Titles

JustGo · Jan 11, 2008

How do people decide on titles for their books? (Not that it really matters in the end, curse those editors!) A line from a song, a favorite poem, sudden inspiration, something else entirely?

Personally, it takes me several months to come up with a title for a novel and then a theme or central idea pops out at me, but I have a friend who can't even start writing unless he has a title. How do you work with it?

blacbird · Jan 11, 2008

I start everything with the same working title: "This Piece of Shit".

Usually, I find some reason to change it later.

caw

TPCSWR · Jan 11, 2008

I had an original two word title, then I changed the first word, then I added "the" to the start, then I got rid of it. Now I'm happy with the title.

scarletpeaches · Jan 11, 2008

Sometimes it's a song title, a phrase I hear someone use, an actual book title I see (well there's no copyright on titles after all). If something strikes me, I scribble it down on my 'Titles List', then when I get a vague idea for a story, I scan the list, think, "Oh. That one fits," and most of the time, that's the title that sticks right up until I write 'The End'.

I've only changed titles on a piece once or twice in my writing life. I even have some stories that are unwritten, but titled. All titled up and nowhere to go.

Red-Green · Jan 11, 2008

I usually just start with a noun that describes something in the story. Wrote a story about a deputy, which was called for many months "Deputy." Yup, pretty original. Eventually, I got a good draft of the story and renamed it after something that's important in the story: "Middle Spring and After." (Something important happens at a place called Middle Spring, and what happens after is also important.)

Okay, yeah, I'm a title moron. I mean, I have a novel titled Other Peoples' Dead Relatives, because the main character collects photos from estate sales of, you guessed it, other peoples' dead relatives. The book's working title was Estate Sale. (An excerpt from this novel was published--it's title? "Of All the Cocks in the World.")

Moron. This is why I'm not offering you advice. The first novel I ever wrote has no title, because of the roughly three dozen I came up, all were sucks to your ass-mar.

I can only hope that some brilliant agent/editor/publisher will come up with decent titles for my books.

justme · Jan 11, 2008

I'm terrible with titles. I'm so indecisive.

Red-Green · Jan 11, 2008

rosepressey said:
I'm terrible with titles. I'm so indecisive.
__________________
12 partials
2 full
20 rejections

WIP #1 75,000/75,000
WIP #2 10,000/40,000
WIP #3 1,000/80,000

I dunno...I'm digging the WIP Trilogy.

JustGo · Jan 11, 2008

blacbird said:
I start everything with the same working title: "This Piece of Shit".

Usually, I find some reason to change it later.

caw

Your dry wit and constant pessimism is an inspiration to us all - and I mean that sincerely

Redzilla said:
I have a novel titled Other Peoples' Dead Relatives, because the main character collects photos from estate sales of, you guessed it, other peoples' dead relatives.

That title strikes me as unbelievably brilliant

As does quoting Lord of the Flies as a euphemism!

juneafternoon · Jan 11, 2008

My titles are usually song names or names of places in Brazil translated into English which I thought were cool and had some bearing to the story.

Madison · Jan 11, 2008

In my last manuscript, the title found me - it was a line near the end that jumped out and said, here! take me!

very handy.

astonwest · Jan 11, 2008

Brainstorming sessions...it's how I come up with them for both my novels and my short stories. Of course, it doesn't stop me from changing them later. I have a short story right now ("Entrapment") which I'm probably going to change, simply because I think the title gives away too much.

johnzakour · Jan 11, 2008

I come up with a title I like then write a book around it.

David I · Jan 12, 2008

I have a friend whose working title for all his novels was An Aztec in Central Park. (No, I'm not making this up.) But then he wrote a novel that had--you guessed it--an Aztec in Central Park, and away went his working title, permanently attached to a book.

I never get a title until I am well into the book. Typically it relates to the book's epigraph. But that just raises the question of how I choose my epigraphia, so I really haven't said much, have I?

Albedo · Jan 12, 2008

Wordperfect automatically titles documents with the first line of text, so that is usually my first working title.

