Taking a look at title structures, by Yahong Chi

Titles are as much a part of the creative process of writing a book as anything. They come with their own set of troubles -- how creative can I get? is it representative of my story? does it grab readers' attention? -- and, like other aspects of books, can be categorized and analyzed. As such, I decided to examine titles of middle-grade novels over the past year, using these two Goodreads lists, and see if I could categorize them into specific structures.

Firstly, I took note of the very large number of titles beginning with "The". This might seem inconsequential, but "The" signifies almost one hundred percent of the time that a noun is to follow. What does this tell you about the book? That the noun in question is most likely of paramount importance in the story.

I'll break it down into two subcategories of 3-words-or-less and 4-words-or-more. For example, Jennifer Nielsen's The Runaway King, Tui. T Sutherland's The Menagerie or Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist all imply a storyline which revolves around the noun. The longer titles allow for more detailed description of the noun, e.g. Kat Grindstaff's The Flame in the Mist or Soman Chainani's The School of Good and Evil. Certain longer titles follow a specific sub-structure too: The NOUN of NOUN, as evidenced by Ari B. Goelman's The Path of Names, Claire Legrand's The Year of Shadows or Linda Urban's The Center of Everything.

A similar titling structure is the use of nouns without an article in front, e.g. Matthew J. Kirby's Spell Robbers, Christina Mercer's Arrow of the Mist, Peggy Edelman's Sky Jumpers or Colin Meloy's Wildwood Imperium. It's evident that these sort of noun-centred titles are popular, and for good reason; they tidily summarize a unique aspect or component of the story inside to give readers an idea of what the book is about. They're usually not too abstract, and above all, they're safe.

The next subset of titles which I looked at were titles starting with verbs, which were usually continuous verbs (ending with -ing). Examples include N. H. Senzai's Saving Kabul Corner, Holly Goldberg Sloan's Counting by 7s, Clare Vanderpool's Navigating Early and Rebecca Petruck's Steering Toward Normal. These title structures suggest a journey of some sort, and can be more obscure than the previous noun-centred titles.

One-word titles are a category all to themselves because they're difficult to pull off; the single word must be distinct, representative and memorable all at once. And looking at John David Anderson's Sidekicked, Lana Krumwiede's Archon and Melanie Crowder's Parched, these qualities are more or less evident. Vaguer titles like Ellie Rollins's Snap or Jeff Probst's Stranded become more relevant once the book is read.

Full-sentence titles range from to-the-point (The Colossus Rises, Peter Larangis and Magic Marks The Spot by Caroline Carlson) to ambitious (How To Outrun a Crocodile When Your Shoes are Untied, Jess Keating and How To Catch A Bogle, Catherine Jinks). These titles are more particular because complete sentences are much less common than pairings or groupings of words; they're also my favourite type of title. The idea that a book can be represented in a complete entity, as opposed to a shortened clause or a convoluted two-sentence piece à la every single non-fiction book out there, is rather pleasing and consistently turns up fascinating book titles (There Will Be Bears by Ryan Gebhart is a stand-out).

My final category (for now!) is miscellaneous, where I'm putting all the titles that begin with prepositions (By the Grace of Todd, Louise Galveston), any of the five Ws + H (When Audrey Met Alice, Rebecca Behrens; What the Moon Said, Gayle Rosengren) and other assorted titles, such as Rita Williams-Garcia's PS: Be Eleven, Kate Messner's Wake Up Missing and Kathryn Fitzmaurice's Destiny, Rewritten. A uniquely-structured title helps set a book or series apart, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that the success of Tim Federle's Better Nate Than Ever is due in some part to his title.

Overall, structures of middle-grade titles fall within certain categories consistently, with outliers adding intrigue to the mix. Judging a book by its title might not be a thing, but it's certainly an interesting aspect of the whole package to look at!

What's the most intriguing, different or distinctive MG title you've seen?

- Yahong

Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop by Dawn Lairamore

Recently I ordered a copy of Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop: And Other Practical Advice in Our Campaign Against the Fairy Kingdom. The book is written by "fairy hunter" Reginald Bakeley. According to its Amazon listing, it is "the only complete manual on how to identify, track, defend, and destory those bothersome brownies, goblins, dwarves, scheming flower-fairies, and other nasty members of the fairy realm."

Well, how can I possibly pass that up? As a lover of both fairy tales and traditional fairy lore, I'm always up for a good read about the Fair Folk--and most importantly, if I ever own a chicken coop I'll be well-prepared to defend it against goblins and buggaboos. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I first heard of Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop because it was the 2013 winner of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year. If you read my post about the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, you know I have a certain fondness for quirky literary contests. And if you don't know about the Diagram Prize, it's pretty self-explanatory: it seeks to reward the published book with the oddest title of the year. The first winner back in 1978 was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. Other notable winners have been: The Joy of Chickens; The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today; Highlights in the History of Concrete (yes, apparently there are highlights); Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers; Bombproof Your Horse; The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification; as well as some other titles I won't post here as we prefer Project Mayhem to remain a family-friendly site.

