Thursday
Thursday Flash Fiction Craft: So Much Depends Upon the Title
Some quick tips for titles:
- See if the first line can be deleted and work instead as the title. Example:
She's a stork and[And] that makes it ungraceful to bowl. The only thing falling for her here are pins, and not that many…. - Same with the last line.
I'd Hardly Call Making Out a Few Times Dating …Over the cubicle, I kept reassuring him, "But you're Owen Wilson." A computer beep—and there it was, the reply, not the thing you wanted, something harder[.]
: I'd hardly call making out a few times dating. - In fact, check any line that gets deleted through drafting and revision as a possible title. A line not needed in the body might work perfectly as a title.
Like So Many Things in That Childhood My father pushed against the pedal, and the dog flew past my window as if caught in a cyclone, up and away,
like so many things in that childhood. In the passenger seat, on that dirt road in Potter County…. - Someone once told me to count five lines up from the bottom. There you'll find the title. Every time. Here's the fifth line of a recent story:
Someone makes her way out of one of the cottages on the hill. She wears the white bathrobe from the resort. She smokes a cigar.
A possible title might be "Resort" or "Someone Makes Her Way" or "Cottages." - Use an allusion/line from a well-known work, such as "The Right Place for Love" from Robert Frost's "Birches" or "Too-Rough Fingers of the World" from Langston Hughes's "The Dream Keeper" or "Skip a Life Completely" from the Velvet Underground.
- Something of the prompt, if the prompt generated the story, could work. The title "Skip, Patch, Eye, Brownie, Chalk" came from the five prompt words that generated the piece. For example, a SmokeLong Quarterly prompt from Meg Pokrass asked writers to do the following:
Imagine one of those annoying family Xmas letters you get too many of. Where everything seems incredible, unless you read between the colorful lines. Write your main character as a family members who feels cheated by the way it's worded about her/her. Maybe the mom writes the letter in a way that subtly puts her husband down (I'm just saying). Your narrator will be that person, the one who gets put down. Or your narrator can be someone observing this chronic seasonal abuse!"
Possible titles might include "Where Everything Seems Incredible" or "Chronic" or "Maybe the Mom Writes the Letter." - Poets often use titles to direct readers to the central metaphoric image, as in William Carlos Williams in "The Red Wheelbarrow," Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," Anne Sexton's "The Witch's Life."
Originally published in July.
posted on 24 Jul 2009, 6:31 AM
Thanks for that, Randall. Those are great ideas, original and useful. For me, the title is usually part of the original idea or concept that sparks the piece. Titles like 'Buck, Naked' and 'The Man Who Filled His Guinea Pig With Helium' arrive with the story idea.
I read/heard somewhere of a quote about a title being like the roof on a house - so if it doesn't feel like a well-fitted roof, I reject it.
posted on 24 Jul 2009, 8:02 AM
That's interesting, about the title arriving with the story idea. Titles usually come to me much later in the process. I wonder what effect titles have on readers/editors. Probably a bit less than we imagine. That's why doing something "more" with a title is an interesting idea to me.
posted on 24 Jul 2009, 4:55 PM
Ooh I love this post. I'm definitely not a titles first kinda gal - it's always story then title. When a title works it brings everything together, and if good enough should enhance the words. I know when my title is good and when it's a "make do."
Something else that sometimes works title wise is to take three words from the story that one wouldn't usually put together. I like that.
posted on 24 Jul 2009, 6:29 PM
That's a great idea, Sara. How do you pick the three words?
posted on 25 Jul 2009, 9:57 AM
Great tips, Randall. I usually just sit there until a title comes to me, with varied results. This is really nuts and bolts helpful. Thanks!
posted on 25 Jul 2009, 10:26 AM
Thanks, Jeanne. I love that "nuts & bolts helpful." I might have to steal that at some point.