Saturday, January 11, 2025

I Have No Idea What To Title My Novel


While it's not an immediate concern, the title of my novel is something I'll need to decide on before too much time passes. And I have absolutely no idea what to call it.

"No Name" was adapted from a not-so-good novella I wrote called, "Second Chance". (It went from less than 23,000 words to over 100,000.) "Chance" was a play on words ~ the town the main character settles in is called Chance, and she's starting her life over. Great. Fine at the time.

Obviously, I don't need a reminder of a previous failed effort, so that title would have a negative connotation for me. Plus, it's not particularly relevant anymore, given the course the story took in its new iteration. 

Just like with book covers, titles have psychological implications, or at least marketing implications, which I guess go hand in hand. Ideally, a title should be intriguing. The very first thing a potential reader sees is the book cover; it's that first impression that either tempts someone to read the blurb or to scroll right on by. Well, how does one create an intriguing title? That is the question. Probably the only semi-intriguing title I ever came up with for one of my works was, Lies and Love. It worked because who wouldn't want to find out what the lie is? So, perhaps a good title should create a question in the reader's mind, or at least a clue to what they will find inside. Off the top, I don't see how that would work for my current novel, sadly. The "question" in the story is more of an overall theme; in short, how will Leah's life turn out? I don't know how to make something of that.

I suck at titles. Truly. I've mentioned before that I was so stuck on what to call one of my novellas that I actually went with an AI suggestion. Thus, The Diner Girl was born. Now, AI is awful in general, but the fact that I took its feedback shows how awful I am at title creation. For me, a good title is like a good book cover ~ I'll know it when I see it. Except how would I manage to stumble across a good title if I don't even know where to look?

I've used variations of song titles before and variations of famous phrases. Those, at least, are easy enough to do research on. Just do a search for "songs about ____". Or "quotes on ____". You still need that elusive keyword, though, in order to search. 

Then comes the dreaded genre expectations. As you know, I don't have a genre, at least not one I'm willing to admit to, but when push comes to shove I'll be forced to categorize my novel as something. Simple process of elimination is going to guide that step, and I know where it'll lead. So, okay; it'll be women's fiction.

This post, albeit from two years ago, details a distasteful trend in women's fiction titles; in essence, "So-and-So Does (or Is) Something". So, if I was to go that route, my title would be something like, "Leah Branch is..." Is what? "Leah Branch Can't Make Up Her Mind"? I just don't think that's going to work. It appears, per my perusal of Amazon best sellers, that this trend has since faded. What I'm seeing now are a lot of titles that start with "The". Well, I like that even less. (Side note: Famous trade-published authors get to make their own rules.)

I would love to throw convention to the wind and go with my gut, but the reality is, marketing matters a lot. Novelists like me don't care much for reality; that's why we write fiction. I would, however, like to sell a few copies. 

I'm not going to start tackling this problem as if it requires urgent attention, but I will need to start. I imagine I'll come up with a list of contenders, all of which I'll hate. I'll run through my usual searches, maybe try a book title generator for suggestions to build on. 

What would life be if I didn't have something to fret over?



 


  

 


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