Hi Abrian, Hi George... great title to know you're both going to be going to work on... the surprise that you'll maybe find as your takes on the title work themselves out as you write might, maybe, be the realisation that while The Courtesan's position is ever precarious she turns out to be one of the Uber Rich in the time and place setting of your stories 😲.
🤣 Seriously, great question and grand pick-up, we'll all be running the backlist of titles that have helped stories that have struck us powerfully to stick with us unforgettably. Metaphor in my mind has me standing in front of the arrivals and departures board at a major railway station or airport. There's obviously something awry as the information messaging has gone haywire... arrivals and departures are, it seems, jostling for their places on the platforms or on the tarmac.
I love writing titles. Here are some of my titles on substack: “How to Skin A Gorilla” “Don’t Diagnose Me: I Was Born in a Cult” “Monsters I Have Known and Loved” “Despair is the Great Temptation” “Roadtrip” “Know Thyself” and more.
That's a Substack thing, too! Every post forces you to pick a title and a subheading. After a couple hundred posts, one would think that one'd get good at picking titles. I'm not sure if it works that way.
And to think, Kelly, that when I click-slided my way into your "How to Skin A Gorilla" that - having a Silver Back Alpha Male Gorilla stepped in from the cold and sitting, with all to apparent attitude, on the mat in front of TV - I was naive enough to anticipate finding myself reading a how to text along the lines of "Teach Yourself How to Skin A Gorilla"...
Really enjoyed finding my curiosity tripping me in to finding and crossing the threshold of your Substack Kelly; content and substance was affirmative; now I'm just - wryly smiling in recollection of a moniker that Mary G bestowed on me yonks back in the annals of Story Club - going to prod said gorilla on the shoulder in the certain knowledge that when he turns to eyeball me he's guaranteed to get the shock of his life 🦍 turning, 🦍turned & being so shocked he's turned pussy cat ginger 🙀!
It is! Each week, a little challenge. I learned to scan my post subheads for possible embedded tithes and usually find one that’s better than what I had for a working title. I believe that idea came from @sarahfay or was adapted from something she shared. If so, thanks Sarah!
Thank you, is the title here, to the kind questioner, for acknowledging "Annie Overly," and to George, for everything, and to all Story Clubbers, for everything else. You're all the best idea of family and community one could imagine.
One of the teachers I've worked with, I'm pretty sure it was Lydia Davis, averred that a good title does fully half the work of a short story, in terms of meaning. I'll never forget that one.
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.
Did she mention a process for helping this happen? I think unless you are including the title in your drafts and revisions from the beginning, it must be very difficult to tack on 50% of the meaning after the rest of the story is finished. But honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin in terms of deciding what significance the title should carry and how to get it performing that function.
I actually would lean toward not keeping a title on deck from the beginning, because it can create a leap that you're not ready to take until your story is complete. And I think it may be more intuitive than something one schemes over. A title so often adds a poetic mystery, which is why we find them in poetry all the time. And Shakespeare.
Philip K Dick was a master of quirky titles. "Beyond Lies The Wub" , "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" or the now classic "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?".
But my favourite title of all time (at least today) is "Kangaroo Notebook" by the Japanese writer Kobo Abe.
I love "Late in the Day" by Tessa Hadley. It echoes the exact melancholy and depth of the story. "A Visit from the Goon Squad" works after reading it, but I didn't pick up the book (which I loved) for ages because I thought it science fiction.
This is a great point. I agree that "A Visit From the Goon Squad" is a great-sounding title that does not actually signpost the book inside very well. This is an interesting secondary problem in coming up with a good title--a good title on the wrong story is actually a bad title.
I remember smiling when I first saw this title - as it brought to mind 'The Goon Show' as scripted weekly for Beeb Radio way back in the day. I got more interested in, and bought the book, by becoming intrigued parts of it being scripted in MS Powerpoint.
We are in a secluded backroom playing high stakes poker in the company of a Bruce Willis wannabee, formerly a known high roller in Vegas, aren't we Terri?
Oh yes, make no mistake I'm going to go try and locate this Tessa Hadley title out, Thanks for signposting Terri.
