This makes sense to me. The shorter the piece, the less room you have to convey information to the reader, and the larger the title is as a proportion of word count.
I'm reminded of a six-word story challenge I once stumbled upon. (The most devastating was "Baby shoes for sale; never worn"). The constraint forces an extreme economy of words (might be a good Story Club exercise!) If you included a title with a six-word story, you could easily end up with a title longer than the piece itself!
It feels empirically true as well. I'm pretty sure titles are longer on average among short stories than novels. Many of the long, quirky titles I can think of are shorts.
Funny, I recently submitted an entry for a six-word contest at the The Narrative. I agree with you, it's a useful writerly exercise to focus the mind on the economy of language. Kinda like how poetry works. And agreed - the one you mentioned was very novel and compelling.
YES! This is what I mean about titles often being missed opportunities. They really could carry that much meaning, but in practice often don't.
I've heard somewhere that the shorter the story, the more heavy-lifting the title should do. So, specially for Flash fiction, Micro fiction etc.
This makes sense to me. The shorter the piece, the less room you have to convey information to the reader, and the larger the title is as a proportion of word count.
I'm reminded of a six-word story challenge I once stumbled upon. (The most devastating was "Baby shoes for sale; never worn"). The constraint forces an extreme economy of words (might be a good Story Club exercise!) If you included a title with a six-word story, you could easily end up with a title longer than the piece itself!
It feels empirically true as well. I'm pretty sure titles are longer on average among short stories than novels. Many of the long, quirky titles I can think of are shorts.
Funny, I recently submitted an entry for a six-word contest at the The Narrative. I agree with you, it's a useful writerly exercise to focus the mind on the economy of language. Kinda like how poetry works. And agreed - the one you mentioned was very novel and compelling.