From the bookseller perspective: how discoverable your title is in a search is very important especially if you're not a best seller. There were books that people wanted to order but they couldn't remember all the specifics or the author's names. If you fit the trends too perfectly it can make it easier to blend in to anyone except hardcore fans. It was shocking how many customers didn't remember the actual title of the book they were looking for. Simple titles can sometimes be better. The Witcher is easy to remember. Time of Contempt isn't hard but people will sometimes just know the number that the book is within the series. Same with something like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones.
I just heard "Better Blake than Never" and now Im imagining a highschool contemporary about 2 friends who made a pact to date each other if they were still both single come senior year. In my head It's My Best Friends Wedding meets Devi from never have I ever 😂 This might be my camp nano project
Here's the thing: my teachers always preached to title things when you're done. And I never listened. Titles just come to me. I don't know how, I don't know why, it just happens. I have an idea and the title pops up in my brain the second I have a pen in hand or a document open. Wished all my words would come to me that easily xD
I titled my book before it’s completed. It’s called Thorns & Spells and I’m currently editing it and working with a cover designer. It’d a trilogy and I already know the other two final titles lol
King of Nothing and Everything sounds so intriguing! To me, it feels like titles come to me in a fever dream for original stories. For fanfiction, I use the tried and true method of titling it after lines from a song :)
I know the experiment is done, but watching the titles for the murder mystery/ thriller i couldn't help but think that you could have combined the one word titles: "The Knife in the Mansion " Not only does it promise that someone will be stabbed in a mansion, but sparks a "oh, what is this about?" In potential readers I can also see a cover of like a model mansion with a knife stabbed though the roof.
Geez, relatable! Titles are the bane of my existence. My current project is the first I had a title for immediately. Normally it is tough. I miss bookstores! This made me want to get out soon and doa shop at a low traffic time. I look forward to Part 2!
I totally tackle titles this way. I start with a long list of words that hit the themes or vibe or setting of the novel and then just play around fitting them into all these different trend formats. I have to say though, I'm so sick of 'A Noun of Noun and Noun'. Make it stop!!
I never thought to do that kind of market research on titles -- what a great idea! Thanks for letting us tag along. Also, you said you think you came up with some "ok titles".... Bro. That was an excellent list! You came up with some bangers! You're getting better already!
I'm also bad at writing titles,I always use the storyline as my title, I also use the main characters name for my title sometimes. So I might look at other book titles for inspiration.
OMG, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles to title their projects. I'm also a poet, so I have to title most of my poems as well. 😭 It's wild, I never notice how similar all these titles are! I'll have to keep that in mind going forward. My current title for my W.I.P. is a bit iffy, but I think what matters most is choosing a title that fits the personality of your book. Whether it fits the trends or not, you know? For fantasy, I think going with "The Kings of Nothing & Everything" and "The Swords of Infamy" was a great idea, those two titles really stood out (Also, originally I read The Hound of Death, which I really like). For contemporary, I loved "Dripping in Death"/"Drip by Drip", "Death Comes In Three, Two, One...", and "Laced in Blood" all pretty equally. I think you did a great job coming up with titles!
I feel like you are one step ahead of me on the bad at titles thing, as ALL my projects are titled TBD1, TBD2, TBD3, etc. I love the idea of brainstorming title ideas based on the trends you saw in the store, I should give this a try. Honestly, Kings of Nothing and Everything definitely stands out to me as something I would pick up based solely on title. I feel like figuring out titles is about on par with my struggle to actually finish a single rough draft. Maybe if I can finish a draft it can finally get a real title instead of TBD.
I like when the title is revealed as a line in the book near the end. An example (although not my favorite) is Luckiest Girl Alive when the (no spoilers) person mocks her with those words. I think adapting that with a fantasy book could lead to some spectacular, original titles! Also giggling imagining someone in the book store hearing you wandering around "blank of blank, blank of blank" followed by "Death. Death" haha Also also, please take us to more book stores and maybe libraries!
As someone who sucks at coming up with titles for her stories, this video was extremely helpful and motivational!!! 💖 Can’t wait to try your tips and see what I come up with.
