How do you choose the right title?

Atlantis · Dec 25, 2007

How do you know when the title you have is the right one? I'm at the end of a four year project and am trying to decide if I should keep the working title Atlantis Reborn or change it to something else. I've gone through heaps of other titles and none of them feel as right to me as Atlantis Reborn but I don't think I should market the book under that title because there are thousands of books about Atlantis and I want my book to stand out not fade into the background. In other words, its not marketable, so I'm going to have to ditch the title. The only other one that remotely thinks the story is The Promise of the Fates but I'm not that hooked on it cause it sounds like a romance novel and my book, while it does have strong romantic elements, is more of a fantasy novel. So I don't know which one to choose. How do you pick the right title? Should it be one that is marketable or one that just feels right and matches the story?

Dustry Joe · Dec 25, 2007

Hate to tell you, but you just know when you've got it. Anybody who can write a book worth reading can come up with the right title.

IReidandWrite · Dec 25, 2007

Is it true that a lit agent usually changes the title? I heard that somewhere, either agent or publisher.

I like the title 'Project Hai-Zi', for my own novel. PHZ IS the novel. There is no other outlet, no other plot. What happens in Hai-Zi, stays in Hai-Zi. Heh. My friend came up with the title...Hai-Zi is Chinese for children.

Danger Jane · Dec 25, 2007

Um, Dustry, I don't know if that's the best advice, because a lot of titles get changed by editors anyway. Use the title that feels best to you, Atlantis, and if the editors feel another title will work better for marketing purposes, they'll definitely let you know, and probably change it anyway.

kristie911 · Dec 25, 2007

From what I've seen in the past around here, a fair amount of titles get changed anyway before the book is published. So please don't get too stressed out about it. Just pick the one you like and use that one.

And Dustry, that's not all that accurate and not exactly helpful. It is possible to write a perfectly good novel and have a hard time coming up with a title.

Shady Lane · Dec 25, 2007

Gotta go against the pack and say that if you see a lot of published books with Atlantis in the title, then imagine how many unpublished books agents see with Atlantis in the title.

Choose the title that will get you an agent. If you really hate it--which sounds pretty unlikely to me--you can negotiate it later.

CheshireCat · Dec 25, 2007

Coming up with titles is like any other part of the writing process: it varies hugely from writer to writer.

Some writers start with a title and work out from that; some wait until the book tells them, using a working title (Remember Paul McCartney's "Scrambled Eggs"?) all the way through; and some authors -- believe it or not -- allow agents or editors to title their work.

Depending on what your genre is, agents and editors may insist on a title change, Marketing may insist, or the guy pushing the broom after hours may insist (Okay, kidding -- but not much).

If your title absolutely fits the story, then you can argue for it. You might even win. But just as with cover design, how much you'll be listened to depends on the house, on your agent, your contract, and on you and your history.

johnzakour · Dec 25, 2007

I actually come up with my titles before I write my books. It works for me. I've only had one changed and that was when
the book was in the editing stages a toy company came out with a toy of the same name.

Stijn Hommes · Dec 26, 2007

There are a lot of articles about titling your work. I suggest you read through some of them to get an idea of alternatives that could make it stand out to agents. You can start right here at AW.

James D. Macdonald · Dec 26, 2007

Titles should be easy to spell, not embarrassing to pronounce, and not likely to be confused with some other book.

(Here's one way to get a title. Pick a Shakespeare play. Throw a dart at the text. Use a word or two or a phrase, from wherever the dart hit.)

Shadow_Ferret · Dec 26, 2007

Well, aside from putting holes in my favorite Shakespeare book, that isn't a bad idea!

I'm just awful with titles. My current wip has had something like a dozen different titles until I finally came upon one I liked. In fact, I've submitted the book to 11 different agents with about that many titles.

*gets out his Shakespeare and his darts*

Drat. They're plastic tipped!

donroc · Dec 26, 2007

Yes, Shakespeare and the Bible are great sources for titles, Homer too. A part of a cogent quotation relating to your book may do well. For myself, titles come before I write, but I may change them as I write.

My worst title experience: Back in the 1970s, I titled my still unpublished novel about WWII fighter aces RAPTORS. Hollywood types said to change it because no one knew what it meant and might confuse it with RAPTURE. My lit agent agreed and changed the title to the awful FIGHTING ACES when she sent it out. Now, because of JURASSIC PARK, everyone knows what it means and we have a pro basketball team as well with that name.

My recently released novel, A GATHERING OF VULTURES, takes its title from Isaiah, and my next novel, to be published in 2008 takes its title from the MC's last name, ROCAMORA.

www.donaldmichaelplatt

Dustry Joe · Dec 26, 2007

Now, because of JURASSIC PARK, everyone knows what it means and we have a pro basketball team as well with that name.

Which just means that any editor lame enough to confuse raptor with rapture would now tell you to change the title because it might get confused with Jurassic Park or the basketball team.

Dustry Joe · Dec 26, 2007

Um, Dustry, I don't know if that's the best advice, because a lot of titles get changed by editors anyway. Use the title that feels best to you,

That advice is inconsistent with "you just know when you get the right title"?????

Shadow_Ferret · Dec 26, 2007

donroc said:
My worst title experience: Back in the 1970s, I titled my still unpublished novel about WWII fighter aces RAPTORS. Hollywood types said to change it because no one knew what it meant and might confuse it with RAPTURE. My lit agent agreed and changed the title to the awful FIGHTING ACES when she sent it out. Now, because of JURASSIC PARK, everyone knows what it means and we have a pro basketball team as well with that name.

