How I Choose My Titles

Unrelated announcement first: my novelette, The Only Sparkle, looks to be live on all my vendors. I've updated its page with the cover, description, and direct links to each purchasing location. You can find all that here. Now we just need to put together that newsletter with the free code. Promise it'll be out by Friday at the very latest.

On topic: the title for the novelette is pretty simple to explain. I went with a longer (TOS is only the short form since, well, it's shorter), funny title mean to capture the essence of the story. I like using a longer title for a shorter work, as there has been some precedent for this with magazine articles and it differentiates from novels.

The real topic, though, stemmed from this link. It's an article talking about a recent naming trend for novels. A trend I participated in without realizing it. Apparently, The ___'s Daughter is popular right now. I had no idea when I named my first novel.

I suppose I should describe my naming process. Generally, at some point while I'm writing, I settle on a title that I like. Sometimes I have it in mind to begin with, other times it comes as part of the on-going world building. In the case of a series, I often have ideas for the next several titles.

For instance, with the Spirit Binder's series, I tentatively would like to use The Binder's Husband and The Binder's Destiny as subsequent titles. They fit with the roughly planned themes. It's all subject to change (or expand) as the story dictates, but there was a method to the madness.

With the Symphony of Two Keys series (of which Fates' Motif is forthcoming), I have three other tittles planned. A symphony typically consists of four movements, hence four parts. Each title then, is planned to have a link to a more-or-less famous classical movement that fits the planned theme. A little more in depth, but with Google, not as hard as you might think.

Incidentally, Fates' Motif is a nod to Beethoven's Fifth. You know, the popular ba-ba-ba-baaahm. The urban legend is that the popular theme was meant to represent Fate knocking at the door (though this intention has not been proven, and, in fact, is viewed somewhat skeptically by experts). The legend runs parallel to my own theme, so it resonated with me if nothing else. The other titles have been similarly named.

So basically, I settle on a name, and then I Google it to see if it has any, well, bad associations. I would hate to name a book and find out later that it is the exact same name as a something completely unrelated. I definitely don't want to match another book, but in today's digital age, I think you even have to be wary of other products and services as well. You simple want a search to turn up your book, and nothing else crazy.

There weren't any other Binder's Daughters, but I didn't check for "insert term here" Daugther stories. My searching isn't that intense. It's interesting to be part of a trend you weren't aware of. I don't think this is a bad thing, though I'm somewhat miffed (/sarcasm) that my book wasn't mentioned in the article.