Tactical Tuesday~Titles

No, this post is not about alliteration... *winky thing*. It's about something that's really difficult for me and for a lot of authors... coming up with interesting titles.

But before I get started on that, let me quickly discuss The O'Connor Lions and the stunning 2005 Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk To Cure Diabetes! It was a glorious Saturday morning in San Francisco... the fog and dampness burned off by 9 o'clock, and we had a wonderful sunny day on Crissy Field for our two mile walk. Eight adults and seven children walked two miles and as a team raised almost $4,000.00 for the fight to cure Juvenile Diabetes! This was not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE times our original goal. YAY, team!

Thank you notes and photos will be going out this week to those who donated. And if you're thinking of donating, it's not too late... donate to our son's walk here and our daughter's walk here. If I don't have your email address along with the donation, no photo (I don't post photos of my kids online), but smiles to all.

And onto the Tactical Tuesday post... let's give a big Martha-Land Welcome to Flusters McKnucklesby, our Official Mascot!

Title Tips

I read an interview with author Adrienne Miller whose recently published novel, The Coast of Akron, has an excellent title. Anyone who's been anywhere near Akron (I went to school in Bowling Green, so I know Akron well) KNOWS that Akron, in the middle of our great state of Ohio, HAS NO COAST. So Miller's title is intriguing and captivating. Anyway, the interviewer asked about Miller's WIP (Work-in-Progress). Miller replied: "I’m working on something that I’m privately referring to as my “thingy.” That’s the file name on my hard-drive, actually: “THINGY.”" I had to laugh. My WIP's current title is the first name of a character whose name I already know I'm CHANGING.

Titles tend to evolve, I find. When I submitted The Bitch Posse to my agent, it was called White Roses Red, a phrase that's pulled from a line in the book. Not a horrible title, but after a lot of discussion, we decided that The Bitch Posse was a more fitting title. Here's a link to an interview I did with Karin Gillespie on the subject so you can read a little more about how the title came to be. I know some authors who come up with a title first and then write a novel or story around it, but I personally couldn't work that way. I usually get a set of characters in my mind, and they take off running. At the end I'm left with 350 pages or so that has a title like "Fred" or "Martha's Book" or "Thingy."

Here are some different things that titles can do. I've chosen various book titles to illustrate my point, but be warned I haven't read all of these... these are not necessarily recommended books, only titles that caught my attention.

TITLES HIGHLIGHT CONFLICT
The Enemy by Lee Child
Predator by Patricia Cornwell

TITLES CREATE QUESTIONS IN READERS' MINDS
The Kite-Runner by Khaled Hosseini (What does a kite-runner do?)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (What on earth is a clockwork orange?)

TITLES EMPHASIZE THE MAIN CHARACTER OR STRING OF CHARACTERS
Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory McGuire
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

TITLES SHOW THE BOOK'S GENRE
Executive Power by Vince Flynn (Political Thriller)
Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins (Hollywood Glitz)

TITLES ESTABLISH SETTING
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories by William Gass
gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

TITLES CREATE A MEMORABLE IMAGE
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

TITLES USE A SLANG OR POPULAR PHRASE
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
Bet Your Bottom Dollar by Karin Gillespie

TITLES USE A CULTURAL OR HISTORICAL REFERENCE, CONVEYING MOOD OR SETTING
Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin : Writers Running Wild in the Twenties by Marion Meade
Brick Lane by Monica Ali

TITLES INCLUDE A PLAY ON WORDS OR PUN
Whiskey Sour: A Lieutenant Jack Daniels Mystery by J.A. Konrath
In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

TITLES ARE A SPIN ON AN EXISTING TITLE
The Little Women by Katharine Weber (spin on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women)
The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall (spin on Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind)
{Caution, this trick only really works with classics...}

Of course, titles often do more than one of these things. Adrienne Miller's title, for instance, both creates a setting and poses a fascinating question. The McGuire book both highlights the main character and provides a spin on The Wizard of Oz. The Marion Meade book both evokes a historical reference and conveys an interesting images. Etc. etc.

Now that I've got all these ideas for titles, maybe a good one will pop into my head today... I sure could use one!