The Title’s the Thing

I'm still recovering from surgery so my friend Lori Rader-Day is doing a guest post today.

 

As I’m doing events for my second book, Little Pretty Things, one of the things I’m finding is that readers are shocked that authors don’t always get to name their books.

I mean, they name them. But then sometimes publishers RE-name them, and the author doesn’t get the final say in that.

When you say it like that, bluntly, it does seem kind of nuts, doesn’t it? You’re the one who created the project. You know it best. And yet someone who just read it for the first and only time is going to tell you what to call your baby—er, book.

I get it. Publishers are looking out for your sales, for your placement on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, for the way a reader will approach your book. There’s that moment when a reader spots a cover—something else authors don’t get the final say on—and the title of the book processes in the reader’s mind. What do the words mean? What do they say? What questions do they start in the reader’s mind? What connotations rise up from the reader’s memory? What other books is the reader reminded of?

That’s brain science, folks, and I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t required to study brain science at any point of my life. Maybe I should have.

I’ve been pretty lucky so far. The Black Hour, the title of my first mystery, was the name I gave it myself. I think it did all the work I wanted it to do and it seemed to catch interest. (“What does that mean?” “Which hour is the black hour?”) Little Pretty Things does some of the same work, I hope. (“Wait. Why isn’t it pretty little?” “What are these pretty things?” “Hey, I like pretty things…”) It also does a lot of work for the overall story of the book, but you’ll have to read it to be able to agree or disagree with me.

Thriller writer John Gilstrap has told the story of how he was asked to come up with 200 titles for one of his books. Two. Hundred. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to come up with two hundred titles for a single book of mine. I might start to wonder if I’d written the book I meant to, if it could be named two hundred different things.

My next novel is still in a deep rewriting process, and early enough in this new version of itself that I’m not sure that the title I’ve been calling it will stick. Sometimes I say it. Sometimes I don’t. I’m open to it getting renamed by someone who can step back from it a little further than I can, when the time comes. Until then, well, maybe I’ll start a list and see how far I get. Or take up a course in brain science.

 

Comments

[Kristopher]

Both of your titles have been excellent. And worthy of the stellar books between the covers.

[Lori Rader-Day]

Thank you, Kristopher!

[Stephanie Gayle]

Lori,
I haven't titled either of my books. However, people I love have: the first was my mom and the second was my partner. But I swear one of these days I will win the title battle!