Coming up with a title for your novel

Here's what I'm trying:

Since I'm writing what can only be called a romance novel (although I'm calling it "alternative romance" to try to distinguish it from Harlequin), I started by going to the Random Romance Novel Title Generator. I also browsed Amazon for title templates. Then I hit my thesaurus and other word tools, to come up with words that reflected the main concepts in the story.

I came up with four prospective titles for my novel, and created a page describing the novel, with a two-click survey that will allow readers to show support.

I set up ads, each of which presents one title for prospective readers to click on. I'm currently running these ads on some of my websites (although you could also run them on other websites, depending on how much money you want to spend on marketing), tracking which title gets clicked on the most, and which title gets the biggest survey response. If I am reaching out to the right audience with the right story idea, these figures will tell me which is the best title for the novel.

You can also run similar experiments using image ads, to test prospective book covers. Or alternatively, just show a prospective book cover to a bunch of friends whose opinion you trust, and ask whether the book cover would make them pick up the book and look into it more, and whether it would convince them to buy a copy for themselves, or as a gift for others. You can do this with several book covers to see whether there's a difference and which one is best.

-TimK

www.JTimothyKing.com

I usually come up with a title first to get the juices going and then just remain open to changing it as the story develops. For example, with After the Mars Exodus my first thought was "Mars Exodus." From that I needed to figure out what exactly constituted a "Mars Exodus." My brain turned that into a futuristic cult colonizing Mars. I created a story about somebody fleeing that cult, hence "After the Mars Exodus" was born. With Warlock's Donor, it started with me liking the word "Warlock" and wanting to write a vampire novel. "Donor" came after, and it turned into "Warlock's Donor," about a man who offers his blood to a vampire whose surname is Warlock.

Wow Tim, incredibly comprehensive. You deserve to come up with a cracking title after all that work. Jackson I love to see the free-associative mind at work like you describe.

Sher, it's taken me a while too - I was panicked about it leading up to Nano and the first two days in ... now I've relaxed and am letting the writing happen and my title ideas page grow. Forget about it and let it fester. It seems that as the story takes shape the titles start to flow ... I'm fairly decided now which one's gonna win ...

My novel is called Guilt because I needed it to be strong and short. The idea is to write the 50k for NaNoWriMo, and then dial the numbers back to make it a short novella. The biggest problem for me is that 'guilt' is such a generic word. I'm sure there are at least 5 novels written during this year's NaNoWriMo bearing the same title.

When the novel was still a flash-back war story about the bombings of Rotterdam in The Netherlands (World War II has been wholly cut out now) titles were:
The Last Spring
Good Weather for Airstrikes (translation of a Sigur Rós song)
The Wondrous Lives of Marvelous Men (which was the title for quite a while until I found out about a certain Junot Diaz novel)

Titles are so hard. They really matter so litte, yet they mean everything. It's the first word(s) a reader sees...

I also ramble on Twitter (though sometimes in Dutch).

2008: Junior Boys (won)
2009: Guilt (...?)

Eh. So far, the leading title is what I thought was the corniest of the 4 prospective titles. But I haven't collected enough data yet, so we'll see.

-TimK

www.JTimothyKing.com

Usually I don't title my stories. I just name my file "_______ Story" (the blank being whatever the main subject is)

I know, not very fun... but I just don't know what to call things!

This year, my book is titled SLEEP, but I don't know if that will stay. It is a modern day Sleeping Beauty retelling, so I think it works.

Right now it's called Due Process. I am writing a legal/political thriller (I think!), and since the right to due process is one of our (in the USA) fundamental rights, it seemed to fit. It's a more a working title than anything else, though. Something tells me that it'll get edited in December. But for now, it works, and gives me something to hang on to. :)

Mine's basically the cliché title that reflect the main characters: The Book of Di-Ne. ... It's about this group of people called the Di-Ne so I figured why not name it after them... In the end I may or may not change it, but it's been that for so long, I may not be able to change it in my head, ya know?

But coming up with a name for a book, I guess, would come when it comes. I didn't know what to call my book till I went and found a name for my people ((a million thanks to http://seventhsanctum.com/ for all the random and endless list of really fun generators that get the creative juices flowing)). So, it may come when you got a theme for your book, and find something as your writing along that sticks out and makes you think .... "Hey... that sounds good.... let me work something out of that."

Then just go from there I guess.

Hope this helps
-Ink-

Remember remember the Month of November:
The endless bad writing of plots.
If we write together
Despite the bad weather
The slow pokes will be like "Say what?!"

I had a placeholder title, "Little Black Box" since most of the action of the novel revolved around, well, a little black box. It waas just something to stick on the NaNo page.

When I save it, the file name is "nano". When I email backups to myself, I name the email "Nano - [day of the week]".

But while writing this morning, I found the title. The main werewolf character was telling the legend of how werewolves got created to my MC, and in the course of doing so, he said, "Unfortunately, Ninian's blessing didn't let that be the end of it."

