Finding Novel Titles

Never underestimate the importance of great novel titles. They matter artistically and, perhaps more importantly, they matter commercially.

The perfect title of a novel is both artistic and commercial.

Never mind what is printed inside the covers of books - the titles printed on the outside can make the world of difference.

They can make the difference between a book that captures the public imagination and shoots up the bestseller lists...and a book that falls flat on its face.

Some novelists need a title before they begin to write - without one, they have no sense of destination. Others are happy to wait until the writing is finished (when titles are arguably much easier to find) and make do with a "working title" in the meantime. The choice is yours.

I should say here that titles, along with book jacket designs, are things which publishing houses view as belonging more to the sales department than the creative one.

I will leave it to you to decide whether that is right or wrong, but don't be surprised if you are asked to change the title after the novel is accepted.

But whether you have to later change your novel's title or not is immaterial right now - you need to come up with the best name for the book you can before you even submit a manuscript to a publisher.

Whether you decide to name your baby early on or wait until you have written it to give it a name, this information will be here to help...

Where Do Novel Titles Come From?

The reason I said above that titles are easier to find after the novel is written is that you then have all of the raw material in front of you in black and white - it is simply a question of sorting through it, searching for hidden diamonds.

The best way to do this is methodically, using the sources for novel titles I have set out below. As you do it, be sure to make a note of every potential title that occurs to you.

• Sometimes the perfect name leaps out at you and your search is complete.
• More often, you will have to live with them for a while, carrying them around in your head, before one edges ahead of all the other candidates.

Here, then, are the potential sources for great novel titles...

1. The Central Character

If most novels are about one character above all the others, it makes sense to name the book after them.

This is less common now than it used to be in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when a lot of novels took the form of disguised biographies or autobiographies, but it is certainly one to consider.

You can simply use the character's full name as the novel title:

• Oliver Twist
• Jane Eyre
• Lolita

You can use their name plus one or two other words:

• The Great Gatsby
• Morgan's Passing
• Bridget Jones's Diary

Or you can use not their name but a "label" which describes them:

• The English Patient
• The Accidental Tourist
• The Bonesetter's Daughter

2. The Setting

I don't just mean the town or city in which the novel is set, but key locations within that community - the name of the central character's house or business, for example, or the street in which they live.

Here are some examples:

• Middlemarch
• Brick Lane
• Lake Wobegon Days
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• Jamaica Inn
• The Beach

3. The Plot

The story itself can be a great source of novel titles - in particular, the object of the central character's overall quest. The following titles all refer to what the character wants:

• The Hunt for Red October
• A Suitable Boy
• Searching for Caleb

4. The Theme

All good novels have a theme - or some "message" about the human condition - and novel titles can simply state this theme directly:

• Sense and Sensibility
• Great Expectations
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Alternatively, they can refer to a concrete object or image which symbolizes the theme:

• The Bell Jar
• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Cider House Rules

It is even possible to take a famous quotation, perhaps from Shakespeare or the Bible - one which is thematically relevant to your fiction - and use a fragment from it for your title. (Here, you would probably want to reproduce the full quotation at the novel's beginning.)

• The Grapes of Wrath
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• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Far From the Madding Crowd

5. The Novel Overall

It isn't always easy or even possible to summarize the contents of an entire novel in a few words. Where you can, though, they can make for great novel titles:

• About a Boy
• A Month in the Country
• The World According to Garp
• The Poseidon Adventure

More Help on Novel Titles

If you have yet to plan and write your novel and are struggling to give it a name, stop sweating it and call it anything for now ("My Novel" will do). Like I said above, fiction titles are much easier to find once the fiction is written.

If you are in the "final polish" stage of editing and can't put off finding a title any longer, hopefully the information above will inspire you to find a good one.

But what makes for a good novel title?

I answer that question in the longer version of this article, which you can read in my Ultimate Writing Guide.

More specifically, I discuss the three questions you must ask yourself to determine whether a potential title is any good or not. And I also talk about breaking the rules and choosing a title that could potentially send sales of your novel into the stratosphere.