To me, "So Late in the Day" has a kind of poetry. Adding more words would take away from it. But this is all so subjective, somebody else may feel differently.
Mary, I've now read the story. I actually bought the book. Her style is fascinating - so dry yet gets to the heart of things. The second story in the book was A Long and Painful Death. Also wonderful. The pod cast is next.
Good on yer Terri. I think there is a book, bearing the story title, out with a couple of her other - each and every one - notable shorter form fictions collected withing its covers.
Not sure how, let alone why, another title of a novel by an outstanding English female writer comes to mind but as it has I'm more than pleased to commend it to you and other Story Clubbers happening to pass their reading 👀 this way. The title is The Pure Gold Baby, the writer is Margaret Drabble, date of publication was 2013 (which signals it as being a later work in her canon).
Ah yes! Penny drops. In regard of Claire Keegan, whose wordage is slim in total but in each instance viscerally etched on this reader's memory, what I'd borrow and repurpose from Margaret Drabble's title is the thought that whenever we first read, re-read or take notice of a freshly forthcoming new story title the expectation that rises is something along the lines of "Pure Gold Prose".
So write, I now, how right written - albeit so visceral wrote - is your, so deeply engaging and deeper though provoking substantial novel entitled 'The Seasonwife'. No small, yet in my reading, utterly novel achievement Saige. I do, have and will, encourage all passing this threaded way - as I have in other, similar, such ways I have chipped a suggestion of a warp this way and a weft that way - to find and read your recent long form fiction.
Took my breath away... broadened my insight... couldn't wait to turn the page, begin the next chapter, find out what the outcome was going to turn out to be.
Just my personal, airing and sharing of, my personal point of view, and I have the temerity to repeat "utterly novel achievement". The title raised an sense of expectation; the published novel delivered.
"I noticed; I read; I discovered."
Or to splay it in the Latin I'm not, the least, claiming to command:
"Animadverti; Lego; Inventus sum."
😂 < He to the left being laughing at my inadequate Latin. > 👑 to my right being, simply, salutation to you story-telling prowess Saige. 🙏
Oh Rob, thank you so much for your kind response to my debut novel. Your words reached me today after a week of writing scenes for the next novel. The experience of time-travelling - being deeply immersed in another time and place. I came out drenched and felt quite sick to be torn away from the characters. You remind me that writers write and readers read to reach that other place and those other people, honouring that other time and place. Thank you for reminding me that it is worthwhile.
Yes, indeed, both are wonderful but what - in your desiderata - makes Hadley's prose style richer than Keegan's Terri? And which matters more, if I may further enquire, to you 'style' or 'story'? And, pushing the limit of fair asking, which in your view matters most to Hadley and to Keegan?
Not so much seeking deep. reflective, bet my house on the veracity of my POV answer but rather hoping to provoke your gentle, genial consideration.
The rythm in the title 'Ying tong' reminds me of the rhtym in some old dialects. The familiar resonance, something we can't grasp, it feels nonsensical and yet it rises us up and sings us out to play and home again.
One American College's variant on a powerful, powerplay, punt it out and punt loud rhythmic better than mere chant. Best version, being first version, for me is the one inclusive of the key line of rough hewn lyric reading "Get 'em down you Zulu Warriors / Get 'em down you Zulu Chiefs".
Agree with Harirai this is a great point. It seems to happen to me mostly with movies. Of course, I can't think of any examples at the moment, duh, but I know there have been many times in my life when, based on their titles, I have avoided certain movies. When I've finally come round to watching them (usually on a friend's recommendation), I've learned they have nothing at all to do with what the titles suggested to me originally and could kick myself for not watching them sooner.
I've never published any fiction, but I write plenty of shorter pieces and reviews. My experience with titles varies. Sometimes a good one will come to me easily; other times I'll really struggle to come up with one that I like. Every now and then I'll start with a title that encapsulates something I know I want to write about and at some point will finally go on to write the piece. Two examples of that: "Against the Integrated Life" and "I Don't Care if My Students Get Jobs."
Of course, with this kind of occasional writing, editors often ignore one's suggestions and go with their own ideas of what will attract readers. Sometimes I think they do an excellent job; other times... meh.