Oooo, I really like some of these. "Better Late Than Never" sounds like a hell of a slow burn, haha. Would absolutely eat with ice cream on a rainy day. "The Devil's Details" sounds like a good dark romance or maybe even a thriller. Ten out of ten, would binge. "The In-Laws" sounds almost 'Mexican Gothic' -ish, with it being family-centered drama, I like that too. "Death comes in 3, 2, 1" sounds super suspenseful, I like that too!
I'm so proud of you for trying to get better with titles LOL! Taking a walk down the different genre aisles is very eye-opening to see the title trends! It's like publishers all share one mind haha. This has also taught you that you should buy a pet crow for the Boyfriend since he loved them so much in this video haha
You bangs are hella cute!🥰 I never had any problem coming up with titles, as soon as a project is in my head, I know the title. I find it interesting that other people find it difficult. Also, so tired of the fantasy titles, there is very little innovation going on in that genre in general, it shows in the titles.
I'm excited to see the next video in this process. I always thought it would be a fun writing prompt to give a bunch of people the same title and have them write their own stories from it. I'm not great at titles. Most of the time, I don't have a real title until I'm done.
This is definitely what I'm currently struggling with titling an urban fantasy novella. I never tried anything different than just keep thinking of one. I must do this now lol
OH! I just made my choices on Patreon. Doing your research by perusing titles in the book store, library, etc. is a great method to help you learn how to do it. Trad pub ? they'll probably change it anyway. but for indie books, definitely scroll through other Amazon titles, as well. (Please forgive the glitchy keyboard.) 😊😊😊
I am also bad at titles; and naming things/people in general.😂For my first NaNoWriMo project, I couldn't come up with a name for the land/realm that my MC would be in so I called it ML, (Magic Land) during my drafting process and I still can't think of a name that works for it. 😅🤦♀ That's why I also wish Scrivener wouldn't make me title my story before I start writing. Every time I see "Malia's Journey" on my screen I just want to cringe so badly. 🤣Thankfully, I now have some possibilities that are not sooo bad. 😆 Wonderful video! I'm trying to catch up on all your videos with some binge watching. 😀
I like this experiment for titles. I wrote a story that was originally as a fanfiction called "The Order of the Sapphire." It's basically a group-of-murders mystery. Is it possible to do a similar experiment with famous troupes? You can create a story for different genres with as many stereotypes and see what other people think works. It would help me with another story I'm brainstorming.
It sounds like 'The Flame of Mist and Fury' is free real estate ;) haha. Jokes aside though, I think following trends too closely has to be a detriment at some point, because I know personally I can barely tell all the Queen, King, Prince books apart, especially when they all have a cover with a crown as the centrepiece
You hit the genres perfectly. The one I wish you did do would be Sci-fi. I would love to see you follow up this video about the different cover designs colors and such and how that plays into the title. I agree that sometimes being too close to the story means we can’t name it appropriately. That’s another thing, should a series have a similar word or combination of words in each title of the series? There is different ideas on how to approach all of this and I’m here for it.
My working title for my book is just ”The fishes”. It has nothing to do with fishes, they were just in the first scene i wrote. I’m trying to figure something out but I have nothing so far.
In regard to Kate's title of 'Vanishing Act' I've read a book titled 'Vanishing Acts' by Jodi Picoult lol. It was a psychological fiction / domestic thriller ... Kate nailed a perfect Thriller title!!!!
On several occasions I have started with a title and the title inspired the story and drove me to write it. But I have also begun the writing before the right title came, even had difficulties coming up with a title. But often times the title is first. I write very linearly. So title first, then chapter 1 chapter 2 and so on until the end
Trials of Mountains & Man just sounds like a Steinbeck novel haha. I don't usually have problems finding titles - I tend to come up with working titles & then just stick with them if other people seem to like them. And I don't pay attention to trends at all, at least not consciously. >.> Random fact: I'm kind of fascinated by this recent trend in Japanese light novel/anime to have super long titles, even entire sentences, like: So I'm a spider, so what? That time I got reincarnated as a slime, My youth romantic comedy is wrong as I expected etc. (This works bc Japanese is a very short language so they can actually fit all that on book covers, no problem.)
This could not have come at a better time for me. I am about 3/4 through the first draft of the first book in a series and I still don't have a name for the book, let alone the series. I might have to try out this method.
I love the way you did your list of titles because I often do that as well. It's totally right that I will sometimes just find 1 or 2 on the list that I like but sometimes I come back and I think of a way to reword the name dynamic to make it better and I end up liking it more.