Actually, no. Everyone thinks a RAPTOR is a dinosaur, but it's not. So even today you'd be told to change the title from RAPTORS because people would think it's about dinosaurs.

otterman · Dec 26, 2007

This is going to sound vague but I like titles that are cool, titles that suggest meaning and a little mystery. I feel the title needs to invite the reader in and then reverberate through the text. The title to my WIP just came to me. It is simple but "deep" at the same time. And no one's going to change it! Unless there's money involved. Just kidding! I would really be upset if I had to call my novel by another name.

Will Lavender · Dec 26, 2007

johnzakour said:
I actually come up with my titles before I write my books. It works for me. I've only had one changed and that was when
the book was in the editing stages a toy company came out with a toy of the same name.

I'm the same way. I can't even begin a novel without choosing a title that works for me.

I realize I'm painfully, dangerously anal retentive in this.

ACEnders · Dec 26, 2007

otterman said:
This is going to sound vague but I like titles that are cool, titles that suggest meaning and a little mystery. I feel the title needs to invite the reader in and then reverberate through the text. The title to my WIP just came to me. It is simple but "deep" at the same time. And no one's going to change it! Unless there's money involved. Just kidding! I would really be upset if I had to call my novel by another name.

I like your advice, and that's exactly what I try to do. My husband who doesn't like to read fiction saw my title It's Okay to Cry and said "wow! You thought of that title? It's awesome!" When I saw it caught his attention, I knew it was good.

PS - He hates fiction but will gladly read mine ~~if I get published~~. When I get published.

Will Lavender · Dec 26, 2007

Project nachonaco said:
Is it true that a lit agent usually changes the title? I heard that somewhere, either agent or publisher.

I don't know if it's "usually" true. My title was never discussed. But I'm certain, as Cheshire points out above, that it's true some of the time.

Nothing is ever set in stone in this business. My cover, for instance, came under scrutiny. The cover was chosen a couple of months after the book's auction, so that would have been in April. It remained the same until early this month, when BOTH Borders and Barnes & Noble called my publisher to say they didn't like it and didn't think it suited the book. They worried that the book might be a commercial success, and they thought the cover was too understated. They also worried that the cover didn't say anything about college, and people like campus novels.

I point this out just to show that it's all about selling the book. Anything can be changed -- characters, ideas, titles, language, cover art -- to satisfy the publisher's need to sell these books when they get to that point where they're about to hit the shelves. And personally, I have no problem with that. I want people to buy, and read, and perhaps enjoy my novel.

HourglassMemory · Dec 26, 2007

Just use a name for the project. You'll see that you get so used to that name that it's very likely that it'll end up being the title for the story.
It turned out like that for me.

Or you could be absolutely blunt about it.
"The Desk".
"The Coffin"
"The Coin"
"the door breaker"
"the coin bender"
"The keyboard mistress"
Make it plural.
Or make it plural and add "and" in front of it.
Or join two stupid titles
fors example "The Coin and the Coffin"

Who knows!!!! You could actually get a story just from a stupidly random title!

DeleyanLee · Dec 26, 2007

Things I've learned about titles

Titles are a marketing tool. As it was described to me, they should do one of a limited number of things:
1. Give the story contents (Jurassic Park, The DaVinci Code, The War of the Worlds, Harry Potter and the...)
2. Describe the story's mood/tone (Gone With the Wind, Of Mice and Men, Blood and Sand)
3. Intrigue or give a WTF reaction (The Curious Eat Themselves)

It doesn't really pay to get emotionally attached to working titles, since odds are pretty good that someone with a checkbook's going to want you to change it before it hits the shelves.

I'm told I have pretty good titles for my novels. I find titles in a variety of places--first and foremost, though, within the manuscript. Often, I write a line where a phrase just strikes me as capturing the feel of the book, and I use that as the title. Sometimes beta readers will come back and tell me that a certain phrase has to be the title.

Look to whatever music you were listening to while you were writing this book. Give a hard listen to the songs that most influenced your moods and see if there's not a title lurking in there or if something inspires a title. I get some of my best titles by twisting lyrics so the mood is still there, but the words are different.

Lastly, I look to the theme of the story to see if I can phrase that as a title.

Worse comes to worse, I just slap the hero's name up there and call it done. The publisher's just likely to change it anyway. LOL!

Susan Breen · Dec 26, 2007

I was listening to some people on NPR discussing a book called Baboon Metaphysics (I think) and i was thinking how fun that title sounded and how different I would feel about that book if they'd called it, "A short history of baboons," or some such thing. A good title makes a book so much more inviting. Usually a title pops into my head after a few months of writing, but when that does happen, I just start making lists of words and hope that something clicks together.

Shady Lane · Dec 26, 2007

James D. Macdonald said:
Titles should be easy to spell, not embarrassing to pronounce, and not likely to be confused with some other book.

(Here's one way to get a title. Pick a Shakespeare play. Throw a dart at the text. Use a word or two or a phrase, from wherever the dart hit.)

*Looks at signature*

*clears throat*

*walks away*

It's a sonnet, damn it!

geardrops · Dec 26, 2007

James D. Macdonald said:
Here's one way to get a title. Pick a Shakespeare play. Throw a dart at the text. Use a word or two or a phrase, from wherever the dart hit.

This is good advice.

I hear you're known for that. Or something.

donroc · Dec 26, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Actually, no. Everyone thinks a RAPTOR is a dinosaur, but it's not. So even today you'd be told to change the title from RAPTORS because people would think it's about dinosaurs.

Yeah, I know, and I have changed the title to something more poetic, a line from a great poet.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

How do you choose the right title?

Happy to be here

my name is hannah

Mostly purring. Mostly.

Dangerous with a Keyboard

Know what you write...

Your Genial Uncle

Court Jester

Historicals and Horror rule

Court Jester

Word Voyeur

Everything is what it seems.

Self-Banned

Everything is what it seems.

Writing Anarchist

my name is hannah

Good thing I like my day job

Historicals and Horror rule