Favorite titles? That's a tough one, and now that it's been asked, I'm sure my subconscious will keep generating examples all evening. But I think "The Man Who Was Thursday" is a pretty good title. And for a completely wacky but really neat one, I'd look to the most recent book by the Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić. His latest novel bears the title, "Möchte die Witwe angesprochen werden, platziert sie auf dem Grab die Gießkanne mit dem Ausguss nach vorne." In English, roughly, "Should the widow wish to be addressed, she will place the watering can upon the grave with the spout facing forward"--referring to a custom by which widows indicate that they are now open to a new relationship. One could hardly be farther from George's terse examples, but that's a great title.
Looking forward to this discussion because I am the worst title creator in existence. I find it interesting that George likes the short titles for himself, yet a few of the titles from others’ work that he enjoys are quite long.
I worked on this idea and came up with nothing. Because now I don't think it's possible to have a bad title.
"Donald Trump is God," sounds like it should suck, but I think we could all work magic with that. Or an awful curse word, or a disgusting meme -- depending on the writing, it could be great. There is the question of advertising -- that is, of getting a reader to actually click on your title or buy your book. But let's talk about writing and not trickery.
Yes, I'm thinking that no title on its own can be inherently good or bad, its value is only in how well it interacts with the story. Some titles do sound great on their own, but do a bad job of resonating with the stories inside (A Visit from the Goon Squad was mentioned elsewhere on this thread). Other titles are nothing on their own but feel perfect against the story (for me most one-word titles fall into this category).
This is one of my favorite topics, as I find titles to have such outsized importance to my read of a work, and yet they often seem so undervalued. When I write a piece of fiction, I often start with a title before anything else -- come up with a neat-sounding collection of words and try to then find a story to fit them. Obviously sometimes the title changes during the course of writing, or else I find that actually this isn't the right story for this title after all, but using a title as a starting point feels like having a north star through the process of writing. It provides direction and a kind of scaffolding that I can then take down if need be. Though I've never met anyone else who does this, so maybe this is actually a terrible approach. Who's to say?
I began my story 'Drift' with the title, intending a double meaning, which it retained as an element of the story. But in the end the story opened up into more complex things that a single word could never convey.
I also often begin stories with just a title. I find that the stories I write that way end up with much better titles than stories that start as concepts. The title becomes much more a piece of art in itself, whereas I often find myself titling other stories that seem more like descriptions or labels.
Occasionally the story and the title pop into my head together almost simultaneously in a neat prepackaged bundle. Those stories always develop the quickest. My hunch is that these are ideas that have been turning over in my brain deep in the background already for some time.
I’ve definitely had random title-sounding phrases pop into my head that led to stories/articles (and songs back when I was young and fronted a band) because I wanted a use for the title. But except for a few songs, I don’t think any of the title-inspirations ever stuck. When I used to have to write my own headlines for a weekly column, the best ones (imo) came to me late in the process when I could see what themes had opened up. Often the new title occurring to me is how I knew I was done.
Songs have a unique structure. The revision process for lyrics is not about exploring your themes, it’s about tightening things up, rhythmically and otherwise. If you start with a title you like and write a chorus with it first, it’s got a much better chance of still working when you’re done. Maybe the lesson from that is, if you’re writing to fit a title, keep it simple and short!
Some of my favorite titles: The Optimist's Daughter, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Small Things Like These, The Left Hand of Darkness, Old Filth, Loving, The Age of Grief, Edinburgh, Small Rain, Persuasion, The Secret History, Oryx and Crake, Lincoln in the Bardo, The Children's Bach, Speedboat, A Fairly Honorable Defeat, The Green Road.... the list goes on.
For my own stories, sometimes the title comes even before the story, sometimes while writing the story, sometimes I struggle with it and go through a number of changes. As with the story, the title has to come from the subconscious. If I try to create one consciously, it ends up being a flop. 😊
There was a period I was obsessed with Flannery O’Connor’s sentence-long story titles: Everything that rises must converge; The life you save may be your own; A good man is hard to find; You can’t be any poorer than dead
I wonder what Chekhov was thinking when he came up with titles like: A dreary story; A story without a title
I think Chekhov at one time was writing so many stories that these were just notes that got stuck on as titles. (But I've no evidence for this whatsoever...)
