Short, Long, Clever, Cryptic, Sub-titled, Bigger than the author Name, Smaller
It might seem like a simple decision to throw a title on a book or a short story, but reading Deborah Batterman's excellent collection of short stories Shoes Hair Nails, which I reviewed here at Word by Word this week, got me thinking a little loudly on the subject.
I say loudly, because I did something I haven't done before and started renaming some of the titles for myself and then went so far as to actually mention them in the review, hoping that by doing so I didn't offend the author. Because Deborah Batterman and I go back a way, right back here to SheWrites where we met.
So I started focusing on titles and their significance and grabbed a couple of writing books off my shelf. The first book I opened was Margaret Atwood's Negotiating With the Dead and the page I landed on was Introduction: Into the Labyrinth, where I read:
The act of naming is the great and solemn consolation of mankind. Elias Canetti
Well, that convinced me I was on the right track. And also reminded me that a royal baby is about to be born, probably as I write this. Charlotte or Michael? What do think?
And then I went on to Gail Sher's One Continuous Mistake, Four Noble Truths for Writers and I knew I was onto something:
Ralph Waldo Emerson felt that each situation has its 'right' word or precisely appropriate expression. Finding it involves more than cleverness because the truly right word comes from your large mind. You 'immerse' your way into it.
That's what happened to me I thought, I became immersed in each story and then these words just presented themselves as a way for me to recall that experience. I wasn't trying to label the story, I was writing a mini mini version of it and sticking it on top to remind me. And that's what a title can be.
And then the book fell open radnomly at a chapter that read:
B O O K S R E A D U S
A good book is you. That's why you can't put it down.
A good reader co-writes every book she reads.
You and your friend can never read the same book because what you make up behind and during the reading will be entirely different from the imaginings of your friend. If you try to reread the same book, you can't. You will have been changed by the first run through.
Each reader carries on the process. (Virginia Woolf calls this 'after-reading') Insofar as a reader bestows a part of her self to the finished product she is purged.
- extract from Gail Sher's One Continuous Mistake, Four Noble Truths for Writers
It's true that a really good title stays in the memory and can even be the reason someone might buy your book. It's worth spending time playing around with, brainstorming, getting feedback on.
I don't think there are any strict rules, I mean I just read a great book with a one word title TransAtlantic by Colum McCann and I think that one word is really powerful and says it all - and definitely benefits from the capital A. And then there are the Ludmilla Petrushevskaya short story collections, which always follow a similar type of title, her most recent book that I read had the title, There Once Lived A Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, And He Hanged Himself.
And one last quote to finish off, which said it all for me:
"You become an open book in order to read one properly."
So what's been your experience in trying to come up with a title for your book or short stories? And do you have any guesses for the royal baby name?
I'm tempted to say, 'don't get me started' . . . but you already did. ;-) I'm not familiar with Gail Sher's book, but I simply love the title (ha ha) and the premise, not to mention your quote. So it's now a must read for me. Re: your reinvention of my story titles -- as I said on your blog, how could a writer feel anything but gratification at the thought and conversation her stories generate? But since we're in a writers' forum here, let me say that framing a collection around symbols often associated with females and frivolousness was a deliberate way of inviting readers to get past the surface association. It so happens that around the time my book was first published, a collection edited by Elizabeth Merrick -- "This is Not Chick Lit" -- came out. It created a bit of a furor re: defining literary fiction by something it isn't. In response, Lauren Baratz-Logsted put together a collection with the title, "This Is Chick Lit." Smack in the middle, maybe even bridging the categories, comes "Shoes Hair Nails." Today we have a category known as 'high concept women's fiction.' All of which is to say, maybe you can/maybe you can't judge a book (completely) by its title/cover, but something has to entice you. And, yes, 'a good reader co-writes every book she reads.' May the conversation(s) continue.
It's a boy!