I often have trouble with thinking up titles for my writing – regardless of whether it’s for a poem, short story, novel, or something else. I’m just not that great at them in general.
Some people on the other hand, seem to have this knack for crafting beautiful titles.
I think part of the reason I have such a hard time with it, especially when it comes down to titles for novels, is because you’re trying to sum up so much in so few words. To capture the essence of something that could incorporate many characters, themes, plots and sub-plots in a few words, not always an easy task.
But novels need titles, as mentioned in a post I found today over at the news blog of Leucrota Press Take That Book And…
Just as your name represents you, the title of your book must be representative and catchy for your novel
The post has some really good tips (well, I thought so anyway) on how to come up with potential title names, some of which I’ve been utilizing this afternoon in trying to come up with a title for Ties – it badly needs one, and tomorrow I’m hoping to nail it on the head, at least for now.
I find that trawling through the Adopt-A-Title thread over on the NaNoWriMo site can also be a good way to get some ideas. I haven’t actually used a title straight from the list but seeing so many different kinds of titles certainly gives you some inspiration and gets you thinking about words which you could incorporate in your own titles that you may not have thought about using before hand.
It was through finding some words I liked, looking in the dictionary and happening upon some other words I liked that helped me come up with one of my titles today in fact 
I’d love to be one of those people who have a title right from the outset of a project, and I think that one day I could be that kind of person. Using the Dictionary: Impossible challenge can be a really good way to get some interesting titles and come up with ideas which fit – the trouble with me, until now anyways, has always been that the story evolves and changes so much during the first draft process that I think half the time the title I had begun with wouldn’t really match up to how the story ended up turning out.
Probably not so much the case these days.
Next time I start a novel I might try and pin a title down before hand, and see how it fares by the end of the writing. There is nothing which says it can’t evolve and change as well after all.
I have trouble starting a project if I don’t at least have a working title because when I finished my first novel I went through months of anguish trying to come up with something good to call it. I was never really happy with the results of the novel or the title, but that was certainly a learning experience. Often my titles change during the writing, but at least I know I’ll have *something* to work with when I reach the end.
Trying to sum up an entire novel in a handful of words at most is tough, especially when you want the title to be evocative, interesting, and able to catch the reader’s eye from across the bookstore. There are a lot of bland, boring titles out there.
I find the book “Now All We Need Is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way” to be a really interesting overview on how famous authors have dealt with this problem, in case you’re interested. Good luck with your next project!
I’ve usually got my titles down either before I’ve begun writing, or shortly after I started. I do think this is one of the benefits of being a planner, because knowing where your story is going to end up is a big plus when it comes to naming. It means there’s less chance your title will become obscure. Of course, there’s always the chance that it’s going to happen, anyway, but I, personally, like having my novels named before I begin writing. I hope you can pin one down for “Ties” today.
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