Aug 21 2008
Ten Words that Usually Weaken Titles
1) Story (and variations like tale, legend, ballad, book, etc). Let’s say your book is named Carl’s Story. The word “story” insults the audience’s intelligence. We can see it’s a story. Furthermore, the word “story” fails to offer any information that would convince a reader to read this story. What sort of story is this? I would only recommend using these sorts of words in the title for humorous effect (Ballad of the Drunken Squeegee-Master) or to convey information that isn’t immediately obvious (Autobiographies from Death Row).
2) Man/Person. Generic nouns are usually vague, which makes them poorly-suited for a title. For example, Two Men and a Sword is bland and forgettable. Two Firemen and a Sword is more intriguing. Try to replace generic words with ones that provide more information about the story to prospective readers.
3) Song. This is like “story,” but even more aggravating. Unless your book is literally about a musician or music, please do not use “song” in your title.
4) Heart. This is usually a generic and ineffective way to suggest your story is emotionally driven. Which characters experience which emotions? Why should we care?
5) Night/Black/Dark/Darkness. These are typically used ineffectively to suggest that the story is dark and foreboding. You can do better. For example, Requiem for a Dream. If you use something like night/black/darkness anyway, please at least combine it with something unexpected to intrigue readers. For example, Darkness at Noon or the series title His Dark Materials.
6) Stranger. This word is often superfluous in a title and can usually be replaced with a more specific, powerful noun. Let’s say your title is The Strangers Among Us. You can replace “stranger” here with a more interesting and specific noun. If the title were The Soldiers Among Us, for instance, we would understand that the soldiers are strangers compared to “us.”
7) Boring adjectives. I’ve seen The Green Dragon… The Strongest Barbarian… The Forest Ranger. If you use an adjective, make sure it’s one that readers will care about. As a rule of thumb, unexpected and unusual adjectives tend to be most interesting. For example, compare The Green Dragon to Backyard Dragon or His Majesty’s Dragon.
8 ) Fictional place names. Readers aren’t familiar with your fictional kingdoms and cities. We probably won’t care about them. Please focus on the elements of your story that will engage prospective readers. Alternately, if you need to refer to a place, it may be more effective to name its type of building rather than the building specifically. For example, Murder in the Cathedral or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
9) Fictional character names. We don’t know who your characters are, so their names will probably not interest us much unless they are extraordinarily evocative, such as Barbara Bloodbath. Instead of naming a fictional character, it’s usually more effective to refer to him by his profession or rank or something else that describes his role in the story. For example, His Majesty’s Dragon is a far more effective novel title than Temeraire would have been.
10) A reference clear to few prospective readers. For example, a title like Gethsemane would be unwise unless you were writing for an audience that is highly Bible-savvy. Alternatively, if you use a reference that a prospective reader doesn’t know, is the title effective anyway? For example, a title like Dead Letter Office might establish a vaguely sinister mood even if you don’t know what a dead letter office is.
Heart has a few definitions. One definition that usually works well in titles “the physical center of something”, like The Heart of Darkness or Death in the Heartland.
I agree for the most part! I don’t think I’d pick up a book with “song” in the title, that’s definitely a turn off….I’m here for a story, not a song. And I wouldn’t pick it up if it had “story”….maybe “tale”.. I mean look at “Tale of two cities” which is so famous, we’re still forced to read it [in school] today!
However, I disagree with 9 and 10. I think sometimes these names can make the book more appealing – especially with sci-fi or fantasy type books. Also, unknown words that are from a fictional or real language, are pretty cool too. Check out “Eragon”, which has some of such titles in it…and is (or was?) a hit.
9 and 10, IF creative, can make a hit of a book for the simple reason that they get the reader curious – they pick the book up and read the blurb – if it sounds good they buy it! I mean if it was called “Matthew” or “Claire” I wouldn’t give it a second glance, but if it were something creative (without sounding too foreign) I’d pick it up and flip it over!
Just my two cents!
Jade Elizabeth,
You make a very good point, but I’d like to point out that Eragon does all kinds of stuff wrong, but still managed to gather a massive fanbase, so it’s common consensus that Eragon is the exception rather than the rule.
i need help with my new book about the young Banshee and her group keeping the magic book out of danger and saveing a kindome
so far all i got is Book quest and its rubbish i know any sujjestions?
So far the story is pretty vague. Let’s start with general ideas.
What the mood of the story?
What is your target age group?
What do you have planned so far?
Neither of the sides seem very evil, so it may be slightly difficult to make one side bad. I think this may be especially difficult if the main villains are the Angels.
What exactly are the roles of Cara and Michelle in the story? Are they both main characters? Are they friends? Are they rivals?
If the main villains aren’t the Angels, I think the story would go something like this:
The Angels and Banshees are at war because the Banshee Book of Ultimate Magic is lost. The Banshees think the Angels took it and the Angels are sore about the accusation. What they don’t know is that a third party has the book. The main villain wants to unlock the powerful arcane magic of the book, but needs a Banshee to read it.
Cara and Michelle are friends between warring nations. They stumble upon some clue that leads them to a dark, foreign land, the home of the main villain. Cara, Michelle, and Ra venture into the land, finding new odd and strange creatures while unraveling some evil plot. They are stopped by your Valkyrie character who warns them of the danger ahead. They trio is stubborn and refuses to give up, so the Valkyrie fights them or joins them (your choice) and they go off to stop the bad guy, retrieve the book and end the war. But by doing so they are helping the villain by basically sending him the Banshee he needed.