But you can visit the Bookseller/Diagram Prize's website to learn more about the award and view a list of previous winners.

And if you could really, really use a laugh this Monday morning, pop by the Amazon.com page of the 1992 winner of the Diagram Prize, How to Avoid Huge Ships, to read the customer reviews. Sadly, this fine tome is no longer in print, but judging by the 550+ reviews on Amazon, it has a lot of fans. (Or a lot of folks who need an exercise in creative writing have found reviewing a book called How to Avoid Huge Ships fits the bill perfectly.)

Happy Monday!

-Dawn Lairamore

Chris Eboch on What’s in a Name? Finding a Title

Yesterday I posted about the challenges of finding the perfect title. I also asked some of my fellow writers to share their title experiences. The answers are as varied as you would expect from, well, a bunch of independent and creative people working in a quirky and sometimes baffling business.

Sometimes the right title speaks to you if you simply give it enough time.

Mayhemer Michael Winchell says, “It seems like for all 4 of my books I have gone with ‘untitled’ for about half the book until I write something and end up saying, ‘That’s it right there! That’s my title!’ I do the same with chapter titles. I never title chapters ahead of time because by the end there is always a phrase that jumps out and says, ‘I am your chapter title.’

On the other hand, some people start with title, and it inspires the book.

Mayhemer Michael Gettel-Gilmartin says, “I usually come up with a title and a main character before I even begin writing. For example, my middle grade time travel, which is about Shakespeare transported to modern times, is titled SHAKESPEARE ON THE LAM; and my w-i-p, about a group of middle school girls who are ‘dying’ to see a ghost, is called THE FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHT CLUB. All of these titles popped into my head at the inception of my daydreaming process. A title is usually the catalyst for a story—at least in my case.”

Even those “gift” titles don’t always last, though. Dianne K. Salerni shared a story about her upcoming MG fantasy novel about a secret day of the week that only a few people experience.

“I had the name of the manuscript, GRUNSDAY, before I even had a plot for the story. But as the story developed, I felt that Grunsday was a little too humorous sounding for a plot that was becoming rather dramatic and serious. So, I wrote into the story line that Grunsday was just a nickname used by some of the characters to make fun of “the eighth day”—the secret day—but I kept it as the title.

When the book sold to HarperCollins, they also thought Grunsday was too humorous sounding. The editor said that I could continue to use the term “Grunsday” within the story, but that the title needed to be more epic sounding, like the concept itself and the series they wanted to build off it. She told me they had already re-named the book THE EIGHTH DAY and they hoped I was on-board with that, because everyone at HC was calling it that. And of course I said I was fine with it—because they were right!”

Editors and marketing people should be good with titles, right? But they’re not the only ones who can help. Nancy Butts says, “My editor didn’t like the working title, Into Thin Air, of my second novel. In any case, a best-selling non-fiction account of a doomed climbing expedition on Mt. Everest had been published the year before, so the title was out—and I was stumped for a replacement. Finally one of the wonderful writers in my critique suggested The Door in the Lake, which is taken from a pivotal scene in the novel.”

Dianne K. Salerni shared a similar anecdote. “Originally, I self-published my [young adult] book about fraudulent spirit mediums under the title of HIGH SPIRITS, but when a traditional publisher, Sourcebooks, offered to pick it up and republish it, they wanted to change the title. I sent them half a dozen ideas, which they rejected. Then I compiled a list of a dozen more ideas I didn’t really like, just out of desperation. I shared my dilemma with my fifth grade reading class and jokingly said, ‘If you have any ideas for a better title, let me know.’ One girl submitted an idea to me via the classroom blog: WE CAN HEAR THE DEAD.  I subtracted one word from her suggestion and added it to my list of a dozen desperate ideas.  WE HEAR THE DEAD was the hands down favorite of the Sourcebooks team and the ultimate title of the book.” 

The lesson – ask everyone you know for help. Maybe someone else will have the perfect idea. But what if the perfect idea has already been taken? Titles can’t be copyrighted, but it can cause confusion if a well-known book has the title you want, or if there are many books by the same name.