Often a title will declare itself as I work. But I also keep a list. I jot down stuff as it occurs to me, then flip through the pile from time to time, see if anything in my experience can be recalled by the title or worked to fit it. I have hundreds. Here are a few: "Selections from the Disaster Songbook"; "Apocalypse Pretty Soon"; "An Incomplete History of the Future"; "Are We Related?"; "Little Republicans"; and "The School of Fine Hearts". If nothing comes, it goes back in the pile for next time.
Not sure, but seems similar to what I do: keep a list of titles, mostly non-fiction, that have popped into my head at odd moments, and wait patiently—sometimes years—for me to add the body. “In the Keeping of Men: An Inescapable Condition of Woman” (inspired by John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing”), “The Short Life of Long-Term Memorization: Cram It In While You Can,” “From Poor to Middling: the Joys of Reaching Mediocrity,” “The Illusion of Ownership,” “Gathering in the Dark: Why Movie-going Endures.”
Fun, Roseanne! Always love a play on words, so always love a play on other titles. :) A recent personal favorite, for the play on words, Machines Like Me (Ian McEwan).
Thanks for Sredni Vashtar, Marina. Love the sound of it as a title, even though I don't know the story. Have just looked it up, though, and am looking forward to reading it.
Saki himself loved that title, I think, since the narrator references the mystery of its creation in the text of the story itself:
'And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name'.
My guess, and of course it's a guess, is that this happened in the inception of the story too. Can't you just feel the hairs standing up on the arm of the author, a moment of perfection descends upon him like Grace.
Titles can be elusive. I try not to title a poem before it's finished, but it's tempting at times. I've found that just changing a title can have a big impact on what's already there. Cast things in a new light. Lorrie Moore is great at titles. The Only People Here are People Like Us !
Hmmmm, interesting. I find I have very strong opinions about bad titles: in my mind the worst are those made up of a vague, forgettable verb clause: "Leaving Here", "Take what you need", etc.
Also strikes me that this would make a decent prompt - if we made a list of titles and then people chose from those to write an original story...
Maybe I can get us started. I happened to think of a couple potential titles while scrolling through the comments:
"The Floor is Lava"
"My Guests Are Not Who They Say They Are"
Both wonderful.
There's a title: "Both Wonderful." :)
I've always loved the Raymond Carver title "So Much Water So Close To Home".
I've a candidate for My Guests Are Not Who They Say They Are. (Written to a prompt from mary g. and posted ten days ago).
https://maryg1.substack.com/p/prompt-46/comment/74450434
With an architectural tip of the hat to a GS story...
Awesome!
Fun! Wondering what they found?
My lips are sealed.
That is a tremendous idea.
Here's a title to share that came to mind recently. Feel free to steal:
A workplace thriller called "Nothing But Good Things."
To be fair, I would definitely read “The Courtesan Who, Unlike the Rich, Had Some Integrity.”
I'll get working on it. :)
Hi Abrian, Hi George... great title to know you're both going to be going to work on... the surprise that you'll maybe find as your takes on the title work themselves out as you write might, maybe, be the realisation that while The Courtesan's position is ever precarious she turns out to be one of the Uber Rich in the time and place setting of your stories 😲.
🤣 Seriously, great question and grand pick-up, we'll all be running the backlist of titles that have helped stories that have struck us powerfully to stick with us unforgettably. Metaphor in my mind has me standing in front of the arrivals and departures board at a major railway station or airport. There's obviously something awry as the information messaging has gone haywire... arrivals and departures are, it seems, jostling for their places on the platforms or on the tarmac.
I love writing titles. Here are some of my titles on substack: “How to Skin A Gorilla” “Don’t Diagnose Me: I Was Born in a Cult” “Monsters I Have Known and Loved” “Despair is the Great Temptation” “Roadtrip” “Know Thyself” and more.
That's a Substack thing, too! Every post forces you to pick a title and a subheading. After a couple hundred posts, one would think that one'd get good at picking titles. I'm not sure if it works that way.
Works for me!
