Friday, August 29, 2014

Coming up with unusual book titles and character names

From the time I was studying in college, my journalism lecturer would tell me that though she loved my features and other writing, she thought that I lost out by giving them dull titles. Though I tried hard I could never come up with exciting, interesting or intriguing titles. Titles always gave me trouble.

When I started writing my books, this title torture turned into a nightmare when I had to think of suitable names for all my characters. For middle grade fiction based in schools there were a truckload of characters to name. And trust me when I tell you that, it aint easy giving so many characters interesting names.

For my MG book Academy for PRANKS, I took the smart way out. As the academy had students from all over the world, I researched for names and surnames popular in all the countries. This was the only time I had fun hunting for names.

The only two book titles I am completely happy with are Slunky Doodle (the book currently languishing in a few Indian publishers’ inbox) and Scavage (the book I am writing now). I thought bought these titles were quite interesting and unusual and easy to remember. I hope I am right.

When I read books like Shatter me, Mockingjay, Divergent, When you Reach me, Under the Never Sky, Before I fall, The beginning of everything, In the Path of Falling Objects, Thirteen reasons why, The fault in our stars, I feel sharp twinges of envy. How did all these authors come up with such amazing and interesting titles? Do these writers have some secret abilities that has passed us by?

How do you all manage to come up with unusual and interesting titles and character names? Or like me does this task make you nervous?

Picture Courtesy Bharathi Krishnamurthy

18 comments:

  1. It is often tough to choose a title but sometimes the brainwaves come in the nick of time:)

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  2. I like the name Scavage. I select the titles myself, but for character names I do some crowd sourcing in Facebook groups.

    Destination Infinity

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  3. I don't think too much for most of my titles. Granted, I only have one novel W.I.P. with a title (it's not going to be finished any time soon), and I think shorter works don't need to have as great titles as longer works.

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  4. I suck at title names. I picked the one for my first book, but my publisher suggested the next two.
    Names for characters are easier, but that's probably because I'm writing science fiction and I can make up anything I want. (Although I wanted the names in my latest manuscript to have a British flair, so I did research those.)

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  5. Many of the titles of books you read were not the author's titles; the titles were thought up by the publisher's people. And yes good titles are hard to think of.

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  6. I struggle with titles, too. They either come to me right away when I first start writing or...they don't. Then I go back when I'm done writing and look at the story itself, dig into it a little more. And I ask my husband - another perspective will often pull something different and intriguing from the work that I missed. I also like when titles have subtle, double meanings. :)

    Madeline @ The Shellshank Redemption

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  7. Titles are hard. For my first two novels I created a series format: The Prairie Grass Murders, The Desert Hedge Murders. For my standalone (due out in November), I made the mistake of not doing a pre-search in amazon. My title, Dead Wrong, has been used many times. Live and learn.

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  8. Hi friends, I just cant write if my story doesn't have a title. Titles (even sucky ones) unleash my creativity. Actually, even creating chapter titles help my creativity as I know exactly what goes in that chapter.

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  9. Having a catchy title and an attractive cover for the book is half the work done.

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  10. I know what you mean, some titles are just so perfect! I like to have a title when I begin a project even if I change it later on.

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  11. Like Suzanne, I usually have a title first, then the story melds around it. I've written without a title before but the project was a mess! My favourite recent title is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender - when you read the book, it's just completely perfect :-)

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  12. Titles are always tricky, there's just no way to know if it will resonate with people. All you can do is take a shot and hope for the best.

    mood

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  13. I agree with you, Rachna. It’s a great pain coming up with snappy titles that must also describe or drop a hint about the book. I come up with okay enough titles, but to find something really good requires lot of brainstorming!

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  14. We write in different worlds, Rachna, but frankly this issue surprises me. I was always taught to grab those striking words from the body of whatever you're writing. That's what I also taught my students. That's what I do with my blog titles. I didn't realize titles were such a challenge for writers like you. Interesting!

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  15. Tension is key to any title, but I find that character names (despite their hidden meanings) are really just based on the author's preference. So do what you like:) Also, I mentioned you on my blog today!

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  16. Coming up with title names is tough. Sometimes it takes a few tries.

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  17. Coming up with title names is tough. Sometimes it takes a few tries.

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  18. Sometimes they just hit me out of the blue and other times I struggle. When I'm struggling, what I do is write down some words, the main themes or such, of my story. Then hit the thesaurus for those words. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.

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