Nancy Butts says, “I recently published my first indie book and learned the hard way that I should research titles before publication. The title Spontaneous Combustion  came to me very early in the writing process, and seemed so perfect that I shaped the entire text around it. I designed a cover using CreateSpace’s templates, customizing the colors, font, and background using a photo I’d taken in the Smokies. Then a week after I published the book on Amazon, I belatedly discovered that there were several other books with that same title. And one of them had been indie published just the month before using the same cover template. Aack! Fortunately, that author has customized the cover as much as I had, so they don’t look that much alike. And his book is an anthology for adults, so the damage isn’t too bad. But lesson learned!”

Given the speed of publishing these days, researching titles is harder than it sounds. When I came up with the title for my adult romantic suspense, Whispers in the Dark (written as Kris Bock), I checked the title on Amazon. Not too much competition. But several others were published or republished during the months it took me to get the book out. Oh well. Maybe there’s no such thing as a perfect title after all.

Do you have any title stories to share?

Chris Eboch on What's in a Name? Finding a Title

At the end of the school year, I visited a friend’s gifted class to talk to the kids about The Eyes of Pharaoh. One enthusiastic girl asked how I came up with my titles, because, “Titles are really hard.” Sometimes they are, sometimes they appear like magic, and sometimes Circumstances Beyond Your Control interfere.

The Well of Sacrifice, a middle grade adventure set in ninth-century Mayan Guatemala, had that title from the start. On a summer-long trip to Mexico and Central America after college, I had visited many Mayan sites – including Chichen Itza, which had a sacrificial cenote. Imagining a girl tumbling into that “well” inspired the novel. It’s a dramatic title and along with the cover art helps suggest a Mayan historical adventure. It’s nice when you find the right title at the beginning.

An early cover concept

 The Eyes of Pharaoh, on the other hand, was a struggle. The working title was “Spy Dancer,” because the main character is training to be a temple dancer but winds up acting like a spy after a friend disappears. I never planned to actually use that title, but the muse was not cooperating in finding a better one.

When I finished editing the book (in other words, the last possible moment to come up with a good title before submissions), I started brainstorming title ideas. I wrote down any word or phrase associated with the novel – setting, characters, plot threads, theme. I probably had 30 or 40 words/phrases, and then I began mixing and matching.

Final cover

The head of the secret police in ancient Egypt was called “The Eyes of Pharaoh” or “The Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh.” This agent is a minor character in my book, but the character’s role doesn’t really matter – the concept fits with the ideas of spying and politics. The word Pharaoh helps identify the setting, and The Eyes of Pharaoh has a nice mysterious sound. Normally you wouldn’t title a book after a minor character, but in this case I think it works, which shows the advantage of jotting down everything in the brainstorming phase.

I like the title, but there is one problem – everyone, including those who’ve read it and loved it, calls it “Eyes of the Pharaoh.” Having people get your title wrong can’t be good. Fortunately, the first four hits from a Google search on that wording still turn up the book’s page on Amazon, my website, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble, so I guess the damage can’t be too bad.

When I started my series about a brother and sister who travel with a ghost hunter TV show, I wanted to call it Ghost Hunters, but that was already taken by a reality TV show, so I used Ghost Trackers. A few months before the first book’s release, I got an urgent e-mail from my editor. A new Ghost Trackers TV show was coming out, featuring middle school kids, no less. We needed a new title.

I brainstormed all kinds of combinations of Ghost This and Haunted That. Finally, in the kind of epiphany that makes you wonder why you didn’t see it earlier, I realized it didn’t need to be Haunted-anything – Haunted alone worked.

But that created another problem. The first book had been called The Haunted Hotel. Haunted: The Haunted Hotel sounded silly, so we needed a new title for the first book. After another exhausting round of brainstorming, I came up with The Ghost on the Stairs. (Frankly, I like Haunted: The Ghost on the Stairs a lot better than Ghost Trackers: The Haunted Hotel, so I guess I should be thankful to the TV show.)

Using a title that referred to the ghost who was featured in the book set up a pattern for the other books in the series – The Riverboat Phantom, The Knight in the Shadows (that one was my editor’s suggestion), and The Ghost Miner’s Treasure.

A title has to do a lot – intrigue, give a sense of the book, stand out from the crowd. The title may be the hardest words that a writer writes.

I asked a couple of Project Mayhemers and other writers for their title processes, and I’ll be sharing those tomorrow. Sophie Masson had a post on Finding a Good Title on Writer Unboxed, if you want more examples or advice.

How about you? Do you judge a book by its title? Do you struggle with your own titles?

Terrific Titles

I recently read a writer friend's manuscript, and while I though it was a wonderful story, I was honest with her about the fact that I thought she needed a better title. The one she had chosen felt a bit generic to me and didn't really capture the exciting nature of the book.

Titles can be a tricky business. You only get a handful of words to represent the entirety of your story, and these words will be the first impression many readers get of your work, whether they encounter it online, in a catalog, or on a spine on a bookstore shelf. It could pique their interest, make them take a closer look, or turn them off altogether. It's so important to choose your title carefully.