Oooh! Maybe that can be another challenge. Come back to my original list and turn the "bad" titles into good ones! I love that. You've inspired me to give it a go! Bahahah.
I find titles a lot of fun. I even have titles for potential stories (but have no idea what the story is about yet). Fun fact: my first book was titled Descriptions of Heaven. And it's not YA! It's tragic Literary Fiction. LOL
I keep a running list of random titles related to my book on my wall on sticky notes. It gives me ideas for book cover ideas. I come up with titles after I’ve written a good portion of the book.
This was such a fun experiment! I worked on four different projects in February and three out of four were named after the characters and one is called "Assassin", which is an awful title 😂But I have the odd outlier, like the titles of my witch duology: projects that actually have finished (and really good!) titles!
This is really cool.... I wish I'd thought to try doing a concentrated browse of titles before now, that makes so much sense xD I usually don't try and title my novels (cuz I'm not a real novel author yet) but with the novels I've i finished and working on, the titles I like have kinda just..... popped up? during the end. But I worry about length for one or two! My favorite so far that's not a mouthful is "False Paradox" (which is the name of one of the main characters) and the long one that probably needs work but feels correct is "Sometimes in Dreams, Sometimes in Nightmares" which is a sort of poetry-prose hybrid novel anyway and maybe i should warn people in the title before they read it xD idk. My husband says that it's the title that makes the most sense for the story so I'm checking with my first clump of Betas to see... I did go for a 2ndary degree in creative writing, which was from a school of poetry more than prose, because even though I write fiction I wanted to work on using words better xD, but i had to title all of my poems and things which meant i feel generally better about at least launching into titles that are related to, or describe, or pull from the poem/thing I'm writing just from sheer practice. I will say, of the little poems and the little essay intro thing I have gotten published, I do all really like those titles. So maybe it's working? XD
I’m also really bad at titles 😅 haha And I would love to see a video where you maybe come up with some random titles that sound great, and then use them as jumping off points to write a short story or simpel outline or plot idea 🙂 So “title” first, “story” second ☺️
There are books on Wattpad that have book names I could use. Though, the AO3 series I'm about to write is inspired by Virgin River (Netflix series). The one I'm about to work on is New Beginnings following Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes (yes, fan fiction!) after Bucky comes home from Wakanda. (Wow, just spoiled a bunch of stuff. But not the most important thing in the short story! That is only for me to know!)
I have learned not to try and be too clever with titles. I still haven't renamed it, but when I published A Ninja in Time I loved the title (and still do), but have been told it doesn't work for either a time traveling romance or a fantasy romance. I think it's perfect on two levels, the MC travels through time to learn the ways of Ninja, but also she has to become a ninja in time to save her little village that she becomes a part of while in the past.
I usually don't comment before I watch a video but I was literally JUST talking about how I'm shit at titling like hours ago, so I'm so hyped for this video lol.
We're in this togetherrrrrrr. Hopefully you'll give this experiment a go too and see if it will help! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that if I do this often enough, I'll have worked out the muscle, and then titling my own projects will become easy bahaha.
@@KateCavanaugh I am DEFINITELY going to give this a shot! I never really thought of naming projects as a muscle to flex, but I'm betting it is. I'm going to go through horror novels (specifically with vampires) and hopefully find some success 😎
What is this shop that puts stickers over top of the book titles? 😐 Titles are SO hard. I made a list of keywords that seemed relevant to my novel and searched for them on Amazon. It was interesting to see that the vast majority of the titles that came up were memoirs with strong religious elements (my book is set on a Catholic pilgrimage trail). It got me thinking about how I need to be pretty careful in marketing my book so that I attract readers who are interested in the setting but not readers who want memoirs or stories about people finding God because I think the latter would not like my book at all. Very tricky.
Will you be publishing Project Death under your own name? I know you use pseudonyms for other things you've written, but watching your channel for a while has made me excited for it!
OMG, this gave me an idea for the individual books in my Soap series Life at the Cross Roads. I'm not sure if I'll use the At the cornor of (blank) and (blank) Like book one would be At the corner of Being New and Starting Over.
