The Write Tuition

Titles…

Some people find they cannot really get started on a novel, or even a short story, unless it has a title. Others are quite comfortable writing an untitled piece.

I usually find the title just pops into my head and introduces itself. Often even before the story, and sometimes part way through. Maybe there’s something of the journalist in me, a feeling that the ‘headline’ should tell the story even if they don’t read any further for the details

But, as a writing tutor, I’ve seen some people suffer from a kind of creative paralysis if their work in progress doesn’t have a title. It’s as if they can’t believe in their book until it becomes a proper entity, with a name of its own. For some of these people almost anything will do as a ‘working title’, almost anything is better than just calling it ‘my book’.

So a working title of ‘How the crazy bastard down the road went loopy and killed all his neighbours one night’, effectively a mini-synopsis, may help them get going. In the natural order of things it soon shortens when friends ask “How’s your ‘crazy bastard’ doing?” In the meantime they are still writing and the true title is beginning to emerge as the book develops. It may eventually be entitled ‘One Crazy Night’.

Over the years I’ve seen this phenomenon enough times to realise it is a very real concern for some folks. So if you’re troubled by the lack of a suitable title just settle for a short(ish) description to get you going.

Oddly enough my own ‘Biker E-book’ is, at the moment, called simply that, although I have no doubt the perfect title will emerge as the book unfolds. Several candidates are jostling for position in the back of my brain

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