Comments on: Your Title is Bad, But You Can Fix It (Part 9)

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:16:39 +0000

These sorts of lackluster titles do occasionally get published. (Especially with authors that are really experienced and/or best-sellers–publishers give established authors more creative latitude). That’s one of the reasons I would probably have hated editing for Michael Crichton. He slipped from reasonably badass titles like Jurassic Park and the Andromeda Strain to Timeline and Next.

By: Dr. Malady

Dr. Malady — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:22:28 +0000

I enjoyed reading these articles, though they made me throw out a few of my titles. *chuckle* But in the end I’m sure it will be for the better.

A minor note; in the Awful (But Fixable!) section, point #10: Here Be Dragons. There’s a book out titled ‘Here There Be Dragons’. It’s so close I thought I might mention it. (It was a very enjoyable book in my opinion.)

~Thank you for your hard work and time.
Dr. Malady

By: YonTroper

YonTroper — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:37:24 +0000

What “God’s Porch” conveyed to me was sort of the idea of a threshold – maybe stepping into heaven or something? It’s an intriguing idea, but it’s still awful, because it needs more detail.

Also, haven’t you done some of these titles before?

By: Holliequ

Holliequ — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:24:28 +0000

Also, RW, I have a whole word document full of random titles from the NaNoWriMo Adopt-A-Title thread. Somes gems, in my opinion, include:

52 Cards Before Joker

The Silent Word

Bleak Picture of There

The Haunt of Roulette Dreams

24 Hours of Murder

The Cult of Charming Men

50 Ways to Steal the Hope Diamond

Note that due to the randomness of NaNoWriMo, none of these actually have plots attached. These ones are just some of my favourites.

By: Holliequ

Holliequ — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:18:48 +0000

Well, I think we can discount James Patterson and Jacqueline Wilson, because people would buy their books whatever they were called (I’m not sure if JW is well known outside Britain, so for the unitiated she’s a highly successful children’s novelist).

The others I haven’t really heard of, although “The Wasted Vigil” seems familiar. It also sounds somewhat intriguing, if depressing. “The Book of Fires” is awful, and “This Year It Will Be Different” is somewhat intriguing, but it doesn’t sell the story very well and it’s not interesting enough to make me want a look.

By: The ReTARDISed Whovian

The ReTARDISed Whovian — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:51:49 +0000

Hmm. I’m just going to think up random titles for fun. Would any of these work? (Not that I plan to use them, haha)

Satan Loves Ice Cream

Don’t Annoy the Salmon If You Want to Live

My Other Cat is a Mountain Lion

The Lawnmower is Possessed By Napoleon!

The Emus Are Liars

I Want to Kill You All With a Pencil

Those titles were the most random things I could think of. Haha.

By: Ragged Boy

Ragged Boy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:19:03 +0000

Huh, I thought 999 would be something out of a sci-fi story, like it was the number of an android, or something. But it seems like the story is a fantasy tale. 999 makes no since, I think “Crimson Locks” would be awful, but at least a slight improvement.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:59:04 +0000

These are the first two paragraphs of the prologue of 999.

After years of drought, the sky swung its arid arm and made a definitive blow to the land East of Arnia. It broke the Green Sea’s water sparing only a couple feet above its center. The earth cried out from the intense pain and suffering… then out of the Green Sea’s womb emerged two pure girls.

Each girl appeared of twelve or fourteen years in age. The sisters, twins, stepped out of the drained sea and on to the suffering land. One stood slightly taller. Her hair curled like flickering embers of fire. Her sister shared the same hue of red hair, just a shade softer.

I’m utterly baffled by what 999 means, but I think we can rule out a police story. This title was thoroughly awful.

By: The ReTARDISed Whovian

The ReTARDISed Whovian — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:42:18 +0000

Well, 999 could be 666 upside down. It’s a long shot, but maybe it means that the story about Hell is wrong. The details are twisted or something. Or 999 could refer to the British emergency number, the equivalent of 000 or 911. Maybe a police story? Maybe it refers to a year, or the Dewey decimal system, or it’s part of a file number or number plate. It could have lots of meanings, but I’m guessing that the police one is most likely.

By: Miusheri

Miusheri — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:43:20 +0000

Maybe they meant “God’s Porsche.” Although, that would also imply that they don’t know how to pronounce “Porsche.”

// What does God want with a sports car?

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:06:23 +0000

Say, T3knomanser, how’d your story about the D&D band go?

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:57:53 +0000

Quoting Cadet Davis: “Over the several hours I spent writing this article, I grew gradually more dismissive.” The word Cadet Davis should have used in place of “dismissive” is unquestionably “surly.”

By: Cadet Davis

Cadet Davis — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:55:26 +0000

Yeah, you can see how tired I was by the end. Over the several hours it took to write this article, I grew gradually more dismissive, impatient and annoyed. I generally spent a lot more time offering suggestions for the first few awful titles for the ones at the end. For example, Rat of the Stone Warriors earned “what the hell?” and Life Code from Brooklyn got “I have no idea what this means.” That’s roughly when I dismissed Dead Letter Office.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:36:16 +0000

If Davis misses one reference a week, that means he makes over 95%. I suspect he compares pretty well to the average low-ranking publishers’ assistant. If a PA has a stack of manuscripts in front of him, he’s probably not going to Google titles in the hopes that one has a reference he missed. He’s going to just toss it and move on. So, in that way, I think that our review process is pretty realistic because it is not very thorough. In an ideal world, the PAs would understand every title, but writers do not live or work in such a world.

Also, a strong title might work even though the reader misses the reference. For example, I think my “Perfecting God’s Image” would be perfectly creepy even if the reader wasn’t familiar with the reference. If a title hinges on the reader picking up the reference to something that may be regionally or chronologically sensitive, it will probably be particularly vulnerable to summary slushing. (Dead letter offices may be geographically limited– I’m more familiar with “mail recovery centers,” and Wikipedia’s entry suggests that DLOs are a primarily American phenomenon).

By: t3knomanser

t3knomanser — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:36:11 +0000

I like these segments, but every once in awhile, you pick on one title that uses something that I would think is generally common knowledge because you don’t recognize the terms. A “dead letter office” is the part of the postal service tasked with dealing with “dead letters”- the undeliverable. Things like letters to God, Santa, and the like, and just plain old “that address doesn’t exist”. (wiki)

It’s still a bad title, but not because it’s cryptic. While it tells us a bit about the setting, it really doesn’t tell us anything about the story. It’s like naming a story “The Construction Site”, or “The Office”.