I get meaningful spam subject lines in my inbox sometimes. Recent favourites include, but are not limited to:
I miss you, come home
Mad of your silence
Remember 3rd grade? Where were you?
Executioners as they
Repair the past
I almost think they could make fantastic book titles. Almost. Maybe with some slight modifications. I MISS YOU, COME HOME. MAD of your SILENCE. Okay, I don’t know about that last one, but I like the simplicity and plaintiveness of the first. Plaintive and simple as a good country song.
So now that I am on the topic of titles, I think I will discuss them further! Titles are important. What are your favourite YA/MG book titles? What kind of titles do you like? I like titles that send your mind reeling with the stories they tell, are vivid, or ones that would make you go WTF if you saw them on a book in a bookstore and had no prior inkling as to what the novel was about.
Here is a sampling of some of my favourite titles:
All Unquiet Things (Anna Jarzab)
Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson)
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (Robert Cormier)
Dani Noir (Nova Ren Suma)
Everything is Fine (Ann Dee Ellis)
Gothic Lolita (Dakota Lane)
In the Miso Soup (Ryu Murakami)
It’s Too Late to Say I’m Sorry (Joey Comeau)
Initiation (Susan Fine)
King of the Screwups (K.L. Going)
The Lighter Side of Life and Death (C.K. Kelly Martin)
Nothing (Robin Friedman)
Paris Pan Takes the Dare (Cynthea Liu)
School for Dangerous Girls (Eliot Schrefer)
Skin Deep (E.M. Crane)
Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning (Danette Haworth)
One word titles are more miss than hit with me, to be honest. I feel like there’s so much going against one word book titles because for them to be excellent–in my opinion–they MUST: sound good, look good and not be sensationalist or cheesy and especially they must be intriguing. I have a long check-list of requirements for one word titles. Probably I am determined not to like most of them right out of the gate.
It’s pretty sad.
Also I am not a big fan of precious sounding titles. You know. The kind of titles those hipsters you secretly hate would like. You know those hipsters. The kind of hipsters that have asymmetrical haircuts who think they’re better than you. YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.
Sufjan Stevens has song titles like that, actually, except I love his music enough to forgive him for it and he doesn’t have an asymmetrical haircut. I’m not sure if he’s a hipster but he IS friends with Rick Moody, or so I’ve heard. What does this mean? I do not know.
Or maybe I do.
In between edits for Some Girls Are, I have been working on books three, but I am debating setting it aside because it is going to be very dark and bleak and lately I just sort of want to write a love story that looks like a film made by a hipster with an asymmetrical haircut who thinks they’re better than me. I do not know how to come to terms with that want, either. It makes me feel very dirty in my soul.
How do I reconcile this side of myself?
I bet hipsters with asymmetrical haircuts who think they’re better than me don’t like Toto’s Africa.
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publication date
Monday April 13th, 2009 @ 6:18am
567 words, 42 sentencesmeta stuff
categories: books,some girls are (your mom),writing
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My absolute favourite book title of the moment is ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’. Also, The Arsonists Guide to New England Homes (I think I just got it wrong though)
Also: DEATH TO ASYMMETRICAL HAIRCUTS. Talk down to me will they!
I would have written a more interesting comment but I’m watching the Just for Laughs gala and people are Distracting me with their Funniness.
Titles are interesting. Scott Westerfeld’s one word titles are brilliant imo– but yeah, they have all the other stuff going for them that makes them work. My working title for my ms was “Dirt Nap”, but I decided it was too sensational and kind of dismissive and changed to “The Crimson Cord.” Still think Dirt Nap has more punch.
Titling your work = hard.
Glad you’re back btw. :)
They don’t like “Africa,” but they listen to it IRONICALLY.
Remind me to do a “excellent lines from spam” post one of these days; I collected them for a few months last year and they’ve just been languishing in a .txt document.
FWIW, my current favourite title of anything (subject to change) is “The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You,” which is a very, very long poem by Frank Stanford.
