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.
September 14 2010, 20:39:31 UTC 6 years ago
This is extremely true, for the title as well as the cover art.
September 14 2010, 20:52:43 UTC 6 years ago
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:(
September 14 2010, 21:41:48 UTC 6 years ago
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
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October 21 2010, 20:28:15 UTC 6 years ago
September 14 2010, 21:06:01 UTC 6 years ago
Though of my own work I've always loved "Mr. Scalpel and Mr. Gloves and the Cancer at the Heart of the World."
October 21 2010, 20:28:26 UTC 6 years ago
September 14 2010, 21:56:05 UTC 6 years ago
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)."
October 21 2010, 20:30:25 UTC 6 years ago
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.
September 14 2010, 22:44:50 UTC 6 years ago
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.
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