And to think, Kelly, that when I click-slided my way into your "How to Skin A Gorilla" that - having a Silver Back Alpha Male Gorilla stepped in from the cold and sitting, with all to apparent attitude, on the mat in front of TV - I was naive enough to anticipate finding myself reading a how to text along the lines of "Teach Yourself How to Skin A Gorilla"...
Really enjoyed finding my curiosity tripping me in to finding and crossing the threshold of your Substack Kelly; content and substance was affirmative; now I'm just - wryly smiling in recollection of a moniker that Mary G bestowed on me yonks back in the annals of Story Club - going to prod said gorilla on the shoulder in the certain knowledge that when he turns to eyeball me he's guaranteed to get the shock of his life 🦍 turning, 🦍turned & being so shocked he's turned pussy cat ginger 🙀!
😂
It is! Each week, a little challenge. I learned to scan my post subheads for possible embedded tithes and usually find one that’s better than what I had for a working title. I believe that idea came from @sarahfay or was adapted from something she shared. If so, thanks Sarah!
I'm gonna hire you to name my next short story! 😛
🤣
WONDERFUL Titles that hook wth intrigue!
These are great!
I love these titles!
Thank you, is the title here, to the kind questioner, for acknowledging "Annie Overly," and to George, for everything, and to all Story Clubbers, for everything else. You're all the best idea of family and community one could imagine.
Thank you Tod 💚
One of the teachers I've worked with, I'm pretty sure it was Lydia Davis, averred that a good title does fully half the work of a short story, in terms of meaning. I'll never forget that one.
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.
But it might have been Christine Schutt. :-)
Agree! And love her work.
Did she mention a process for helping this happen? I think unless you are including the title in your drafts and revisions from the beginning, it must be very difficult to tack on 50% of the meaning after the rest of the story is finished. But honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin in terms of deciding what significance the title should carry and how to get it performing that function.
I actually would lean toward not keeping a title on deck from the beginning, because it can create a leap that you're not ready to take until your story is complete. And I think it may be more intuitive than something one schemes over. A title so often adds a poetic mystery, which is why we find them in poetry all the time. And Shakespeare.
Philip K Dick was a master of quirky titles. "Beyond Lies The Wub" , "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" or the now classic "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?".
But my favourite title of all time (at least today) is "Kangaroo Notebook" by the Japanese writer Kobo Abe.
Avram Davidson was another SF short story master who is sadly underrated. He also wrote some excellent titles.
“Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper”
“And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose”
“Or All the Seas with Oysters”
“There Beneath the Silky-Trees and Whelmed in Deeper Gulphs Than Me”
“The Affair at Lahore Cantonment”
“The Power of Every Root”
And the less evocative “The House the Blakeneys Built” which I mention purely because it’s such a good story.
I've never heard of Avram Davidson, but I'm already drawn in by these titles, so I will have to look him up.
Some other Dick titles I really like: The Man in the High Castle, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
A Scanner Darkly...
I love "Late in the Day" by Tessa Hadley. It echoes the exact melancholy and depth of the story. "A Visit from the Goon Squad" works after reading it, but I didn't pick up the book (which I loved) for ages because I thought it science fiction.
This is a great point. I agree that "A Visit From the Goon Squad" is a great-sounding title that does not actually signpost the book inside very well. This is an interesting secondary problem in coming up with a good title--a good title on the wrong story is actually a bad title.
"Ying tong, ying tong, ying tong piddle high po!"
I remember smiling when I first saw this title - as it brought to mind 'The Goon Show' as scripted weekly for Beeb Radio way back in the day. I got more interested in, and bought the book, by becoming intrigued parts of it being scripted in MS Powerpoint.
To your bid of "Late in the Day" I counter bid and up the ante with "So Late in the Day" by Cliare Keegan https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/fiction-claire-keegan-so-late-in-the-day .
We are in a secluded backroom playing high stakes poker in the company of a Bruce Willis wannabee, formerly a known high roller in Vegas, aren't we Terri?
Oh yes, make no mistake I'm going to go try and locate this Tessa Hadley title out, Thanks for signposting Terri.
For me, "So Late in the Day" lands better than "Late in the Day." The "So" adds to the wistful, melancholy feel of the title.