I really like Sword of Infamy! And weirdly enough coming up with titles is one of my favorite parts. I’m not really a fan of the current ya fantasy title trend though, I always end up shortening it if I talk about them. I like sticking to 1-3 words
I do think I’ve gotten better at titling over time… but it’s still hard. I’ve definitely done some research looking at book titles, but also for one book with a competition theme, I looked up titles of competition reality shows and that really helped.
my first book the title came to me when I got done writing. My second book, I dont have a clue course Im not dont with it yet haha! I do have a list of potential titles though
Honestly I hate title trends because it makes books so less memorable. Especially when all the covers follow trends too and look super similar. When I see a book with the 'a noun of thing and thing' structure now I mentally catalogue it as 'another generic fantasy novel' and 9 times out of 10 don't even read the blurb. Titles are really hard but as a reader I'm looking for books that are unique and imaginative, and if the title sounds like 20 other books I've seen then why would I expect the contents to be worth reading?
Most of the time they just come to me, as if my brain has been searching for titles in the background and just presents its findings randomly. So I've never done market research about book titles, but I've seen some posts going around about the stereotypical fantasy title nowadays (posts like "build your own fantasy novel title by using your initials and birth month" and then a bunch of generic, most used words in fantasy novels, so you get something along the lines of "The Throne of Dragons and Ravens", "The Queen of Ice and Blood", stuff like that). Most of the time, my titles are either a reference to the inciting incident, the main character or an overarching theme. My current project is a mystery/crime novel and I named it after the nickname the detectives gave the killer. Once I have a title, I rarely change it. I think that happened only once or twice, and I've been writing for nine years now. But if I don't come up with a good title, I just try to summarize it briefly and worry about it later. I think one of my ideas is currently titled "christmas picnic under the tree that used to be our friend".
I usually wait until the story is done or nearly done to pick a title. Until then, I give it a simple title. For example, if I'm writing about vampires, I'll call it "Vampire Story" for the time being.
I don't know.. for me the literature must be clever in some way, it should push the genre further, combine separately strange ideas together to make to perfect sense when they are all in one.. - that's kinda things I don't appreciate the dull cliche books that brings nothing new to the world and are faceless copy of each other - and THAT is the main content of a typical bookstore - literature for fun, for one evening, simple and easy written, but the one that doesn't makes you think and analyze some stuff within you. I wouldn't want my book's title to be blending with these types of books so I would come up with something independent of genre, the title that talks more about the world of the book than of the target audience
Titles were always something that came easily to me. I'm even one of those crazy people who titles chapters🙈. I don't know why, I just never had an issue titling anything lol. Now summarizing on the other hand...that's a struggle lol.
OMG I wish you could teach me your ways. I love a good chapter title though!! It's always so fun to flip through the book and have a fun hint at what's to come.
I title chapters too! Usually chapter titles are a nod to other media. I.e. Paul Harvey’s (radio personality) saying “And now, the rest of the story” became the title when the MC uncovered what happened after her memory of the event stopped.
From the bookseller perspective: how discoverable your title is in a search is very important especially if you're not a best seller. There were books that people wanted to order but they couldn't remember all the specifics or the author's names. If you fit the trends too perfectly it can make it easier to blend in to anyone except hardcore fans. It was shocking how many customers didn't remember the actual title of the book they were looking for. Simple titles can sometimes be better. The Witcher is easy to remember. Time of Contempt isn't hard but people will sometimes just know the number that the book is within the series. Same with something like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones.
"The Kings of Nothing and Everything" sounds like a middle-grade fantasy adventure. One I would definitely read.
The Devil's Details sounds like a dark romance that I'd love to read 👀
I just heard "Better Blake than Never" and now Im imagining a highschool contemporary about 2 friends who made a pact to date each other if they were still both single come senior year. In my head It's My Best Friends Wedding meets Devi from never have I ever 😂 This might be my camp nano project
Oh I like it! I'm also a sucker for a good old fashion punny title!
Write it I love it
“I thought that was over. But, alas.” 💀
Vin watching the mouse was so cute.
Here's the thing: my teachers always preached to title things when you're done. And I never listened. Titles just come to me. I don't know how, I don't know why, it just happens. I have an idea and the title pops up in my brain the second I have a pen in hand or a document open. Wished all my words would come to me that easily xD
I titled my book before it’s completed. It’s called Thorns & Spells and I’m currently editing it and working with a cover designer. It’d a trilogy and I already know the other two final titles lol
Ohh, I really like "The Devil's Details." I agree that it's not quite right for the genre, but I'd read that on the title alone.
