in Writing
How books get their titles
Many famous books were almost called something else. What a title has to do, and how writers and publishers arrive at one.
A title is the shortest piece of writing in a book and often the hardest. It has to identify the book, suggest what kind of book it is, and make a stranger want to know more, usually in a handful of words.
It is also frequently the last thing settled. Many well-known books had different working titles. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice began life as First Impressions. George Orwell considered calling Nineteen Eighty-Four The Last Man in Europe. F. Scott Fitzgerald toyed with several titles for The Great Gatsby, including Trimalchio in West Egg. It is hard now to imagine them any other way, which says something about how titles work: a good one becomes part of the book.
What a title has to do
A title works on several levels at once. It signals genre. A reader can often guess from the title alone whether a book is a thriller, a literary novel, a romance or a history, and a mismatch between title and contents disappoints the very readers the title attracted.
It has to be memorable enough to recommend. A reader who enjoyed a book will tell a friend about it, and if they cannot remember the title, the recommendation fails. Titles that are long, easily confused with others, or hard to spell can suffer here.
It has to be findable. Readers search for books by typing what they remember. A title made of very common words may be buried under other results, and a title with an unusual spelling may not be found at all.
And ideally it carries meaning that deepens as the book is read. The best titles look simple on the cover and turn out to have a second sense by the final page.
Where titles come from
Titles come from many places. Some are phrases from the text itself, a line of dialogue or an image that captures the book. Some are the name of a character or a place. Some are borrowed from older works, from poetry, scripture or proverbs, which gives them an echo of meaning. Some describe the premise directly.
A useful exercise is to generate a long list without judging it, perhaps fifty candidates, then set it aside. Coming back to it later, a few will stand out and many will seem obviously wrong. Test the survivors on people who have not read the book, and ask what kind of book they expect.
Who decides
In traditional publishing, the title is usually agreed between author and publisher, and publishers often have strong views, since the title is part of how the book is sold. Changes late in the process are common. An author who has lived with a working title for years may find this hard, and it helps to hold the working title loosely.
Titles are generally not protected by copyright in the UK, because they are too short to count as a literary work in themselves. That does not mean any title is safe to use. Other legal considerations, such as trade marks or passing off, can arise in particular cases, and a title that closely echoes a well-known book or brand may deserve advice. At the very least, it is worth checking what other books already carry a similar name, simply to avoid confusion.
Living with it
No title pleases everyone. The aim is one that is accurate to the book, appealing to its readers and easy to remember. After publication, the book itself does the rest. Many titles that seemed odd at first now sound inevitable.