Can we just keep adding words? How about
So late in the wrong day
To me, "So Late in the Day" has a kind of poetry. Adding more words would take away from it. But this is all so subjective, somebody else may feel differently.
Different vibe - a comedy perhaps?
And almost foreshadows "Too..."
I just saw the Keegan in the bookstore last Monday. I've been meaning to read her - this will give me a push. Thanks!
George Saunders reads Claire Keegan on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t read it, but discusses it with Deborah Treisman.) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-new-yorker-fiction/id256945396?i=1000618960228 This is a story that will knock you sideways and live in your mind forever.
Will look this up. ... One comment and now a list of wonderful things to read. Maybe I can manage to live to 110 - LOL
Exactly how I feel reading this. Being a slow reader, I’d have to add more years to this.
DO read this. And listen to the podcast. It’s an incredible story, and of course George.
Mary, I've now read the story. I actually bought the book. Her style is fascinating - so dry yet gets to the heart of things. The second story in the book was A Long and Painful Death. Also wonderful. The pod cast is next.
Once you read a Keegan there is no going back.
Good on yer Terri. I think there is a book, bearing the story title, out with a couple of her other - each and every one - notable shorter form fictions collected withing its covers.
Not sure how, let alone why, another title of a novel by an outstanding English female writer comes to mind but as it has I'm more than pleased to commend it to you and other Story Clubbers happening to pass their reading 👀 this way. The title is The Pure Gold Baby, the writer is Margaret Drabble, date of publication was 2013 (which signals it as being a later work in her canon).
Ah yes! Penny drops. In regard of Claire Keegan, whose wordage is slim in total but in each instance viscerally etched on this reader's memory, what I'd borrow and repurpose from Margaret Drabble's title is the thought that whenever we first read, re-read or take notice of a freshly forthcoming new story title the expectation that rises is something along the lines of "Pure Gold Prose".
A title is an expectation. A proposal, a promise, and the novel or novella is the delivery.
So write, I now, how right written - albeit so visceral wrote - is your, so deeply engaging and deeper though provoking substantial novel entitled 'The Seasonwife'. No small, yet in my reading, utterly novel achievement Saige. I do, have and will, encourage all passing this threaded way - as I have in other, similar, such ways I have chipped a suggestion of a warp this way and a weft that way - to find and read your recent long form fiction.
Took my breath away... broadened my insight... couldn't wait to turn the page, begin the next chapter, find out what the outcome was going to turn out to be.
Just my personal, airing and sharing of, my personal point of view, and I have the temerity to repeat "utterly novel achievement". The title raised an sense of expectation; the published novel delivered.
"I noticed; I read; I discovered."
Or to splay it in the Latin I'm not, the least, claiming to command:
"Animadverti; Lego; Inventus sum."
😂 < He to the left being laughing at my inadequate Latin. > 👑 to my right being, simply, salutation to you story-telling prowess Saige. 🙏
Oh Rob, thank you so much for your kind response to my debut novel. Your words reached me today after a week of writing scenes for the next novel. The experience of time-travelling - being deeply immersed in another time and place. I came out drenched and felt quite sick to be torn away from the characters. You remind me that writers write and readers read to reach that other place and those other people, honouring that other time and place. Thank you for reminding me that it is worthwhile.
Did you read the Hadley? It's a richer prose style than Keegan. I can now say both are wonderful.
Yes, indeed, both are wonderful but what - in your desiderata - makes Hadley's prose style richer than Keegan's Terri? And which matters more, if I may further enquire, to you 'style' or 'story'? And, pushing the limit of fair asking, which in your view matters most to Hadley and to Keegan?
Not so much seeking deep. reflective, bet my house on the veracity of my POV answer but rather hoping to provoke your gentle, genial consideration.
The rythm in the title 'Ying tong' reminds me of the rhtym in some old dialects. The familiar resonance, something we can't grasp, it feels nonsensical and yet it rises us up and sings us out to play and home again.