Some tips I think are helpful:

• The title should reflect the tone of the book. You obviously wouldn't want to slap a humorous title on a book with a dark, serious tone. The title should hint to readers what they can expect inside. I think Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events titles (The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Austere Academy, etc.) do this perfectly. Not only do you get a sense of the rather bleak tone of the books from both the series title and the individual book titles, but these also hint at the dark humor and playfulness of the stories themselves.
• Specific is better general. The title of one of my favorite childhood books, The Pokey Little Puppy, wouldn't have nearly the same charm if the author had just called it The Puppy. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a highly specific title, making use of both the main character's name and the object forming the main storyline. It's much more personal, exciting, and appealing than a generic title. Can you imagine if it had been called something like The Wizard School? Not nearly as catchy, or, to segue into the next bulletpoint, unique.
• Unique is important. If someone googles your book title or searches it on Amazon or types it into a library catalog, you want it to come up. Something like Little Lamb is going to bring up a gazillion hits. Something like From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is going to hit home--not to mention it really makes the book stand out.
• Titles that create suspense or intrigue are doing their job. If it piques the reader's interest, arouses curiosity, or creates suspense, a reader will pick up the book or read its description to find out more. One of my childhood favorites was The Secret Garden. The word "secret" gives that title a wonderful air of suspense. Why is the garden secret? Who would make a secret garden? It is secret because it's dangerous or hidden in some way? Perhaps I should pick up the book to find out more...
• A lot of middle grade books seem to include the main character's name in the title. The Tale of Desperaux, the Harry Potter books, the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. This seems especially true when the character is particularly colorful and distinctive, perhaps hinting that the character is going to be driving force behind the story. This might be a good technique if you have a real stand-out main character--or a character with a really interesting or unique name.

What are your favorite tips on titles?

-Dawn Lairamore

Title Poetry and Help Choose a Title, Please!

When I first saw samples of poetry from book titles, I knew I had to try one myself using middle grade books. I'm not sure my result is actually poetry, so I’m calling it a micro-story. If you can’t read all the titles, it goes like this:

Girl Overboard

Into the Blue

Dangerous Waters

Secrets at Sea

Tentacles

The Captive

The Quest of the Warrior Sheep

Found

Remarkable

I admit it won’t win an award, but it was a fun challenge

On a slightly different note, I think every writer struggles with titles. I know one writer who can’t start writing until she comes up with the perfect title. I would never write a word if that were me. It takes me forever to settle on even a few possibilities. I first became aware of the importance of titles when I gave a copy of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD to my then fourteen-year-old niece. She was an avid reader, but she wouldn’t read the book because of the title. Later, when it was assigned reading in school, she ended up loving the book so much, she named one of her cats Scout.

That was a cautionary lesson for me. Especially as a middle-grade writer, I know the title is all part of the package that makes up why a person will even begin to consider reading a book they know nothing about.

Nowadays, part of the consideration of a title is how it will look on the cover in a thumbnail-size view, because of the importance of online book sales. So we’re left with much shorter titles than before. I understand that, as well as how the title works with the cover image, but sometimes it’s hard to think you have come up with the perfect title, only to realize it’s too long from a graphic design point of view.

So here’s something I need an opinion on. I have two different titles for one of my manuscripts and cannot settle on one over the other. I describe the story as an upper middle grade historical that is somewhat Downton Abbyish, with the addition of spies. It’s set during World War I. Which of the two do you like best?

ESCAPE THE SHADOWS

or

THE FINDING OF SECRETS

???

Thanks!

~Dee Garretson

Choosing a Title

 

Children's Titles

Here are a few great tips about choosing titles from author Bethany Roberts, who can be found at Bethany Roberts.com.

• Keep your titles short and snappy. I have learned this one the hard way! People seem to have great difficulty remembering my longer titles, but no problem remembering the shorter ones. A good general rule is to keep your titles from one to three words, no more than five.
• Catchy sounds - In creating your titles, try playing with poetic devises like alliteration and rhyme. Of my own book titles, I think my favorite is MONSTER MANNERS because the alliteration makes it fun to say.
• Use verbs - Another way to make a title lively is to use an active verb in it. I did that with FOLLOW ME!
• Reflect the theme - a good title, however short and catchy, gives us a hint of what the story is about.
• Hook your reader - The title is your first chance to grab the attention of a reader- or of an editor.
• Has your title been used? Check with Books in Print (at your library), or do a search on Amazon.com

Fortunately, I knew my title before I wrote my book, so I was able to avoid the great title dilemma. Next time, I may not be so lucky. How about the rest of you? How did you choose your titles? Do you have any other tips to add to this list?