Writing Tip: Coming up with Titles

While this is true of all of my posts, it’s especially true of this one, the ideas/methods I discuss here are simply the ones that work for me. 

Creating a title is hard. The other day, I struggled to think of a title for a piece I’d been working on and/or thinking about for months.  I got so frustrated I wrote a tweet about how the title is the hardest part of writing. Someone else responded that it was her nemesis.

Now, I’m not sure if the title is really the hardest part of writing. I think what I call the ‘hardest part’ probably changes depending on what part I’m working with. In other words, I think it’s all pretty hard. My reasons for writing and my motivations/drive to do it daily are a story for another post, but I never want anyone to think writing is easy or that I find it so.

Whatever skill I have (and I’m continuously learning new skills and methods) is due to hard work, determination, and perhaps a modicum of natural ability. But somehow, all of that seems to fall apart with my titles.

I write in multiple genres and forms including short fiction, a novel, some poetry, various essays/articles, and academia. All of these works require a title, and the “rules” for titles are similar for each genre.

When I write to publish something online, my titles are supposed to be unique, searchable, and clear (in terms of the topic). It’s not the time to use some metaphor or literary reference that only a handful of the population would understand. I generally don’t have a problem writing titles for online publication. I ask myself what the major point of the piece is and form my title around that. As a general rule, this is what I try to do with all my titles.

The problem arises when the piece is many pages long or deals with many themes. In those cases, there should still be one central theme, and if it’s an article or academic work this is essential to the overall coherence of the work (more on this in a future post). Fiction and poetry is trickier.

Often times with fiction I don’t have a clear theme in mind. I’m a very character driven writer. The plot and themes are revealed through the characters, and sometimes--most times--I don’t know exactly where the story will go until the characters “tell” me where they want it to go (again, more on this in a future post). For that reason, I typically don’t give my work titles until they’re finished.

Then I have the task of reading through what I’d written. I do this many times throughout the writing process, in fact (a future post). In this instance, I’m not looking at the piece as a writer (that’s for editing/revising). I can’t really say I’m looking at it as a reader either, though. Readers are generally unconcerned about the title of a piece or how it fits into the work as a whole. That’s more of a writer’s concern. I guess I read my work as a reader/writer hybrid. I look through my prose (or verse) searching for a central theme, something that appears again and again and somehow holds the whole piece together.

Once I find this central theme, I try to think of the best way to express it in as few words as possible. For creative works, (fiction, poetry) I try to make interesting titles. I want them to be thought provoking in some way. I probably fail at this quite a bit, though.

Also, I prefer not to use ornate language in my writing in general. That’s a stylistic choice on my part, so my titles tend to be pretty simplistic. They may have a double meaning, or something, but they don’t sound “fancy.”

The working title to my first novel (still a WIP) falls under that category. “Stop-Loss” has a very specific meaning, which I’m not really using at all in my work. Instead, I’m working with the literal meaning of the two words. Each of the characters deal with profound loss. It’s only natural they seek to stop it in various ways.

Your turn:

How do you create your titles? Do they come naturally to you, or do you have to work at them? Is there a particular technique you use? What kind of writing do you do? Perhaps some genres are easier to title than others.

I’d be interested in reading anything related to the topic.