The Name Game: Titles
Titles matter. In an interview last winter, Tess
Gerritsen said that she passes up books in the store with titles
that don't grab her, and she's not alone. We're all busy, and so
many books clamor for our attention that a weak title can be the
non-kiss of death.
So, what IS a good title, and how do you come up
with it?
A good title catches the reader's eye and tells
her something about the story. If the book is part of a series, the
title should announce that, too. John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee
series used designer colors: copper, azure, etc. The early Ellery
Queen mysteries all mentioned a nationality: The Chinese Orange
Mystery, The Roman Hat Mystery, The Siamese Twin Mystery, and so
on. Sue Grafton's alphabet titles have reached "U," and Janet
Evanovich is up to number fifteen. You know that a letter means
Kinsey Milhone, and a number means Stephanie Plum is back.
Sheila Connelly connects her titles to her
character's apple orchard: Red Delicious Death, for example.
And Hank Phillippi Ryan's Charlie McNally novels all use a
monosyllable that functions as a noun, verb, or adjective followed
by "Time." Drive Time, Face Time... Lynne Heitman's books
about former airline executive Alex Shanahan are Hard Landing,
Tarmac, and First Class Killing.
Simple, huh?
But what if you don't have a series yet? OK,
what's a major event or object in your story? Use it. That's how we
got Rear Window, Mystic River, and The Maltese Falcon.
Maybe you can refer to a character, as Carol O'Connell does in
Mallory's Oracle and The Judas Child. Thomas Perry
does it with The Butcher's Boy, and Elmore Leonard gave us
Up In Heidi's Room. Using a character for the title goes
clear back to the Greek tragic poets, and Shakespeare did it, too,
naming nearly thirty of his plays after characters. You know most of
them, don't you?
If you don't want to use a character, how about a
literary allusion? For centuries, authors have fallen back on the
Bible and mythology for ideas. The Sun Also Rises, Ulysses,
and Lilies of the Field are among zillions of them. Later
writers referred to earlier writers: Hardy's Far From the Madding
Crowd (Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"),
Thackeray's Vanity Fair (Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress),
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath ("Battle Hymn of The
Republic"), and thousands of Shakespeare quotes. At one time, I
could assign my classes fourteen different works with titles that
came from Macbeth, including Frost's "Out, Out-," Anne
Sexton's All My Pretty Ones, Faulkner's The Sound and the
Fury, and Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Robert Penn Warren, Mary Higgins Clark, and Jonathan Kellerman are
among those who tap into nursery rhymes: All The King's Men, All
Through the House, Along Came A Spider...
Many contemporary writers use song or movie
titles because they carry emotional links for people of their own
generation (Who were you killing when this was Number One?). Ed
Gorman uses oldies, such as Wake Up Little Susie, and Sandra
Scoppettone uses twists on big band tunes, including Gonna Take A
Homicidal Journey. When I got the idea for a novel that involved
rock and roll, I developed a still-growing list of song titles that
suggest violence. In fact, five of my published works use song
titles that suggest the story line, including "Running On Empty,"
about a couple discussing their crumbling marriage while driving;
"Susie Cue," about a lovely pool hustler; and "Stranglehold," about
a guitar player who is accused of throttling a singer with a guitar
string.
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