I’m the first to admit that I am terrible at titling my written works. I stress over it too much—what if I pick something and change my mind? What if I don’t hit the right tone?
The thing is, your title isn’t just about the story: a good or bad title can impact marketing. A good title will not only intrigue a potential reader, it should also fit the genre and may evoke its themes. It needs to stand out enough so someone searching for it can find it, without being too long or so abstract that it becomes confusing instead of compelling.
So how do you find the right title for your manuscript?
Here are a few things I’ve found helpful when titling a manuscript:
Know your target audience and browse the titles of comps that have come out within the last year.
This will help you identify if there’s a pattern or expected title format that coincides with your genre—and if such a format may be overused in the market and losing steam. (Such as the “A [BLANK] of [BLANK] and [BLANK]” structure we’ve seen a lot lately.)
Consider important elements of the story.
Think theme(s), key characters (primary or secondary), a significant object, a striking piece of dialogue, or an important location within your book. Look at books like: Atonement by Ian McEwan, Circe by Madeline Miller, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, or Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
Create a word cloud.
You can get add-ins for Word if you don’t want to use a site, then using a summary, synopsis, or even the novel itself, you can see what words come through strongest.
Come up with a list of adjectives and a list of nouns related to your novel.
The word cloud can help with this. Try pairing the adjectives and nouns together at random to see if anything feels right (you could use an online randomizer to help with this, or go old school with some scissors).
Take time away before deciding.
If you’re having a hard time, put the list of options you come up with to the side. This lets you distance yourself to (hopefully) come at them objectively. Getting extra opinions can be beneficial, too.
