love the character so much.
Heaven’s Sarah, brilliant title but a little shiver here.
After reading that title, I believe I had a character say something very similar in a book, its so good!