What's in a Title?

Even though I’ve written 47,000 words of my new novel, I still don’t have a title for it. Thing is, a title is HUGE. It’s the first impression someone gets of your story (if it isn’t published and doesn’t a cover that they’ll probably see first) and first impressions are IM PORTANT.

Take the manuscript I queried last fall. I’d never liked the title—FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE—partly because I didn’t want to name Paris. Sure, much of the story takes place in that city, but I didn’t want to end up with the Eiffel Tower on the cover, which seemed inevitable with Paris in the title. That’s ironic, because I loved the Eiffel Tower. I used to go there late at night in the spring, when it wasn’t too cold, because there were always people around and I liked to be around them as I wrote in my journal. But still, I was determined that if an agent wanted to represent the story and if a publisher picked it up, I’d insist on no Eiffel Tower. As for the rest of the title, the love part was always just okay for me. Basically, I’d been ready to ditch that title since the beginning.

So I ditched it. I recently renamed the thing THAT DAY IN DUBLIN, which is what it says on my website. But I’m not necessarily a fan of that one, either. For one thing, the story mostly takes place in Paris, not Dublin. Yes, the story’s defining moment is in Dublin, but still. Check back in a few weeks or months and I may have changed the title again (assuming, of course, that I haven’t completely abandoned the thing for other stories).

Then there’s the MS I entered into contests all winter. I call it WORLD’S EDGE, but that title didn’t come until I was almost finished writing the story. I was deep in a scene where the main character is straddling two worlds and world’s edge just came in the middle of a stream of words. I plucked it from the sentence and pasted it to the top of the document. It’s been the title since. I like this title—I’m attached to it.

As for my WIP, well, I just don’t know. There’s a title that been haunting me (which would be ironic, if you’d read the WIP so far), but I’m not sure it’s a good one. For one thing, it’s strange and I think it would give the wrong impression for the story. I can’t have that.

So when a critique partner sent me an email with the title of a new WIP, I sent my possible title back. No return email yet, but I love the one my CP sent me and, honestly, I’m a little jealous. The title came quick, or sounds like it did based on the wording of the email. A chapter or two of a WIP written, an article read, and voilà title. Voilà jealousy.

Are titles so easy for every writer, like they seem to be for my CP? How do writers come up with titles? How do they make them so good, sucking me in with so few words?

I’ve said before that I judge books by their covers, but it’s also true that I judge books by their titles. I’m sure most readers do too, even if they don’t realize it. I need the title of my new WIP to be good. I need people to like the title of WORLD’S EDGE. I need to make a good first impression so that, hopefully, one of these days my title, query, and writing will grab the attention of an agent.