What do you think?
I kind of had it like this.
It starts off with Cara’s 106th birthday, so we can learn a little about her Ra and her guardian the Valkyrie. But the celebration is stopped short with an attack from an evil overlord from another land. The overlord manages to surprise them because of the celebration.
The King uses a transportation spell to send Cara with Ra and her Guardian to the other side of the otherworld. After figuring out what happened, Cara stubbornly refuses to just run away and wants to save her parents. Because none of them know any magic, and Cara cannot yet understand the book, they set off by foot on their travels. Michelle arrives and says she’s been sent to help keep the book safe because the overlord will threaten everything if he gets his hands on the book. After a few heated words between Banshee and Angel, she joins the party. Soon they arrive at another town where Cara gets a change of clothes. Anyway, they continue traveling and find the castle in ruins. Searching the castle, they find their parents and fight to rescue them.
As for the theme, I’m thinking dramatic with some laughs mixed in.
That sounds good so far. What would you like to work on next?
Ragged Boy, could you read my storyline under Five Story Arcs?
well as for the Chraters
Caras Goal will be to search and save her parents
her personel gorth wil be from a childish person intorarnent of other speiesh “naimely Angels” to a matrue confadinet indepente Tornarent woman
Michielle being the daugter of an Angel and human and not the creaction of god she needs to rise to be accepted in heaven and her goal is to make sure the books safe
due to her need to prove her self it could make her Zelies or Recless what you think?
I’ve read and commented your story overview Psycho Child, looking in Story Arcs.
i still need to work on there personaitys a bit
What about “Mother Night”, “Heart of Darkness”, “Rebecca”, “Jane Eyre”, “The Green Mile”, “Red Dragon”, “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Timequake”? They violate these rules but were still very successful.
Thanks for your comment, Paul.
Rebecca and Jane Eyre were originally published in 1938 and 1847… I think they faced a very different publishing market. For that reason, I’m not sure how applicable they are to modern authors looking to get published for the first time.
Mother Night (Vonnegut), Green Mile (Stephen King), and Strangers in a Strange Land (Heinlein) were all written by well-established authors. Strangers in a Strange Land came two years after Heinlein made it big with Starship Troopers and Mother Night came a year after Cat’s Cradle. In general, I think that the titles matter less for superstar authors because readers are more likely to start reading their books even if they have a poor title. (For example, Michael Crichton got away with Prey, Sphere and Next).
Green Mile came twenty years after Stephen King hit the big time with a book called Carrie, of all things. Incidentally, Stephen King received an advance of $2500 on Carrie. According to Wikipedia, the Source of All Knowledge, that was “not large for a novel, even at that time… but the paperback rights eventually earned $400,000, with half going to the publisher.” The conclusion I would draw from that is that publishers are more likely to move aggressively (and will pay more) to acquire books that have a kickass title.
Red Dragon is another interesting case. It was published in 1981, six years after Bloody Sunday was published and four years after it was made into a movie. So he was probably pretty successful at the time Red Dragon came out. RD still sold meekly. According to Wikipedia, “It was originally published in 1981, but found a new audience in the early 1990s after the success of its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs.”
So, to make a long story short, I think it’s very difficult for an author to break out with– or even get published with– a boring title.
Yours,
BM
PS: Timequake sounds so bad it’s awesome, like a deliberately cheesy B-movie. I think using time as part of a compound word feels more effective there than it did in Timeline, which just sounds bland.
There are always exceptions, Paul. B. Mac is referring to in general.
How about “Otherworld” or “Cara the Banshee princess”? Or something else? I’m struggling with a decent title.
Regarding number FOUR on the list…
What about “Uhura’s Song”? That title got my attention. Enough to purchase the book, and even today I think it is one of the better Star Trek novels…
Thomas, is it because you already knew who Uhura was? Because that title would have slipped me totally.
Thanks for your hard work. You’re starting to scare me off from writing, because it looks so hard. It’s a good thing that I am getting scared off, because I’ll save my time.
Even still, I’d like to get some feedback.
What about a book name, like, “Frontier”, or “The Frontier”, or “Village Of Idiots”?
Unfortunately, “Village of Idiots” has been used for a short film already, but the idea appealed to me.
Don’t get scared off. For example, I can think of a few titles that have used each of the above words and sold pretty well, so it’s less of an issue of DO THIS AND YOU WILL FAIL and more of a “your title probably wouldn’t be effective as it could be.”
I like “Village of Idiots” a lot more than “Frontier” or “The Frontier.” I feel like it says more about the story and what’s going on.
Frontier is a fine noun that suggests the setting is pretty far away from civilization, but there are a lot of stories that can fit in that very broad space. (For example, Star Wars’ Battle of Hoth, any Western, most wilderness survival stories, etc). One thing that might help is giving it a modifier to suggest what kind of frontier story we’re looking at. If we’re talking about a story set on, say, the bloody frontier between elves and orcs, it would probably deserve a different adjective than a Western would have.
I wouldn’t say “Tale” weakens the title but story does and don’t even get me started on “Song.” Names can work like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter, as long as you include a descriptor about the story. For Superhero comics the trend has generally been to name it after the main character or team and that’s worked. However most of your points are very true.
I almost used Eragon as an example of a successful name based title, but we’ve established Eragon sucks.