Titles Titles Titles TITLES

So I’m busy trying to think up a title for my new Middle Grade wip, which is, actually, HARDER THAN WRITING THE NOVEL ITSELF.

How does that even work? I mean surely it should be the other way around?

But titles just aren’t my strong suit. Honestly, I think some people just have a gift with them. It took me like a year to come up with the first one and even that one wasn’t that great 😀 It’s fun trying to beat down my brain for an answer though. I mean with respect to that (now trunked) book, I didn’t have any magical McGuffins in the story I could name it after and I didn’t want it to be too needlessly complicated. It’s gotta be catchy, right? Punchy.

The interesting thing about titles is that sometimes it doesn’t even matter how much ‘sense’ the title makes in lieu of the story itself. People imbue that title with meaning, they FILL the words/word with an entirely new connotation that they didn’t have before and it becomes something more. Like Harry Potter is just a catchy, Britishy name. But it became so much more. Twilight. Wicked Lovely (what does it mean? Doesn’t matter). The Dead-Tossed Waves.

I came up with FEATHER BOUND, which is a title I actually liked and nobody seemed to object too. Fun fact: back when the story was supposed to be less dark, twisted, and totally messed up, I called the book FEATHER WOVEN. There’s something slightly more romantic about the name. Like it gives you a different vibe – a more romantic one. Of course, FEATHER BOUND has romantic elements but to highlight the darker element of slavery and escape in the story, I changed the name. Definitely worked out better that way.

Maybe it’s important not to have a title that’s overly complicated, but whose essence still encompasses what the book is about, even if it’s not literally, but in terms of feeling. Bah I have more thinking to do.