Until poor writing scared me straight, I never purchased books based on who wrote them. Sure, if I liked a book I’d read more by that author, but who wrote it wasn’t what I looked at first. I always flipped open the book and read a few pages.
Even after I became a hardened, cold reader that ran to my favorite authors without a glance at anyone else I still read the first few pages of a novel. I did this without fail up until the day I saw a title I couldn’t resist.
I confess to you, I picked the book up and bought it without so much as looking at the cover. I carried it straight home, read the whole thing cover to cover, and loved it. Even more, I loved it so much I read the entire thing out loud to my mother, who in turn loved it more and stole the book from me.
What made me pick up the book?
You probably guessed it. I saw the title, and it was such a good title I snatched it up immediately and ran to the cashier waving my money. The title was so strong, and so right, I knew it would carry over to the rest of the work. I was even right that time.
“Heroics for beginners,” by John Moore was the lucky book that day. I swear I never stopped laughing once the whole story. When I saw the title though, I didn’t know what it was. It could have been an actual book telling me how to be a hero. It could have been a history on heroic people. It could have been stupid or cliche, instead of a clever turn on stupid and cliche things. It didn’t matter. I knew I was going to love it, and I was right.
Thinking about this book makes me wonder if any of the titles I’ve come up with are that good. Dragon Psychology is well loved, and about to be included in an anthology. What else? Life of a Suburban Unicorn? Is that appealing?
I don’t know. What do you think about your titles?
A.M. Kuska's Blog 
Aug 20, 2010 @ 12:32:15
I think they arehugely important. My novel is finished and I am stii wrestling with the title. Dragon Psycology combines two very powerful ideas. It immediately personifies dragon. Think of the title that made you grab the book. Heroics for Beginners. Two powerful ideas forming a theme. What would every beginner wish to be? A hero! I haven’t answered my own troubled search to provide a super title for my super tale. But I am looking from another perspective thanks to your post!
Aug 20, 2010 @ 13:40:25
I’m so glad Carol! I bet you’ll find a great title. 🙂
Aug 20, 2010 @ 14:16:50
I usually choose titles based on what phrases come to mind when I visualize my story. Sometimes my titles have meaning unique to me and will come across as absurd, nonsensical to others, though when I explain them people say, “Oooohhhhh, I get it!”
And sometimes I think of cool-sounding titles and then write stories based on them.
Aug 20, 2010 @ 20:45:34
Interestingly, I think that much the same idea applies to chapter titles…a spur to curiosity, a tease about what’s ahead. It’s an art. And it can be one of our toughest tasks as writers.
Aug 21, 2010 @ 20:20:23
I had to settle for a “working title” for my current project, because I was wasting too much time pondering it, instead of writing the @?! book. 🙂
I’m thinking a good, intriguing, cogent title will come to me as a snippet of the work itself.
BUT… I did recently buy a book, purely on the first line:
“There are things people can’t imagine doing, but there is nothing they won’t do.”
It’s a novel written in Chinese in the 1980s that just got translated. Of course, I can’t find it right now… it’s in the pile next to the bed… but that was enough to get me to buy it.