Also, I am vaguely concerned that my current title for you know what would classify, under your rule system, as an asymmetrical hipster title of preciousness. I have these sorts of concerns often with you, which I guess means it’s a good thing we’re friends! Not that I wasn’t already convinced that it’s a good thing we’re friends, of course, because: totes. ;)
I have a confession…I’m a cover art whore. Titles I can take or leave, but if I don’t like the cover, I’m not buying the book. I’m pretty sure I go straight to Author Hell for this. I’ll let you know when I get there.
Also, the only Sufjan Stevens song I have is called “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois.” …I can see why you’d find that asymmetrically hipster. ;P
@Briony Omg. The Guernsey title is pretty fiece and how could I forget The Arsonists Guide! I associate that one with you, hee. And… can I just say DEATH TO ASYMMETRICAL HAIRCUTS totally needs to be a book title. HAH.
@Pseudosu ooh, you’re so right. Westerfeld’s definitely pack a punch. I would put a few of them in my one-word titles exception list. I love both Dirt Nap and The Crimson Cord–they’re each evocative in their own way. And it’s good to be back. :)
@Annika YOU ARE RIGHT, OF COURSE.
@A you totally have to do an excellent lines from spam posts! I LOVE them. I love how we both save them. Also, bb, you would get a pass even if it was precious because I adore you, so. Heh. Also I doubt it would be precious as I told you in other places. IT ROCKS BEING FRIENDS, THOUGH.
@Emily Covers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Titles, I totally agree. Although there are some really stupid titles out there I’m sure covers can’t save. YOU WILL NOT GO TO AUTHOR HELL. He is totally asymetrically hipster. Check out this title: “The Black Hawk War, or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, or, “I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are off Our Lands!” SERIOUSLY SUFJAN? If I didn’t love you I would want to give you an annoyed noogie.
I made it on the list????!!! :) :) :) Funny, because I’d have put SOME GIRLS ARE on my own list… ever since you first revealed it it’s been running through my mind. It really captures my imagination.
I love the title “Everything Is Fine”… you so know it’s not.
A good title can really make me curious about a book. I guess I like little phrases: “Thirteen Reasons Why,” “The Forest of Hands and Teeth,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” and name titles: “The Adoration of Jenna Fox,” “An Abundance of Katherines,” “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks” …
And two of my favorite titles are really simple, not YA books, but I’ve always liked these: “Use Me” (a story collection by Elissa Shappell) and “Look at Me” (a novel by Jennifer Egan). Something about the command in them calls me in.
Write the love story – you never know what might happen. It could be fun, it could get dark along the way, it could have zombies and vampires. You just never know until you write it, right? :)
A great visual can hook me in to a one word title book. If the visual stinks, then not so much.
The Forest of Hands and Teeth is my new favorite long title.
BTW, I have to get a haircut, but I have no clue. Any ideas? Maybe something symmetrical – why is that bad again? ;)
I don’t even know how authors come up with good titles.
I often won’t read a book if the title is bad, though. I’ll just look at it, and maybe if the cover is interesting I’ll give it a chance to redeem itself and read the back.
Honestly, and really, I’m not just saying this, one of my favorite titles is Cracked Up To Be. I was reading a book blog and there was a post about it and as soon as I read the title I was like, “I need to read this book.”
Another really awesome title is The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. The cover was cool too.
John Green’s books have some cool titles too – his short story in Let It Snow is called A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle, which pretty much pwns.
@nova you totally made the list! Dani Noir is freaking awesome on so many levels. WHO IS SHE? I must know. I loved the YA titles you used as an example and ooh, the non-YA ones are so evocative. Good picks.
@sruble TRUE. I think I’ll have to give it ago. It’s really calling to me. And so true about a great visual being a great hook. The Forest o Hands and Teeth is a great title. Did you get an asymmetrical haircut? They’re only bad if you’re a hipster. ;)
@start_a_riot_xx I think titling is the hardest part! Thanks for weighing in. And thanks for the compliment re: CUTB’s title (my sister thought it up). I think the titles you’ve used as examples are awesome as well.