What’s in a Name?

Ah, titles. The first thing that introduces you to a story. A good one will lure in your reader, enticing people who otherwise would not have given you the time of day.

A bad one will find you languishing on the shelves, unread and alone.

I hate them a lot.

I hate them because so much rides on them, and they’re really hard.

You have to distill the essence of your story down into a significant point, and then you have to make it sound good too. But without being spoilery. Definitely don’t want to be spoilery.

Sometimes you’re lucky, and you can get away with using an obvious prop, location, or character. Something that makes your genre and/or themes easily known to a potential reader without really having to think about it. Those are good days.

Other times, your main character is named Fred, it’s set in the middle of Kentucky, and the only thing that shows up in more than one scene is Fred’s pair of beat-up sunglasses that are all he has left from his father.

Then you have to think about it.

Puns are big. But I think they only work for humor and mysteries.

And let’s say that, instead of a single work, you’re trying to come up with a title that encompasses a body of work. Possibly from different people, with different characters, locations, themes.

Say, an anthology.

You have to take the overall arc of the work, what ties all the stories together, and then try to do something witty with it.

There’s a reason why anthologies end up with titles like “The Year’s Best Science Fiction.”

There are people out there who are great at titles. I wish I was one of them. If you know the secret, let me in on it, will you?