King of Nothing and Everything sounds so intriguing!
To me, it feels like titles come to me in a fever dream for original stories. For fanfiction, I use the tried and true method of titling it after lines from a song :)
I do the same thing!
I know the experiment is done, but watching the titles for the murder mystery/ thriller i couldn't help but think that you could have combined the one word titles:
"The Knife in the Mansion "
Not only does it promise that someone will be stabbed in a mansion, but sparks a "oh, what is this about?" In potential readers
I can also see a cover of like a model mansion with a knife stabbed though the roof.
Geez, relatable! Titles are the bane of my existence.
My current project is the first I had a title for immediately. Normally it is tough.
I miss bookstores! This made me want to get out soon and doa shop at a low traffic time.
I look forward to Part 2!
I totally tackle titles this way. I start with a long list of words that hit the themes or vibe or setting of the novel and then just play around fitting them into all these different trend formats. I have to say though, I'm so sick of 'A Noun of Noun and Noun'. Make it stop!!
I never thought to do that kind of market research on titles -- what a great idea! Thanks for letting us tag along. Also, you said you think you came up with some "ok titles".... Bro. That was an excellent list! You came up with some bangers! You're getting better already!
I'm also bad at writing titles,I always use the storyline as my title, I also use the main characters name for my title sometimes. So I might look at other book titles for inspiration.
OMG, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles to title their projects. I'm also a poet, so I have to title most of my poems as well. 😭 It's wild, I never notice how similar all these titles are! I'll have to keep that in mind going forward. My current title for my W.I.P. is a bit iffy, but I think what matters most is choosing a title that fits the personality of your book. Whether it fits the trends or not, you know? For fantasy, I think going with "The Kings of Nothing & Everything" and "The Swords of Infamy" was a great idea, those two titles really stood out (Also, originally I read The Hound of Death, which I really like). For contemporary, I loved "Dripping in Death"/"Drip by Drip", "Death Comes In Three, Two, One...", and "Laced in Blood" all pretty equally. I think you did a great job coming up with titles!
I feel like you are one step ahead of me on the bad at titles thing, as ALL my projects are titled TBD1, TBD2, TBD3, etc. I love the idea of brainstorming title ideas based on the trends you saw in the store, I should give this a try. Honestly, Kings of Nothing and Everything definitely stands out to me as something I would pick up based solely on title. I feel like figuring out titles is about on par with my struggle to actually finish a single rough draft. Maybe if I can finish a draft it can finally get a real title instead of TBD.
I like when the title is revealed as a line in the book near the end. An example (although not my favorite) is Luckiest Girl Alive when the (no spoilers) person mocks her with those words. I think adapting that with a fantasy book could lead to some spectacular, original titles!
Also giggling imagining someone in the book store hearing you wandering around "blank of blank, blank of blank" followed by "Death. Death" haha
Also also, please take us to more book stores and maybe libraries!
As someone who sucks at coming up with titles for her stories, this video was extremely helpful and motivational!!! 💖 Can’t wait to try your tips and see what I come up with.
Oooo, I really like some of these.
"Better Late Than Never" sounds like a hell of a slow burn, haha. Would absolutely eat with ice cream on a rainy day.
"The Devil's Details" sounds like a good dark romance or maybe even a thriller. Ten out of ten, would binge.
"The In-Laws" sounds almost 'Mexican Gothic' -ish, with it being family-centered drama, I like that too.
"Death comes in 3, 2, 1" sounds super suspenseful, I like that too!
I'm so proud of you for trying to get better with titles LOL! Taking a walk down the different genre aisles is very eye-opening to see the title trends! It's like publishers all share one mind haha. This has also taught you that you should buy a pet crow for the Boyfriend since he loved them so much in this video haha
You bangs are hella cute!🥰 I never had any problem coming up with titles, as soon as a project is in my head, I know the title. I find it interesting that other people find it difficult. Also, so tired of the fantasy titles, there is very little innovation going on in that genre in general, it shows in the titles.
I'm excited to see the next video in this process. I always thought it would be a fun writing prompt to give a bunch of people the same title and have them write their own stories from it. I'm not great at titles. Most of the time, I don't have a real title until I'm done.
