To Title A Novel...

Don't worry about it. Name it something worthwhile to you and accept that the publisher will most likely change it anyway. Character names or central themes work well, and one word titles "snap".

If you like Catharsis, use it. (I like it.) But don't get too attached to it because if you sell the work, there is a good chance your editor will change it.

Of the five books I've had pubbed so far, only one kept its original title. For my current mystery series I had a collection of titles that I loved. They were clever double entendres that not only sounded interesting, they were relevant to the specific plot of the books they went with. My publisher changed the titles, going to a series that all have the word "stiff" in them. Since my MC is a nurse who becomes a deputy coroner, the stiff idea made sense. Amusingly, after we settled on WORKING STIFF as the title for the first one, I googled it and discovered that most of the primary hits had something to do with porn.

Beth (aka Annelise Ryan)

I'd just echo what others have said. Use whatever you think works.

There's no telling what your editor -- or other folks -- might think is good or bad.

I've gone through the process twice with an editor, and the first time the title went through without comment ... and what I'd slapped on it I'd viewed as a temp title (Acts of Violence). The second one I sent in with The Long Reminder on the title page, which I liked a lot. Editor asked if I had any other working titles. I said The Lowlife, and we ended up going with Low Life, slightly different but close. Why? Editor thought TLR sounded like a Black Mask-era-type detective novel, which my book is not, and he thought Low Life might give people a better idea of the content. In the end, I thought he was right.

So use what you like best, but be prepared for an editor-initiated title change. (I like Catharsis, by the way.)

I like Catharsis as a title but do YA readers (12-17) know what that means?

I'm also not sure how 'catharsis' fits into the description you've given us. Catharsis is basically purging- letting out all your extreme emotions,thus reaching some sort of 'happy ending'. It's mainly used in tragedies to leave the audience feeling some form of satisfaction.

I agree....I like the title, but have a hard time picturing that on a YA shelf because not many in that age range know what it means and might be put off by that title. But, you as the author know what best fits. It is ultimately your choice...until you get to that elusive publishing stage when an editor might make a suggestion

By the time someone's seventeen she's prepping for the SATs and by golly she'd better know what 'catharsis' means.

The rules for titles are:

1) Easy to spell
2) Not embarrassing to say aloud.

(Sub-rule three is: Not likely to be confused with some other book; you don't want that other guy to get your sales, do you?)

(Remember that the publisher is going to change the title anyway if the marketing guys think something else will work better.)

Ninjas...or Zombies.

James D. Macdonald said:

2) Not embarrassing to say aloud.

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P*ers Anth*ny, are you listening?

I'll echo what others have said -- don't get too attached, because it's always subject to change. But I do think some thought and care needs to go into your title. It shows the pros that you've invested some brain cells in your work.

That being said, what does the concept of catharsis (which means "purging" in common parlance, but originally meant "cleansing" in latin) have to do with the ideas of corruption and soul-selling, as in The Picture of Dorian Gray? I'm not getting the connection based on the very brief description you gave of the work. It could well be there, but I wouldn't use a title with such a clear meaning if it doesn't directly apply to your story. In other words, a word sounding cool isn't enough to justify its use as a title. And your main character is named Catharsis? You said the titular character, so....

half.jaded said:

What makes a great title?

This is kind of out of the blue, but I've been thinking about Catharsis lately, and it strikes me that it might be just an okay (or -gasp- a horrible) title. But I want a good title.


So does anyone have suggestions on how to title something?


Side note: Catharsis is a YA novel. To get a basic feel of its premise, think The Picture of Dorian Gray except with a teenager as the titular character. Also, throw in a grim reaper. It's not so much about vanity as it is about corruption.

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He sells his soul to the grim reaper so he'll never grow old, but it corrupts him, something like that? How about, Rotten? Some kind of plastic surgery metaphor? Like Face Job or something? Does it involve an Avatar? (like he stays young but his avatar gets old?) What does catharsis have to do with it?

Titles are sometimes the most difficult aspect of a novel. I have a quartet that not only has working titles for the novels, but for the quartet itself. This isn't helped by the fact that my co-writer is currently incommunicado, either due to MSN glitches (she gets them *all* the time) or NaNoWriMo.

On the other hand, my standalone fantasy novel named Shattered Ivory is a title I *am* attached to (and my mum really likes it and she's not the parent I generally discuss writing with). The title refers to various aspects - my female protagonist is known as the Ivory Queen, she is imprisoned and tortured, a proliferation of scars on both her skin and my male protagonist's, and the fact that a duel takes place on a field where there are still shards of ivory from a broken horn (this is linked in with a prophecy/rhyme that speaks of the end of a period of internal conflict in the male protagonist's land). Basically, the words of the title are woven throughout the narrative in several different forms. It also, hopefully, sounds like a fantasy novel.

Catharsis would only work for your novel if, a) it's the protagonist's name, or, b) he eventually cleanses himself of his sins. You might want to look into ideas of bathos and pathos, but something as simple as Corrupt would work. I can say that I might not have picked up a novel named Catharsis during my own YA period (when you move from YA to adult anyway?), but I spent mine in a mix of fantasy, Jane Austen, classics and Agatha Christe, so I'm not really one to talk...

On the hand, I *loved* The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I read that as a twenty-on-year-old for a Gothic Fiction module at uni.

I read an excellent article on titles a couple of years back, but of course, now I can't remember where it was...

Your title needs to encapsulate your main idea. From what I can tell of the OP's example, it's about a Faustian pact and the main theme is corruption. Therefore you want a title which suits that such as (cue terrible example) My Deal with Death. So the reader knows that there will be some sort of bargain with a dark force.

IMO, Titles are a marketing tool. Unlike the other marketing tools we writers have to come up with, these aren't geared to people just within the industry (agents & publishers), but to the readers as well. This is why agents & publishers have a say in what the final title is.

Several friends & I did some evaluation of titles many years ago and there were three main things that titles did (IIRC):

1. Describe something important in the novel (Lord of the Rings, Taking of Pelham 123, etc)

2. Make a provocative statement people will pick up the book to find out more about (The Dead Eat Themselves, etc)

3. Provide a thematic phrase or statement (For Whom the Bell Tolls, To Kill a Mockingbird I think were examples of this one)


Hope that helps.

Agreed. Or they make allusions to powerful/famous works of literature, such as Tender is The Night, Of Mice and Men, His Dark Materials trilogy