Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

  • Mood:
  • Music:

A rose by any other name...might not get planted.

First up, Edmund Schubert at Magical Words posted this lovely set of thoughts on the naming of stories, and why it matters. Go forth, read, consider, and take a look at your own works in progress. And now...

I have always had a very love/hate relationship with titles. A good title makes everything wonderful. A bad title does the exact opposite. Most of my songs have titles that are so generically descriptive as to be direct quotes, usually taken from the chorus, usually forgotten in favor of "let's do that one, you know, with the buffalo stuff in the chorus." (This does not apply to "Wicked Girls," which couldn't have had a different title if I'd wanted it to.) Titling songs is hard.

Titling books is a little easier, because most of my books come sort of "pre-bundled" with their titles. There are books in the InCryptid sequence that have titles and point-of-view characters, and not very much else. This can be disconcerting when a book gets re-titled on me, as happened with Feed—a decision I think was absolutely the right thing for the book, but after literally years of calling it Newsflesh, it took me a while to change gears. It was easier when book two became Deadline two-thirds of the way through the writing process, because it had already had one name change (from The Mourning Edition). I really don't know what I'll do if I'm ever told I have to change a title I'm really emotionally attached to, like Professional Goreography, or Sit, Stay, I Hate You.

My short story titles are the ones I'm really proud of. The long, Tiptree-style titles. "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On." "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)." "A Citizen in Childhood's Country." The short, accurate but interesting titles. "Lost." "Indexing." "Knives." "Let's Pretend." Again, the titles usually accompany the stories they describe, and changing them is even harder than changing the names of books, but some of them make me really, really happy.

(And if I ever publish a collection of short stories, I am going to fight like a cat in a sack to title it Dying With Her Cheer Pants On. Because dude, would that not be an awesome book to read on the train? Knowing me, and knowing my overall body of work, it's more likely to be called The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells, but a girl can dream.)

I guess it's sort of like naming babies. All the care in the world to find something that fits, something that's right, and most of all, something that won't rhyme with any unfortunate swear words or insults (for those halcyon playground days). And half the time, we grow up and shorten or change the names our parents gave us—so Rosemary and Rue becomes Rosemary, Newsflesh becomes Feed, and Dying With Her Cheer Pants On becomes "no, really, it's about cheerleaders fighting an alien invasion."

Titles are evocative and magical and strange and enticing, and can make the difference between an impulse buy and a dismissal.

Food for thought.
Tags: contemplation, writing
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 30 comments
Titles are evocative and magical and strange and enticing, and can make the difference between an impulse buy and a dismissal.

This is extremely true, for the title as well as the cover art.
Until one hits name-recognition of the stage of, "Is that the next by that author? To the registermobile, bookman!" (E.g., "Is that the next Mira Grant/Terry Pratchett/Bujold/McGuire...")

Then it doesn't matter as much, since people will press the book into new readers' hands, saying, "Yes, the cover's horrible, but ignore that..."

Of course, getting to that stage is fraught with titles and covers and whatnot. O:(
Well the comment I cited was discussing the difference between an impulse buy and a dismissal, which, to me, implied an author's work I may not be familiar with as I browse the shelves. Rosemary and Rue attracted my attention, firstly from the title, then the cover, which led me to read the back cover.

On the other hand Cat Valente, an author with whom I am familiar and have some of her previous works, has a new book coming out shortly ... the title was questionable except for the mention of Prester John, and the cover, even having been re-done, completely turns me off purchasing it:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/26uslcb

archangelbeth

6 years ago

galdrin

6 years ago

archangelbeth

6 years ago

seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

And wow, do I want to hit that stage.

archangelbeth

6 years ago

It's interesting how often people think titles must be "the easy part."

Deleted comment

Good luck.
Hence the title of my latest collection, The Sky That Wraps, anchored by "The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black".

Though of my own work I've always loved "Mr. Scalpel and Mr. Gloves and the Cancer at the Heart of the World."
That really is a fabulous title.
I have noticed your titles are easy for me to remember.
It's interesting to know how important they are.

I do have to ask, where are these published?

"The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)."
Nowhere!

You can always keep track of publications on my bibliography page. I update it whenever a sale clicks over into "okay to announce," so it always has the latest news.
I hate titling things. I am inclined towards one to three word working titles. They are not imaginative. If I ever finish any of my current works in progress and decide they're worth attempting to market, I'll have to find something more engaging.

On a related note, I also hate naming classes of things, which doesn't wait as well as "Well, I'll call this one "The One With The..." for now." Seriously, my working titles sound like episodes of Friends, and I hated Friends). Occasionally it is obvious: the thing must be called THIS and there is no other term, end of debate. Occasionally, my first reader (that being my husband) and I will Do Battle over why I call things what I call them. This happens fairly rarely, but it does happen. We're currently each at one over two terms in one particular setting. In one case, I agreed that his idea for the term name was better than mine (which was Greek, and ended up making said character sound like a carnival person), and one of which where he still hates the term (and I'm frankly not crazy about it either) but neither of us can come up with anything better. Yet. Hope springs eternal.
All the "Velveteen vs." stories sound like episodes of Chuck. I feel your pain.
I would definitely pick a book titled Dying With Her Cheer Pants On up off Larry Smith's table at least long enough to examine the cover blurb and skim through the first few pages to see if it caught my fancy.
Well, yay.
'Fighting like a cat in a sack' now there is a title just begging to be used.
Hee.
I cracked up at the do not name anything after Shakespeare, and the fact that you posted this. Epic win, Tiara Lady!
I know, right?
Titles are the bane of my existence! If I had my way, everything I ever wrote would be untitled :P It's only fanfic, so it's not like I have to sell it to anyone, but I usually just pick the first thing that comes to mind and go with it.
Hey, whatever works!
Responding to an old thread (6 whole days) because the thought just occurred to me - how much does a title really have to do with the contents of a story? I mean, is there a reason one could not choose an evocative title just because it sounds good?

Quite a lot, really. A very poorly-chosen title can leave a reader feeling like they've missed something, or like they were somehow misled by an impression of the story that was entirely incorrect. It's not a nice thing to do.
I'm reading back through all the interesting people's feeds to avoid figuring out titles - because I SUCK at titles - and lookit what I find? Thank you!
Very welcome!