Title Woes

Oh I’m rubbish at titles.

I used to be quite good – I usually knew a title long before I’d got to the end of the book.  But as the books get longer and old age takes over, I increasingly find myself at the end of a novel with no idea what to call it.  Currently I’m having a mull with my editor about Urban Magic 4… and I’m a bit stumped.  I mean, we’ve got ideas… we’ve even got a top-of-the-list candidate, but I’m still a bit hum.  I don’t know.

There’s various different tricks of the trade you can try when looking for a title.  One thing my Mum always suggested was ransacking good bits of popular literature – nursary rhymes, famous poems, bits of Shakespeare, nice ringing bits from the Bible and so on – to see if there are any snippets of text which, taken out of context, still sound suitably resonant on a front cover.

There’s the literal approach to a book – the Neon Court is about the Neon Court, the Midnight Mayor is about the Midnight Mayor, go figure!  But when you haven’t got the luxury of a book themed around something with a catchy name, there’s always the non-literal approach too.  Thus, A Madness of Angels is still a title I’m quite pleased with, but it doesn’t declare itself for what it is in such a strong way; neither, for that matter, did Mirror Dreams or Mirror Wakes, though the titles do remain vaguely connected to the themes.

There are titles that play on other themes too.  The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle was a title actually given to me by my publisher, and captures in its immense length the essential spirit of the book – Victorian adventure – without really having to do too much daft with the font.  One word titles have punch and power – long titles have a different kind of whimsy.

Then there are a few don’ts when looking for a title.  Something my Dad used to say, albeit with a gleam in his eye, was to always ask yourself how much space there was on the cover.  A big long title is all very well, but there tends not to be much room left over afterwards for graphics or even the author’s name, so if you’re looking for a name-in-lights moment, then short may be the way to go.  Some sounds just don’t trip off the tongue – thus, one of the titles proposed for Urban Magic 4 was ‘A Dealer of Dust’ which I’m afraid I objected to, not so much because of the sentiment, but because the sound is heavy and the alliteration is just a bit… well… mah….  Like many other people, I have synaesthesia and see certain concepts and words in colour – Monday is red, for example, Wednesday is dark green – and the best way I can describe a Dealer of Dust is to say that its colour was muddy with a hint of mould.

Then there are certain things which I personally consider big no-nos when finding a title.  ‘Wrath’ is definitely a no-go word for me, as is ‘Darkness’, ‘Rising’, ‘Quest’, and ‘Magic’.  It’s probably completely irrational, but too many times I associate these words with blurbs that begin ‘A new evil is rising in [insert here] and only [character] of the ancient blood may wield the sword that will stop it.’  And that kinda stuff is just not me…

That said, I remain still mildly stumped on an Urban Magic 4 title.  I continue to judiciously stroke an imaginary beard on the theme, and will hopefully pin down something solid soon…