10 Ways to Come Up with a Book Title
Cheat Sheet for Authors: 10 Ways to Come Up with a Book Title
Sometimes a book is already written, but the author just can’t find a fitting title. How do you come up with a book title — one that can really hook the reader? A bad title can cause an interesting work to go unnoticed. In this article, we’ll try to figure out whether there are proven methods to help create a book name, learn how to choose an appropriate title depending on the genre, and imagine what world-famous works might have been called if their authors had stuck to original options.
How to create a memorable title
As Coco Chanel said: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” The title of a book also doesn’t get a second chance to attract a reader. A bright and impressive title is half the success.The process of developing any product’s name is called naming. Naming specialists follow rules such as:
– Brevity
– Euphony
– Uniqueness
– Style
– Absence of hidden meanings
A book is also a product to which naming rules apply. A good book title is:
Concise, to make it easier to remember
Original, to help the work stand out from the crowd
Reflects the essence of the work, so as not to mislead the reader
Maintains intrigue, to spark interest without revealing secrets
Matches the genre, to reach the target audience
10 tips for coming up with a book title
Idea generator or brainstorming
Write down every title that comes to mind — even those that seem outright crazy. The finished list can be carefully analyzed to select the title that fits best. It might be a mix of two or three randomly generated titles, or the right one might come up during brainstorming. There are ready-made title generators like RandomAll or AnyTextEditor. Use them to expand your list of potential book names.Proper name, setting
The title can be the name of the main character or any key character, or the name of the place or location where the events occur — a city, a street, or even a bar’s name. For example, Jack London’s “Martin Eden,” Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” Arthur Hailey’s “Hotel,” or C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
Symbolism and metaphors
At first glance, the title may seem strange but contains a hidden hint to the plot. Examples include Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s “Hard to Be a God,” Alexey Tolstoy’s “The Road to Calvary,” Alexander Grin’s “Running on Waves.”
Alliteration
Use a poetic device where repetition of sounds, conjunctions, or words enhances imagery. A clear example of alliteration is Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita.” Also, “Tender Is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Terry Pratchett’s “To Arms! To Arms!”
Numbers, dates, days of the week, numerals
This technique suits plots tied to specific years, months, weekdays, or time periods. Examples: George Orwell’s “1984,” Alexandre Dumas’s “Twenty Years After,” Paulo Coelho’s “Eleven Minutes,” Stephen King’s “11/22/63.” You can list main characters or significant elements like Yuri Olesha’s “Three Fat Men,” Joanne Harris’s “Five Quarters of the Orange,” or Veniamin Kaverin’s “Two Captains.”
How to
This principle is used for most nonfiction book titles. The title immediately indicates the benefit or the answer the reader will get. Examples: Stephen King’s “On Writing,” Derek and Pauline Tremaine’s “How to Solve a Murder,” Gillian Riley’s “How to Eat Less,” Mark Goulston’s “How to Talk to Assholes,” Anastasia Ivanova’s “How to Stop Learning a Foreign Language and Start Living in It.” Fiction can also start with “How,” like Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” or James Bowen’s “A Street Cat Named Bob.”
Genre
The title can emphasize the genre so the reader immediately knows what type of book it is. “The Lord of the Rings” and “A Song of Ice and Fire” are fitting fantasy titles. “Murder on the Orient Express” clearly signals a detective story. Romantic prose titles like “The Girl You Left Behind” and “Love, Rosie” evoke romantic moods. Seeing “Pet Sematary,” “Dracula,” or “Dreams in the Witch House” on the shelves, we know it’s mystery and horror.
Quote
The title can be a phrase from the work itself. For instance, the main character may have a favorite saying, or you can use a quote from a famous work. Philip K. Dick’s “The Broken Timeline” quotes Shakespeare, and Ernest Hemingway uses a line from English poet John Donne in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Word or phrase
It’s important to choose not just any word, but one that reveals the work’s meaning. Striking examples: Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” Stephen King’s “The Shining,” Ethel Lilian Voynich’s “The Gadfly,” Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island,” Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club,” J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”
Secret
A book’s title can sound mysterious, attracting readers and encouraging them to read to solve the puzzle. Examples: Boris Vian’s “Froth on the Daydream,” Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” Viktor Pelevin’s “Chapayev and Void,” Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere,” Gregory David Roberts’s “Shantaram.”
Learning from professional writers
Choosing the perfect title from a list is a challenge. Ideas for world-famous books didn’t come to authors immediately but after many attempts to find something worthwhile.
F. Scott Fitzgerald considered many names for his main book, including “Tender Lover,” “The Trimalchio Feast,” and “Around Trash and Millionaires,” until his wife suggested “The Great Gatsby.” Even after printing, Fitzgerald wanted to publish it as “The Trimalchio Feast,” a symbolic title referencing an ancient Roman novel about a slave who got rich. The publisher refused, and the world got “The Great Gatsby.”
George Orwell worked on a novel titled “The Last Man in Europe.” But the title seemed too pessimistic and negative, so he played with dates. Of “1983,” “1984,” and “1985,” he chose a title that became as iconic as the book itself.
Working titles for “The Master and Margarita” included “The Engineer’s Hoof,” “The Tour,” “The Black Magician,” and even “Satan.” In the end, Mikhail Bulgakov used the names of the main characters and alliteration in the title — a brilliant choice.
Leo Tolstoy, after almost seven years of work interrupted by walks around Yasnaya Polyana, considered titles like “1805,” “Three Seasons,” and “All’s Well That Ends Well.” But what was published was “War and Peace.” One theory says Tolstoy intended “peace” not as the opposite of war, but as the surrounding world and society.
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