This is so much fun! I've got the worst possible title for my WIP so I needed this hahaha
I am also really bad at coming up with titles, so I really enjoyed this video. Very helpful too.
Thank you SOOOO much for this! It helped me FINALLY come up with a halfway decent title for my WIP. Alas, I TOO suck at titles! Lol.
I'm a little odd in that I always think of a title before a story, so I match the story to the title rather than title to story.
This is definitely what I'm currently struggling with titling an urban fantasy novella. I never tried anything different than just keep thinking of one. I must do this now lol
OH! I just made my choices on Patreon. Doing your research by perusing titles in the book store, library, etc. is a great method to help you learn how to do it. Trad pub ? they'll probably change it anyway. but for indie books, definitely scroll through other Amazon titles, as well. (Please forgive the glitchy keyboard.)
😊😊😊
I am also bad at titles; and naming things/people in general.😂For my first NaNoWriMo project, I couldn't come up with a name for the land/realm that my MC would be in so I called it ML, (Magic Land) during my drafting process and I still can't think of a name that works for it. 😅🤦♀ That's why I also wish Scrivener wouldn't make me title my story before I start writing. Every time I see "Malia's Journey" on my screen I just want to cringe so badly. 🤣Thankfully, I now have some possibilities that are not sooo bad. 😆 Wonderful video! I'm trying to catch up on all your videos with some binge watching. 😀
this video helped me through a writer's block on my titles.....thanks!
I like this experiment for titles. I wrote a story that was originally as a fanfiction called "The Order of the Sapphire." It's basically a group-of-murders mystery. Is it possible to do a similar experiment with famous troupes? You can create a story for different genres with as many stereotypes and see what other people think works. It would help me with another story I'm brainstorming.
It sounds like 'The Flame of Mist and Fury' is free real estate ;) haha. Jokes aside though, I think following trends too closely has to be a detriment at some point, because I know personally I can barely tell all the Queen, King, Prince books apart, especially when they all have a cover with a crown as the centrepiece
I usually have a title first. I hate starting without one, but sometimes I do until I know what I'm writing. I love naming things! Lol
Looks like a fun experiment!
You hit the genres perfectly. The one I wish you did do would be Sci-fi.
I would love to see you follow up this video about the different cover designs colors and such and how that plays into the title.
I agree that sometimes being too close to the story means we can’t name it appropriately.
That’s another thing, should a series have a similar word or combination of words in each title of the series?
There is different ideas on how to approach all of this and I’m here for it.
I'm here because I'm procrastinating finding a title for my story and I was hoping for some inspirationXD The video was really fun!
Swords of Infamy for the win! But I'm happy it's the second book title. Penny For Your Thought I would read!
My working title for my book is just ”The fishes”. It has nothing to do with fishes, they were just in the first scene i wrote. I’m trying to figure something out but I have nothing so far.
Onde day I heard that the Title should be one good line from the story. That's it. It helps.
In regard to Kate's title of 'Vanishing Act' I've read a book titled 'Vanishing Acts' by Jodi Picoult lol. It was a psychological fiction / domestic thriller ... Kate nailed a perfect Thriller title!!!!
The Devil's Details is an amazing title, it's intriguing! Hi from Italy btw 🇮🇹
I think “Death comes in 3, 2…” would be more impactful 🤔🤔
On several occasions I have started with a title and the title inspired the story and drove me to write it. But I have also begun the writing before the right title came, even had difficulties coming up with a title. But often times the title is first. I write very linearly. So title first, then chapter 1 chapter 2 and so on until the end
Trials of Mountains & Man just sounds like a Steinbeck novel haha. I don't usually have problems finding titles - I tend to come up with working titles & then just stick with them if other people seem to like them. And I don't pay attention to trends at all, at least not consciously. >.>
Random fact: I'm kind of fascinated by this recent trend in Japanese light novel/anime to have super long titles, even entire sentences, like: So I'm a spider, so what? That time I got reincarnated as a slime, My youth romantic comedy is wrong as I expected etc. (This works bc Japanese is a very short language so they can actually fit all that on book covers, no problem.)
This could not have come at a better time for me. I am about 3/4 through the first draft of the first book in a series and I still don't have a name for the book, let alone the series.
I might have to try out this method.
