A title is like a prologue to a work of art. It gives us a brief insight into the kind of world the author intends taking readers into.
Titles are the biggest creative bait writers offer to readers. The decision to pass over or decide to read on a piece depends primarily on its title. Needless to say, a title of sorts must be sufficiently attention grabbing and catchy.
Here we present a few revelations about what makes spectacular titles for the genre of story writing.
1. Intriguing
Readers love the uncanny, the mysterious. You can tap on the eerie and craft something deliberately enigmatical. This is true particularly for the genre of fiction where fascinating titles may be a foreword to supernatural storylines soon going to unfold before their eyes.
Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There’ (1872) and ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (1865) are renowned novels in children’s literature with mystical titles and plots.
You may come up with something like:
A foray into the Fairyland (Story with the given openings – “I opened my eyes and realised where I was!”)
A Topsy-turvy World (Story with a red car, a dragon and a school in it)
A World of Incredulities (Story with a duck, a goose and a pumpkin in it)
2. Wordplay
Rhyming, punning or other forms of wordplay are every writer’s skill. You can put on your creative hat and create a mix and match of complementary words.
Drizzles that Fizzled (Story based on a picture - rainy day)
The Doomy, Gloomy Day (Story based on a flashback – late for school Again)
3. Reference to the protagonist
Titles may be based around and give us a sneak peek into the central character. You can disclose your protagonist’s identity in a number of interesting ways.
Create your own Lilliputian world of small and large creatures with a title such as:
What’s big and small? A Matter of Scales (Story from the point of view of an object - A doll’s house or toy car)
My Tried and True Buddy (Story based on a picture - piggy bank)
An Act of Valour (Story that ends with: Do, you want to be a superhero?” asked dad.)
The Sinister Sister (Story from the point of view of another character - one of the ugly sisters from Cinderella)
4. Symbolic
Words or language may represent something instead of directly naming an entity. It can be too bland to refer to an object by its ordinary identity. One may concoct epithets such as:
A Vestige from History (Story from the point of view of an object – a grandfather’s clock)
A Voyage along the Shore (Story with seaside as the setting)
5. Premonitory
Foretelling the bad or ominous is a recurrent motif in literary writing. Authors whet the reader’s anxiety by dropping a figurative word or expression which is supposed to predict something dreadful going to happen.
The Wrath of Nature (Story based on a picture – flood)
Your title must be your own brainchild. An author ought to give a free vein to his creativity and design something unique. Repeating humdrum terminology does not work and must be debunked. Being original means trekking through the unprecedented and giving a shot to absolutely novel, path-breaking titles. You may attempt anything from being informative, inspirational, motivational, sardonic to whatever comes to your mind, depending upon your theme and storyline.
Hope the above pointers come handy when you are struggling with titling your next story write-up. Stay tuned as we bring you techniques for titling for different genres in our upcoming blogs.