Title Life Line - Throw Me One

Titles. Was this topic my suggestion? Was it? Cause I'm hopeless. I've been reading all week, hoping and praying for a silver bullet that would make me less bad at titles. Listen. Titling a thing gives me hives. More so even, than having to write the synopsis of the thing. 90% of the time, I file my story files under a character's name. All of my working folders are named things like 'Ari', 'Sinclair', or 'Heli'.

Even when I *do* name a story, at long, painful last, editors want to change it. No problem, I say, and I provide a brainstormed list of 20 other possible titles. But you know what happens? Every single time, so far? They go with my original title. And if you think that doesn't give me a complex about my titles, you're as crazy as I am.

Like KAK and just about everyone else, I want my title to convey both genre and some hint of what the story might be about. That isn't to say it's always achieved. Just that it's a goal. Usually, I have to write a complete story before a title that isn't a character's name offers itself up for consideration. Those of you who know my work already know that the working title 'Ari' became the book Enemy Within (which was also the title of a movie that came out several years before my book did, speaking of avoiding duplicate titles. This happened again with Enemy Mine - which was NOT my title - my editor suggested it. When I said 'Enemy Mine, you mean like the Dennis Quaid/Danny Glover SF movie?' She had no idea what I was talking about because that movie had been made right about the time she'd been born. Yeah. Ouch.)

I'll tell you what. I will lay bare my current titling dilemma. I have a manuscript in edits right now. The working title is The Incubus and the Asexual. *I* love this title. No one else seems to. I'm completely open to a retitle, but everything any of my crit partners and I have attempted to brainstorm has just not fit. So the book will go through developmental edits and we'll see whether it offers up anything that does as good a job of telling you the story, the genre and the tone as The Incubus and the Asexual. Unless, you know, you have suggestions. Bring 'em on. When you're as hopeless at titling books as I am, it's a relief when someone starts tossing titles like a life line.

Perils of the Writer: The Agony of Titles

Coming up with titles for books is one of my most loathed things.   Almost everything has had a working title for some portion of its existence.  And those working titles were often atrocious.

Case in point: when I first started drafting what would become The Thorn of Dentonhill, my working title was "Tools of the Trade".  In fact, in the original drafting, while I had an outline, the idea that Veranix would become "The Thorn" wasn't part of the plan.  That initially evolved out a need to have his enemies refer to him as something other than "the guy".  But my initial critique readers thought "Tools of the Trade" was incredibly bland, and I needed something that felt unique, gave the story its own identity in a way that "Tools of the Trade" never would.

A Murder of Mages was originally just "Maradaine Constabulary", though I occasionally considered "The Mage Murders", up until the point where it was being sold. Finalizing the title was part of getting the contract squared.  Funny thing is, A Murder of Mages was a title I had considered but initially dismissed as if it was not available or taken already or something.  Which is absurd.

When writing The Alchemy of Chaos, my working title was just "The Alchemist", and then "The Alchemist of Aventil", which I didn't think was a workable title by the time I had finished the manuscript.  There were so many things going on that having a title that focused on just one bit seemed wrong.  I sent it to my editor with the title "The Elements of Aventil", which she didn't like at all.  We had a few email exchanges bandying potential titles back and forth before we came up with The Alchemy of Chaos.  I'm quite glad we did, because it meant that the third Thorn book could then have the title The Imposters of Aventil, which she liked right away.

Had a similar problem with An Import of Intrigue.  My working title had always been "The Little East". because I wanted to conjure up the mystery of this neighborhood of foreign enclaves.  My editor thought it was too vague, though, making it sound explicitly Asian when that isn't the case.  I played around with some other titles that played off of collective nouns like A Murder of Mages does, and one of them was "An Intrigue of Imports", and my editor said, "Let's flip that around."  And we're keeping the collective nouns, if not the alliteration, with A Parliament of Bodies.

The Holver Alley Crew, coming out next year, has kind of always been Holver Alley Crew, though since I initially considered that an entire-series title, I played around with it being called "The Fire Gig".  But that never really took.  And my editor was all in for the title of that second book, which is one I've had in my back pocket for years, Lady Henterman's Wardrobe.  

All right, that's enough name-checking all my current and future books.  Time to get to work.

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The UC Review has nice things to say about The Alchemy of Chaos, as well as new DAW author Gerald Brandt's The Courier, which is probably going to find its way near the top of my to-read in the near future.  

5 Tips for Titles

Have Book. Have Title?

I don't have an issue coming up with titles. Not for the book. Not for the series. Not for the books in the series. Taglines are difficult. Back-copy is the bane of my existence. Titles? Easy peasy. They come to me early in the process. Whether they're any good is debatable. I don't have a Sales or Marketing team telling me what I can or cannot name my books. Then again, they're not there to advise me on the latest consumer purchasing behavior either, so I have to glean that third-hand through my own research.

Here are 5 Ways to Test Your Title:

1) Does It Convey The Story:
I'm pretty sure LARCOUT wouldn't have been allowed by a publisher. Not because it's vulgar, overused, or too long; rather because--for the first book in a series--it tells the reader unfamiliar with the World nothing about the story. That's what you're trying to do with the title; capture the essence of your 150,000-word novel in under six words (including articles).

Now, if you read the back-copy, or open the cover to see the map, the name LARCOUT makes complete sense. It's the name of the nation in which the story takes place; however, I'm asking the reader to take that extra step. In so doing, I inserted a barrier to purchase. A big no-no in Sales. Oops.

The series title: Fire Born, Blood Blessed gives a strong indicator of the genre. Probably isn't a contemporary romance. Much more likely to be Fantasy.