I love the way you did your list of titles because I often do that as well. It's totally right that I will sometimes just find 1 or 2 on the list that I like but sometimes I come back and I think of a way to reword the name dynamic to make it better and I end up liking it more.
Oooh! Maybe that can be another challenge. Come back to my original list and turn the "bad" titles into good ones! I love that. You've inspired me to give it a go! Bahahah.
I find titles a lot of fun. I even have titles for potential stories (but have no idea what the story is about yet).
Fun fact: my first book was titled Descriptions of Heaven. And it's not YA! It's tragic Literary Fiction. LOL
I keep a running list of random titles related to my book on my wall on sticky notes. It gives me ideas for book cover ideas. I come up with titles after I’ve written a good portion of the book.
Okay but can we appreciate your keyboard for a minute? 😊
The Kings of Nothing & Everything is a great title. I wanna freacking read it!
'The Devil's Details' sounds like a thriller, maybe even paranormal/fantasy thriller.
This was such a fun experiment! I worked on four different projects in February and three out of four were named after the characters and one is called "Assassin", which is an awful title 😂But I have the odd outlier, like the titles of my witch duology: projects that actually have finished (and really good!) titles!
Gonna TRY and get my ish done while I watch this, but like all Kate videos I will probably end up just watching and not do what I'm supposed to lol
This is really cool.... I wish I'd thought to try doing a concentrated browse of titles before now, that makes so much sense xD
I usually don't try and title my novels (cuz I'm not a real novel author yet) but with the novels I've i finished and working on, the titles I like have kinda just..... popped up? during the end. But I worry about length for one or two!
My favorite so far that's not a mouthful is "False Paradox" (which is the name of one of the main characters)
and the long one that probably needs work but feels correct is "Sometimes in Dreams, Sometimes in Nightmares" which is a sort of poetry-prose hybrid novel anyway and maybe i should warn people in the title before they read it xD idk. My husband says that it's the title that makes the most sense for the story so I'm checking with my first clump of Betas to see...
I did go for a 2ndary degree in creative writing, which was from a school of poetry more than prose, because even though I write fiction I wanted to work on using words better xD, but i had to title all of my poems and things which meant i feel generally better about at least launching into titles that are related to, or describe, or pull from the poem/thing I'm writing just from sheer practice.
I will say, of the little poems and the little essay intro thing I have gotten published, I do all really like those titles. So maybe it's working? XD
I’m also really bad at titles 😅 haha And I would love to see a video where you maybe come up with some random titles that sound great, and then use them as jumping off points to write a short story or simpel outline or plot idea 🙂 So “title” first, “story” second ☺️
There are books on Wattpad that have book names I could use. Though, the AO3 series I'm about to write is inspired by Virgin River (Netflix series). The one I'm about to work on is New Beginnings following Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes (yes, fan fiction!) after Bucky comes home from Wakanda.
(Wow, just spoiled a bunch of stuff. But not the most important thing in the short story! That is only for me to know!)
I have learned not to try and be too clever with titles. I still haven't renamed it, but when I published A Ninja in Time I loved the title (and still do), but have been told it doesn't work for either a time traveling romance or a fantasy romance. I think it's perfect on two levels, the MC travels through time to learn the ways of Ninja, but also she has to become a ninja in time to save her little village that she becomes a part of while in the past.
I usually don't comment before I watch a video but I was literally JUST talking about how I'm shit at titling like hours ago, so I'm so hyped for this video lol.
We're in this togetherrrrrrr. Hopefully you'll give this experiment a go too and see if it will help! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that if I do this often enough, I'll have worked out the muscle, and then titling my own projects will become easy bahaha.
@@KateCavanaugh I am DEFINITELY going to give this a shot! I never really thought of naming projects as a muscle to flex, but I'm betting it is. I'm going to go through horror novels (specifically with vampires) and hopefully find some success 😎
What is this shop that puts stickers over top of the book titles? 😐
Titles are SO hard.
I made a list of keywords that seemed relevant to my novel and searched for them on Amazon. It was interesting to see that the vast majority of the titles that came up were memoirs with strong religious elements (my book is set on a Catholic pilgrimage trail). It got me thinking about how I need to be pretty careful in marketing my book so that I attract readers who are interested in the setting but not readers who want memoirs or stories about people finding God because I think the latter would not like my book at all. Very tricky.
This was like visually ASMR??? If that's a thing? Lol. I just love bookstores.
