FAQ - How Do You Choose a Title?

The title of a book, along with its cover, is the writer's first chance to grab a reader's attention and tempt him to pick up the book. As I've mentioned before, the cover is pretty much out of my hands -- the Art Department and the Marketing Department at Random House deal with that. As for the title, I send in my idea for a title and so far, except in one case which I'll talk about later, the titles have been accepted.

In choosing a title, I look for something a bit tantalizing that, in some ways, reflects the content and tone of the book. And I usually check on Amazon to make sure that title hasn't been used recently.  Titles can't be copyrighted so I'm free, if I want, to call a book Gone with the Wind or The House at Pooh Corner. But instead, I rack my brains, trying to come up with something semi-original. 

It's not easy.

People often ask what me a particular title of mine "means." In the case of my first novel, Signs in the Blood, the answer is that I'm not exactly sure. I usually ask what they think it means and have gotten some terrific explanations, often involving horoscopes and/or planting by the signs as recommended by The Old Farmers' Almanac.

Alas, it's nothing that clever. As I recall, while I was writing Signs, I was researching the snake-handling Holiness religion that plays a large part in this novel and came across the phrase 'signs in the blood.' That sounds like a good title, I thought and made a note of it.


Unfortunately, I neglected to make a note of what it meant. And though I've looked, I've never found that passage again.  But what I think it means comes from the fact that folks of the Holiness church call themselves "signs-following believers." (These aren't horoscope signs but the signs mentioned in the Bible  -- "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover," (Mark 16:17-18).)

So I suspect that 'signs in the blood,'  refers to the fact that these beliefs tend to be passed down in families.  Really, not much at all to do with the story I was telling. But nonetheless a mysterious sounding title.

 

Art's Blood was a mistake. I had the idea that I might try to use the word 'blood' in all my titles and, since this book had to do with art and artists, I came up with this rather lame pun -- art's blood -- heart's blood. It was meant as a working title, something to be replaced when I thought of a better one but my editor liked it so there it is.   I don't like it because punning titles tend to suggest a cozy, humorous mystery -- which this isn't. Ah, well . . .

By my third book, I'd abandoned the idea of always having  the word blood in the title. For one thing, a friend told me that the titles suggested slasher-type stories and for another thing, when I made a list of titles including blood, everyone of them had already been used recently, sometimes several times.

Besides, for once I had a great idea! I wanted to call this book The Booger Dance. That's the name of a Cherokee dance that plays an important part in this book, both actually and symbolically. And it's certainly memorable.

Unfortunately, both my agent and my editor reacted with horror to this proposal, feeling that such a title would have buyers hurrying away with averted eyes.

So, since my editor had suggested that this might be a good time to explore Elizabeth's past and perhaps uncover some old wounds . . .

In a Dark Season is pretty straightforward. It's set in November and a pivotal scene is on the Winter Solstice -- a dark season for sure. And the tone is rather dark as well. 

The Day of Small Things came from a Bible verse -- I was skimming through Bartlett's Quotations, looking for inspiration  and came across it.  Not the most inspired choice but I liked the sound.

Next year's book, Under the Skin,  deals with Elizabeth and her very different sister. The title comes from a poem by Kipling which contains the lines, "But the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Brady are sisters under the skin."

Here's an article about the original titles of ten famous novels. 

Trimalchio on West Egg ? Really?