Varthikes · Jan 12, 2008

My titles are usually a description of the story's theme in as few words as possible.

Forging Trust - the two main characters try to forge a peaceful coexistance between their respective kinds

Shattered Trust - that peaceful coexistance is threatened and breaks

Rehatching - a new arrangement is made regarding the settlement on the dragons' planet

Usually, I come up with the title as I'm writing. Although, I came up with the last two while I was still writing its predecessor. And, I'm still working on the second.

Elodie-Caroline · Jan 12, 2008

Sometimes I use a song title and sometimes I actually come up with a title all of my very own.
I had called my last novel, 'The man with the child in his eyes.', it fitted the theme of the book. Then I wrote the sequel and called that, 'Two steps forward, one step back.' But then I decided to put them both together and have called it something completely different; only one person knows the name of it so far, that's my beta reader. It's a three word title and I think it's genius on my part, so I'm keeping it a secret, just in case someone pinches it! :tongue

Elodie

Claudia Gray · Jan 12, 2008

I usually get my titles right at the beginning or am struggling with them until the bitter end. No in-between.

For the second book in my series, Stargazer, I knew the title immediately. Bianca's an astronomy buff, but in the first book I never explained why. In the second I did, and the explanation connects to a lot of themes. So even though it's a small moment in the overall novel, I thought that title would tell us a lot about Bianca and her expectations.

The third book (the one I have to start in a few days) was a LOT harder to name. For a while it was named after the villain; then it was named after an old house they'll encounter along the way. I wasn't entirely happy with either. Then I realized the whole theme of the book is going to be about time running out, and that gave me Hourglass. And I only had to think about it for a year to figure it out!

HourglassMemory · Jan 12, 2008

I guess there's many ways your books could get a title.
At the beggining, at the end, or even the title is the seed from where an entire story grows, because you just like the sound of the title and want to build around it.

At the beggining - You have a rough idea of what the story is going ot be about, and you sum it up in one or two words.
That becomes the(in progress) title. Often people call the project some weird name and then it ends up being the official title because people get so used to it.

At the end - You get the title, usually, from a passage inside the book.

swvaughn · Jan 12, 2008

Redzilla said:
sucks to your ass-mar.

BWAH-hahahahahaha!

Hail to the King, baby.

Regarding the OP: I am the worst titler, like, evah. My agent and I spent a couple of days going back and forth on a title, generating list after list... and at one point I thought I'd just come up with some nonsense title that had nothing to do with anything. In private, I am currently calling that novel Purple Hoogy Splat.

Yeah. I'd pick it up off a bookstore shelf.

Strongbear · Jan 12, 2008

I definitely need my title long before the book has been finished. Sometimes I have a dummy title or at least certain ideas/words which I would like to include. Other times I brainstorm a title and then develop my plot/themes from there. That doesn't mean however that my title won't change along the way.

I think it's the same for my characters. I usually give them a name and their personality fits with that name. Later on, I might decide to change their name and some of their characteristics might need to be altered as well.

The_Grand_Duchess · Jan 12, 2008

I get title ideas all the time. Sometimes with just snatches of stories attached. Sometimes with no stories. I just see something and think, wow that would be an awesome title for something!

I like titles.

Stew21 · Jan 12, 2008

Titles hit me some time during writing. About the same time I figure out what my plot is.

Trish, seat-of-the-pants writer and titler.

Titles

JustGo

Digging through graves of giants

blacbird

TPCSWR

Unashamed Play School Fan

scarletpeaches

Red-Green

KoalaKoalaKoala!

justme

Well butter my biscuit!

Red-Green

KoalaKoalaKoala!

JustGo

Digging through graves of giants

juneafternoon

Return of the Jedi

Madison

summertime...

astonwest

2 WIP? A glutton for punishment

johnzakour

Dangerous with a Keyboard

David I

Albedo

Alex

Varthikes

Dragon Writer

Elodie-Caroline

Claudia Gray

HourglassMemory

swvaughn

adrift

Strongbear

The_Grand_Duchess

I record everything.

Stew21