I *felt* this. I felt this so deeply it's almost offensive.
WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER LAUREN.
Will you be publishing Project Death under your own name? I know you use pseudonyms for other things you've written, but watching your channel for a while has made me excited for it!
OMG, this gave me an idea for the individual books in my Soap series Life at the Cross Roads. I'm not sure if I'll use the At the cornor of (blank) and (blank) Like book one would be At the corner of Being New and Starting Over.
This video was super helpful because I also suck at titles 🤣
I really like Sword of Infamy! And weirdly enough coming up with titles is one of my favorite parts. I’m not really a fan of the current ya fantasy title trend though, I always end up shortening it if I talk about them. I like sticking to 1-3 words
I do think I’ve gotten better at titling over time… but it’s still hard. I’ve definitely done some research looking at book titles, but also for one book with a competition theme, I looked up titles of competition reality shows and that really helped.
my first book the title came to me when I got done writing. My second book, I dont have a clue course Im not dont with it yet haha! I do have a list of potential titles though
The funny thing is that Carry On IS the title of a 2015 Rainbow Rowell novel
I thought your nails had barcodee on them for a second and i was like O.o is this an ARG? lol
Honestly I hate title trends because it makes books so less memorable. Especially when all the covers follow trends too and look super similar. When I see a book with the 'a noun of thing and thing' structure now I mentally catalogue it as 'another generic fantasy novel' and 9 times out of 10 don't even read the blurb. Titles are really hard but as a reader I'm looking for books that are unique and imaginative, and if the title sounds like 20 other books I've seen then why would I expect the contents to be worth reading?
You could use the title, It's Not Rocket Science for that book premise, because it could be referencing the romance aspect.
Second chance romance, had a thing at science camp then became reluctant coworkers at Nasa? Or something like that 🤷♀️
Most of the time they just come to me, as if my brain has been searching for titles in the background and just presents its findings randomly. So I've never done market research about book titles, but I've seen some posts going around about the stereotypical fantasy title nowadays (posts like "build your own fantasy novel title by using your initials and birth month" and then a bunch of generic, most used words in fantasy novels, so you get something along the lines of "The Throne of Dragons and Ravens", "The Queen of Ice and Blood", stuff like that).
Most of the time, my titles are either a reference to the inciting incident, the main character or an overarching theme. My current project is a mystery/crime novel and I named it after the nickname the detectives gave the killer.
Once I have a title, I rarely change it. I think that happened only once or twice, and I've been writing for nine years now.
But if I don't come up with a good title, I just try to summarize it briefly and worry about it later. I think one of my ideas is currently titled "christmas picnic under the tree that used to be our friend".
Kate, it has nothing to do with this video's experiment, but did you see Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter? What are your thoughts on it?
I usually wait until the story is done or nearly done to pick a title. Until then, I give it a simple title. For example, if I'm writing about vampires, I'll call it "Vampire Story" for the time being.
I usually start with a vague idea of a title, and at some point it jumps out at me, and I can't imagine it as anything else.
I don't know.. for me the literature must be clever in some way, it should push the genre further, combine separately strange ideas together to make to perfect sense when they are all in one.. - that's kinda things
I don't appreciate the dull cliche books that brings nothing new to the world and are faceless copy of each other - and THAT is the main content of a typical bookstore - literature for fun, for one evening, simple and easy written, but the one that doesn't makes you think and analyze some stuff within you.
I wouldn't want my book's title to be blending with these types of books so I would come up with something independent of genre, the title that talks more about the world of the book than of the target audience
I've always been able to come up with the title and synopsis before writing the story. I don't know why, I just have.
I am writing on a book called Beauty Deep Within
Hi! I love your videos
Thanks so much, Sophie!! :)
Where did you get your keyboard?
Titles were always something that came easily to me. I'm even one of those crazy people who titles chapters🙈. I don't know why, I just never had an issue titling anything lol. Now summarizing on the other hand...that's a struggle lol.
OMG I wish you could teach me your ways. I love a good chapter title though!! It's always so fun to flip through the book and have a fun hint at what's to come.
I title chapters too! Usually chapter titles are a nod to other media. I.e. Paul Harvey’s (radio personality) saying “And now, the rest of the story” became the title when the MC uncovered what happened after her memory of the event stopped.
SAAAAMEEEE