Enter title here… umm, yeah… title…hmm

It’s the first Wednesday of the month already, and time to share our hopes, dreams and fears with the Insecure Writers Support Group, the brainchild of Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, and this month’s hosts are; Beverly Stowe McClure, Tyrean Martinson, Tonja Drecker, and Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor!

Do stop by their blogs and say hello (especially Ellen – she usually has cake 😉 !)

This month’s optional question is; What’s harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?

As you might guess from the blog title, titles are hardest for me, without a doubt. Character names mostly just roll out of my head and onto the page, but titles? Damn, they’re difficult.

You can spend hours sweating over the perfect title, only to have it completely ignored by the publisher. Here are some examples of my own stories;

Sleeping Beauty became Different Dreams,

Jenny’s Legacy became Family Heirlooms,

Not Just for Christmas became The Birthday Girl,

The Direct Approach became No Time Like the Present, and

The Perfect Christmas became It’s Got to be Perfect.

(Witch’s Knickers stayed as Witch’s Knickers though 🙂 )

I’m fine with that. I get it and I bow to the superior knowledge of the magazine publisher, who not only knows their target audience, but also the titles of every other story in the magazine.

Novels, though? That’s trickier. First you need something to get the attention of the agent or publisher (unless you’re self-publishing). After that, you need something that will attract (and not put off!) the reader because, let’s face it, humans are fickle creatures and although ‘girl’ is probably offputting by now, there’s as much likelihood that ‘the bagel seller’ or ‘elephant in my pocket’ might also not work because the reader had a traumatic breakfast time trip to the zoo.

Relevance to the story may not be necessary though! I hear that The Concubine’s Secret, contains neither a concubine nor a secret, and although I haven’t read it, that little snippet of info makes it instantly more memorable to me!

How about you? Titles or names, what’s your bugbear?