2) Is It Unique: 
Guys, guys, guys, please check to see how many books, movies, etc, are already in the wild using the title you think you want to use. Google. IMDB. Amazon. Do the search. Do another one for anticipated releases. The last thing you want to do is passively forfeit a sale.

No, you cannot copyright a title. No, your title is not protected by the copyright covering your book. You could attempt a trademark, but that is obscenely costly to acquire and defend (and if you don't defend your trademark it becomes common use and is no longer capable of being protected...in a nutshell).

No, your use of "A" instead of "The" doesn't make your title significantly different from the competition.

I went the route of using a made up word...then doing a Web search for said word to make sure it was as made up as I thought it was. Turns out it's a surname and there was an inactive Twitter account with that name; otherwise, I was good.

Now, don't get too cray-cray with "unique" and use a word that no one can spell much less remember. If you do that, you're relying on your name to sell the book. If you're GRRM, that could work for you. If you're Nora Roberts, you don't even need a title; you could just label your books "A," "B," and "C."

3) What Are The Genre Trends: 
While you're doing that Web search for novelty, make note of trends for the last two years and for the upcoming year. Always popular is the naming convention of THE ADJECTIVE NOUN.

Since LARCOUT came out last year and features a female protagonist, some publisher somewhere would have suggested THE GIRL WHO... in an attempt to leverage the craze spanning multiple genres.  THE GIRL WHO RAZED THE NATION, maybe.

This year, within my genre of Fantasy, the popular trend is NOUN of NOUN. THE NATION OF SAND AND STONE, perhaps?

Example: Chek out Best Fantasy Books HQ's: ULTIMATE 2016 FANTASY BOOK READING CALENDAR

4) Does It Fit: 
Literally, on the cover of your book, does it fit while still being legible in a thumbnail view?

5) Is It Memorable:
This one is the most subjective. This is the criteria that leads to spoofing popular titles or pop-culture events. It's also the dark path to Ditto-Titles. Admittedly, LARCOUT is memorable to me, but I doubt it is to anyone else. So, this is my opportunity for improvement. Not one that will happen in this series, but perhaps in another.

So, there you go, Five Tips for Titling Your Book.

Tips and Tricks for Great Titles

I took this pic several weeks ago - just love how the Santa Fe light works, with the highlights and shadows, and the looming mauve fog bank swirling in to shroud it again.

This week's topic in the bordello is The Joy and Agony of Coming Up With Titles.

I'm not really sure where the joy comes in - unless it's the zing of knowing you've finally landed on the right one. Or, sometimes, that you don't have to think about it anymore.

One question writers ask each other a lot is whether they title first, then write, or write and title later. Most fall into one of those two groups. This is further complicated, however, by two factors:

1) In this age of computers, we're forced to save our file as SOMETHING, so this makes us commit to a title sooner than we might otherwise. There's always using a placeholder, sure, but if multiple works all have placeholder titles, it can get dangerously confusing. Which "draft" is that??
2) If traditionally publishing, the author might not even get to decide the title. Even if self-publishing, an author might not choose the title they love. This is because titles are part of a book's branding, it should communicate genre to readers. This is why we often talk about "working titles," because we know it will likely change.

I tend to fall into the first camp, though more so in the past than recently. Not sure what that change indicates. Actually - maybe I do. I'll get to that.

When I first began writing seriously, I almost always knew the title before anything else. For example, I knew the title "Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel," - which also became the title of the collection - before I knew exactly what I'd say in the essay.

Some of my early titles all stuck. The Facets of Passion books, Sapphire, Platinum and Ruby, were all original titles. I'd wanted to call Five Golden Rings "Oro," instead, but my publisher thought no one would know that's the Spanish word for gold. I was disappointed about that. In retrospect, however, I think maybe that whole series suffered for those titles. I love them, but they don't communicate genre very well. They don't scream erotic BDSM.

For the next set of books in that genre, we titled very deliberately, choosing the series name Falling Under, and the titles Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract. Those communicate genre better, but suffer from sameness - it's easy to mix them up. A lot of romance titles suffer from this, and it's not necessarily bad - they communicate genre and that's key. Incidentally, those books all had "jewel" titles originally in my working notes - Emerald, Amber and Adamantine, respectively. (Amusingly, the Italian title for Going Under is Sexy Games.)

For the Twelve Kingdoms books, the first was The Middle Princess to me for a LONG time. All the way until my editor at Kensington felt the title was too YA, which I could see. He suggested the title, The Mark of the Tala, which I immediately fell in love with. I suggested the following titles - The Tears of the Rose instead of The Flower Princess, and The Talon of the Hawk instead of The Sword Princess.

I've learned to let go of titles, is what I'm saying. So much so that my current work is called "Story" and is filed under "New FR series." I think this shows changes in me as a writer in a few ways:

1) I trust my craft and inner storyteller better, knowing that the title will emerge eventually.
2) I'm not so attached to titles. What's important is conveying genre and the story itself.
3) I've found that other people are sometimes far better at suggesting good titles for my work.
4) In some ways, knowing the title ahead of time can constrain the story, as if it creates too many lines.

Also, along the way I've discovered a few tricks for titling that I'm happy to share here:

1) The lovely and insightful Grace Draven taught me this trick: use a line from a poem. This is how we settled on the title for our duology out in May, For Crown and Kingdom, and how I picked the title for my story in the Devil's Doorbell anthology out in April, Exact. Warm. Unholy.
2) Choose a line from the story itself. This worked particularly well for essays. But that's also where my editor got the title The Mark of the Tala, because that was a recurring phrase in the story.
3) Look at other titles in the genre and make lists of them, break them into the composite words and brainstorm synonyms.

What other titling tricks do you all suggest?