Aye! Zigga Zoomba
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zoomba
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zay
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zoomba
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zay
Roll ’em down you Tar Heel Warriors
Roll ’em down and fight for Carolina
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zoomba
Aye zigga zoomba zoomba zay
One American College's variant on a powerful, powerplay, punt it out and punt loud rhythmic better than mere chant. Best version, being first version, for me is the one inclusive of the key line of rough hewn lyric reading "Get 'em down you Zulu Warriors / Get 'em down you Zulu Chiefs".
Same
Agree with Harirai this is a great point. It seems to happen to me mostly with movies. Of course, I can't think of any examples at the moment, duh, but I know there have been many times in my life when, based on their titles, I have avoided certain movies. When I've finally come round to watching them (usually on a friend's recommendation), I've learned they have nothing at all to do with what the titles suggested to me originally and could kick myself for not watching them sooner.
Neat question.
I've never published any fiction, but I write plenty of shorter pieces and reviews. My experience with titles varies. Sometimes a good one will come to me easily; other times I'll really struggle to come up with one that I like. Every now and then I'll start with a title that encapsulates something I know I want to write about and at some point will finally go on to write the piece. Two examples of that: "Against the Integrated Life" and "I Don't Care if My Students Get Jobs."
Of course, with this kind of occasional writing, editors often ignore one's suggestions and go with their own ideas of what will attract readers. Sometimes I think they do an excellent job; other times... meh.
Favorite titles? That's a tough one, and now that it's been asked, I'm sure my subconscious will keep generating examples all evening. But I think "The Man Who Was Thursday" is a pretty good title. And for a completely wacky but really neat one, I'd look to the most recent book by the Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić. His latest novel bears the title, "Möchte die Witwe angesprochen werden, platziert sie auf dem Grab die Gießkanne mit dem Ausguss nach vorne." In English, roughly, "Should the widow wish to be addressed, she will place the watering can upon the grave with the spout facing forward"--referring to a custom by which widows indicate that they are now open to a new relationship. One could hardly be farther from George's terse examples, but that's a great title.
That German title is like a short story in itself
Isn't it? I think it's really neat (he likes to do that sort of thing).
Looking forward to this discussion because I am the worst title creator in existence. I find it interesting that George likes the short titles for himself, yet a few of the titles from others’ work that he enjoys are quite long.
I would love to hear the worst title in existence.
I Picked My Nose on the Way to the Election. 🕶️🕶️
I picked YOUR nose on the way to election.
I’d read that story.
Amazing title
Keep the aspidistra flying
I worked on this idea and came up with nothing. Because now I don't think it's possible to have a bad title.
"Donald Trump is God," sounds like it should suck, but I think we could all work magic with that. Or an awful curse word, or a disgusting meme -- depending on the writing, it could be great. There is the question of advertising -- that is, of getting a reader to actually click on your title or buy your book. But let's talk about writing and not trickery.
Yes, I'm thinking that no title on its own can be inherently good or bad, its value is only in how well it interacts with the story. Some titles do sound great on their own, but do a bad job of resonating with the stories inside (A Visit from the Goon Squad was mentioned elsewhere on this thread). Other titles are nothing on their own but feel perfect against the story (for me most one-word titles fall into this category).
This is one of my favorite topics, as I find titles to have such outsized importance to my read of a work, and yet they often seem so undervalued. When I write a piece of fiction, I often start with a title before anything else -- come up with a neat-sounding collection of words and try to then find a story to fit them. Obviously sometimes the title changes during the course of writing, or else I find that actually this isn't the right story for this title after all, but using a title as a starting point feels like having a north star through the process of writing. It provides direction and a kind of scaffolding that I can then take down if need be. Though I've never met anyone else who does this, so maybe this is actually a terrible approach. Who's to say?
I began my story 'Drift' with the title, intending a double meaning, which it retained as an element of the story. But in the end the story opened up into more complex things that a single word could never convey.
I also often begin stories with just a title. I find that the stories I write that way end up with much better titles than stories that start as concepts. The title becomes much more a piece of art in itself, whereas I often find myself titling other stories that seem more like descriptions or labels.
Occasionally the story and the title pop into my head together almost simultaneously in a neat prepackaged bundle. Those stories always develop the quickest. My hunch is that these are ideas that have been turning over in my brain deep in the background already for some time.