Right after I wrote that, I knew I had my title. So now, it's "St. Ninian's Blessing". Though that'll probably change, too, 'cause nothing about that title says "werewolves and a witch team up to stop a vampire from killing off most of Savannah".

At this point I'm just calling my novel "the nano" as all of my titles for previous novels have come AFTER the fact. I have a running list of titles for the nano right now but I'll probably end up ditching them all in favor of a title I come up with after it's written and possibly even edited.

14 mentions of butterflies.
2 scenes at Joe's Diner.
1 scene at The Cakery.
11 chapters.

When I was making my outline for the story, all the title of the different parts of the novel turned out to be geometrical terms: point of origin, secant, equilateral...
So I thought to myself, what the hell, let's go with it.
Novel title, at least for now, is Squaring the Circle.

Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.

I was describing the book to a friend, and telling her I couldn't think of a title, and then it just popped into my head:

"A November to Remember"

First person perspective, in diary form, taking place during November 2009. It just seemed to fit!

Usually when I think of the title before I start it makes it more difficult to write. It must be easier to fit a few words to match 50k then the other way around.

Go! Write! Win!

When I'm trying to think of a title for my novel, sometimes I get attached to a word or phrase that really doesn't fit the story
line that much. For example, I titled one of my novels "Hummingbird", when hummingbirds were mentioned very sparingly in the story. Honestly, I think it's okay to do that sometimes. I mean, "Twilight" does not really fit the story line that well. Stephenie Meyer admitted that she was having trouble with her title and that "Twilight" was just what she ended up going with. So, my best advice for you is that if you have a word or phrase that you really like, even if it doesn't really fit, sometimes it is okay to just go with it.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." -Jimi Hendrix

I keep a running list of titles that would be wonderful books. I usually have a title picked out before I know what the story's about.

Others are from phrases or song lyrics. I don't remember where I get half of them, quite honestly. My latest one was a sequel to my fantasy novel on illegal resurrection: "Dead to the World" -- cliche, yet very fitting.

I've also had the title "Shadows Wear White" floating around.

http://elizawyatt.net
http://elizaw.wordpress.com

No title yet. The story file is just called "story" for now.

Last year though, I came up with a good title right at the beginning of the month. This time it'll just have to wait.

Finduilas's J.R.R. Tolkien Page
All Booked Up

I still don't have a title! Actually, I haven't had a title for a NaNo novel since 200...4, I think. The funny part is that I think I've used Witty Title Goes Here before as well. Ah well. They can't all be winners.

No real tips here, though, as I just let the muse rain on me and hope that she does.

---
Witty signature feature broken. Please try again later.
http://www.sushimustwrite.com

My title is a cop out.
Its a bit campy and I don't really mind, because the story kind of is too.
The title automatically popped into my head when I began writing.

I am much better at coming up with titles than I am in actually writing the novel.:)

When the Roses Bloom in Dixie Land

My current project began as an idea for a very unhappy character named Rose. Then I thought of a completely different plot for a novel set during the Civil War. Off the top of my head I came up with this old song title that seemed to describe the story. Then I thought of adding my other unhappy character named Rose to this Civil War plot. Suddenly my choice of title looked really clever. The Roses of the title become ironic because this is really a tragic story with a good bit of violence. The Roses blooming are really bad things, and not just sentimental metaphors. Most of all that applies to my character Rose.

Titles are hard for me... But one thing's for sure -- I love contradictions. Give me anything that sounds even slightly contradictory and I'll take with me and run.

This year, I chose the title "Moira". In Irish/Scottish, it's like Mary, but in Greek...

...It's "FATE". And that's exactly what my story's based on: an immovable fate placed upon everyone. It's also the name for my "antagonist" who, by the way, looks like a cute little girl.

Unfortunately, I've come across a myriad of ways to pronounce Moira, and the pronounciation of it is a very pivotal plot point...

Cups of hot choco: 2 a day
Writer's block moments: too many to count
Muses: Gilbert, scary ghost-lady, bej, my bratty sister, and Sound Horizon. And my ten year-old alter ego.
Characters killed: 3
Main Characters to be killed: 5
Backstories complete

It looks like the most likely title for my NaNo WIP right now is From the Ashes of Courage, because it seems to be provocative, well liked, and fits with the theme and mood of the novel. The subtitle is An Ardor Point Novel. And even though it is a love story, the word "romance" probably will not appear anywhere on the cover, which is fine. (Think, less Love Boat, more As Good As It Gets.)

So, I determined this at about half-way through writing the text.

-TimK

www.JTimothyKing.com

I'm so glad I found this thread!

I don;t have a title at the moment, not even a working one, which is kind of unusual for me...

File is just named "Novel".

I guess I'll think of one at some point.. I'll wait and see if anything pops out while I keep writing!