Yesterday afternoon I reached the sixty-first page of my newest manuscript — and the point at which I was officially sick of calling it by my protagonist’s name. Honestly, where’s the inspiration in Winifred—Book?
Since I’d already written my daily allotment of six hundred of words (716, actually), I decided a new title was the next order of business. After a half hour of puttering I came up with a list of titles, all rejects. Granted, I hadn’t given it a lot of time, but I called in reinforcements anyway. My husband took on the challenge, armed with enthusiasm and a dictionary of international slang. The former was helpful; the latter, not so much.
The story is a middle-grade novel with fairy tale elements, which is why we (very inaccurately) became stuck on the princess theme. Here are a few of the results, some suggested in earnest, some in fits of hilarity, many inspired by that blasted slang dictionary I could not wrest from my husband’s hands:
- Your Basic, Everyday, Standard Princess
- The Princess and the Peace
- Pretty, Pretty Princess
- Pretty, Gritty Princess
- Pretty Ugly Princess
- The Vainglorious Princess
- Proto-Princess
The end result is that I’m no closer to a title, and the word “princess” has begun to sound strained and strange from repetition, but at least I can say I gave it a shot. Titles are usually fun, so I’m sure I’ll come up with something eventually.
Many of you write — books, blogs, etc. How do you come up with your titles? What, in your opinion, makes a good — or bad! — one?
When i title things, i usually pick a line or piece of a line in the work that i especially love. i have just smashed words together or titled first and used the writing to explain the title rather than the other way around.
Maybe you could drop princess and get a word from an aspect of princess-ness like ‘royal’, ‘regal’, ‘fairytale’ or something like that? Still, i kind of like Pretty, Gritty Princess.
i like unusual titles, strange words together. Short titles. Anyway, good luck!
A bit of word association never goes amiss, starting with core values/themes. Having said that, by the time you’ve gone past a few degrees of separation, things can begin to get a bit ropey…
C, I looked for lines I liked for a title, but nothing stood out. I’ve noticed lines like that seem to come from the last 1/3 of the work, and I’m definitely not there yet, so maybe in a while.
LOL, Alex! Sounds like something you’d do with a high school English class–webbing or some such thing. Could be helpful, though.
pretty gritty princess is my fave.
Titles make me crazy! For the last title I needed I sent a list of my favorite 10 to everyone I knew and counted votes. Not helpful.
Good luck.
Don’t get me started on titles. I was reduced to scouring Amazon to see what I could re-word that would fit my book. I haven’t gone low enough to use someone else’s title though, but the week is still young.
I’m hopeless at titles, although I always need a title before I can begin a new book. And then after al that angst (and believe me, it’s a very angsty process!!), my cps and I end up giving every ms a nickname in any case!
Winifred-Book. I laughed out loud! 🙂 (Of course, my current wip is unnamed as well. So, I feel your pain). Here’s my prediction: now that you’ve started the title juices flowing, a title will just pop into your mind. And it will be perfect. Let me know. 🙂
Hey, thanks for letting me know what you think of my site design 🙂
As far as titles go, I kind of stink at thinking of them. For the longest time Unbecoming was called The Trip. Original. It wasn’t until I looked at MC’s behavior one day and said, “You know, she’s really got an unbecoming personality.” that it clicked. The only problem now is that most younger teens I ask have no idea what unbecoming means… yikes.
As someone whose last manuscript was called Medford and the Goatman for 15 years, and who is now working on one called The Filioli, I guess I’d be stuck with “Winnifred.” Harcourt renamed M&G “The Unnameables,” which is fine with me although I’ll be interested to see how it plays with the 10-14 crowd. Harcourt certainly knows this stuff better than I do. At least one of my pals in the Class of 2k8 also had a “protagonist’s name” title changed by marketing folks who said they just couldn’t sell “name” titles.
I like Pretty, Gritty Princess, too.
By the way, thanks for commenting on my blog, Caryn! I’m new at this game (no idea how to make myself a sidebar, for instance) but I’m learning.
You don’t want my input. I have a file called Johnny.doc.
Not sure if my intention was to write about an outhouse???
I do know it doesn’t pay to obsess about a title and fall too deeply in love with it because more often than not a publisher will change it. So there ya go.