I’ve definitely had random title-sounding phrases pop into my head that led to stories/articles (and songs back when I was young and fronted a band) because I wanted a use for the title. But except for a few songs, I don’t think any of the title-inspirations ever stuck. When I used to have to write my own headlines for a weekly column, the best ones (imo) came to me late in the process when I could see what themes had opened up. Often the new title occurring to me is how I knew I was done.
Songs have a unique structure. The revision process for lyrics is not about exploring your themes, it’s about tightening things up, rhythmically and otherwise. If you start with a title you like and write a chorus with it first, it’s got a much better chance of still working when you’re done. Maybe the lesson from that is, if you’re writing to fit a title, keep it simple and short!
..'like having a north star through the process of writing.' Lovely image, and yes!
Some of my favorite titles: The Optimist's Daughter, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Small Things Like These, The Left Hand of Darkness, Old Filth, Loving, The Age of Grief, Edinburgh, Small Rain, Persuasion, The Secret History, Oryx and Crake, Lincoln in the Bardo, The Children's Bach, Speedboat, A Fairly Honorable Defeat, The Green Road.... the list goes on.
A fellow Le Guin fan! These are all great.
For my own stories, sometimes the title comes even before the story, sometimes while writing the story, sometimes I struggle with it and go through a number of changes. As with the story, the title has to come from the subconscious. If I try to create one consciously, it ends up being a flop. 😊
There was a period I was obsessed with Flannery O’Connor’s sentence-long story titles: Everything that rises must converge; The life you save may be your own; A good man is hard to find; You can’t be any poorer than dead
I wonder what Chekhov was thinking when he came up with titles like: A dreary story; A story without a title
I think Chekhov at one time was writing so many stories that these were just notes that got stuck on as titles. (But I've no evidence for this whatsoever...)
You are probably right, John!
Often a title will declare itself as I work. But I also keep a list. I jot down stuff as it occurs to me, then flip through the pile from time to time, see if anything in my experience can be recalled by the title or worked to fit it. I have hundreds. Here are a few: "Selections from the Disaster Songbook"; "Apocalypse Pretty Soon"; "An Incomplete History of the Future"; "Are We Related?"; "Little Republicans"; and "The School of Fine Hearts". If nothing comes, it goes back in the pile for next time.
Not sure, but seems similar to what I do: keep a list of titles, mostly non-fiction, that have popped into my head at odd moments, and wait patiently—sometimes years—for me to add the body. “In the Keeping of Men: An Inescapable Condition of Woman” (inspired by John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing”), “The Short Life of Long-Term Memorization: Cram It In While You Can,” “From Poor to Middling: the Joys of Reaching Mediocrity,” “The Illusion of Ownership,” “Gathering in the Dark: Why Movie-going Endures.”
I would read any of those!
Fun, Roseanne! Always love a play on words, so always love a play on other titles. :) A recent personal favorite, for the play on words, Machines Like Me (Ian McEwan).
My favorite title ever is Sredni Vashtar. Sometimes I just say it aloud so that I can enjoy it again.
My own work still resides solely in the cloud, and it’s called Novel. There’s also othernovel and othernovel2.
Thanks for Sredni Vashtar, Marina. Love the sound of it as a title, even though I don't know the story. Have just looked it up, though, and am looking forward to reading it.
Saki himself loved that title, I think, since the narrator references the mystery of its creation in the text of the story itself:
'And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name'.
My guess, and of course it's a guess, is that this happened in the inception of the story too. Can't you just feel the hairs standing up on the arm of the author, a moment of perfection descends upon him like Grace.
I love the story, and the title too.
Thank you for this!
When you finish Novel, you could call it Cloudburst ;)
I like it
Lol
Titles can be elusive. I try not to title a poem before it's finished, but it's tempting at times. I've found that just changing a title can have a big impact on what's already there. Cast things in a new light. Lorrie Moore is great at titles. The Only People Here are People Like Us !
Hmmmm, interesting. I find I have very strong opinions about bad titles: in my mind the worst are those made up of a vague, forgettable verb clause: "Leaving Here", "Take what you need", etc.
Though Some Forgettable Verb Clause would make a good title