Do You Have Title Envy?

I’ll confess: I have title envy. While I spend most of my days sitting in a room and writing, on Sundays I work at one of my local independent booksellers, where amazing title after amazing title find their way to our shelves, and I have to admit to occasionally wondering, “Why didn’t I think of something like that?”

Take Make it Scream, Make it Burn, an amazing collection of essays I probably wouldn’t have picked up were it not for the title. Or poet Ocean Vuong’s tantalizing (and, yes, gorgeous) On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Or the intriguing The Office of Historical Corrections.

You probably have a list of your own. Books you’ve bought for the titles. Titles that have intrigued you. Titles you’ve even wished you’d thought of.

The thing is, my brain just doesn’t work that way. I didn’t get the cleverness gene, and it is—apparently—something you can’t learn. So I try the most pedestrian of titles for a long time in my head before I find one that works and can put it at the start of my novel. My friend and fellow writer Daniel took pity on me once and recommended that I title every work-in-progress Anchovy; the awfulness of the title, he reckoned, would make me work all that much harder to find something appropriate. Or even lyrical.

Except that it didn’t.

Nothing to See Here. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know. Bring Up the Bodies. Atmospheric Disturbances.

I’m often a third of a way into writing a novel before its title really materializes, and I hate that. It’s not uncommon, of course; many writers actually finish their books before they try on different titles for them, and publishers—including mine—often change the title even that late in the process. So my inability to latch onto something inspiring isn’t the end of the world. But it feels that way to me, because without a title, my writing feels disconnected, unmoored, drifting farther and farther away from anything I’d hoped it might become.

It’s a problem affecting only a minority of writers, I know, this needing the title first. Most authors function perfectly well putting the story first, and that actually may be exactly the way it should be. Yet here I remain. The title informs my work, tells me where the story is leading, how it’s going to get there. The title allows me to dream, to reach, to imagine.

The Association of Small Bombs. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. The Bone Clocks. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things.

I thought I was truly a freak (of literature if not of nature) until I went to work for the digital department of a publisher, primarily producing newsletters. As I was getting the hang of the content, I often turned articles in for review without titles, as I didn’t yet fully have a feel for the intended audience. To my surprise, my supervisor confided she had the same—assumption? problem? orientation?—as me. “Start with the title,” she urged me. “That will give you—and them—the focus for the piece.”

I’d never heard of anyone else doing it that way. I was ecstatic. Still in search of titles, of course, but happy to be working the right way round. 

The Versions of Us. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. All The Light We Cannot See. The Noise of Time.

Let’s face it: we all know the importance of a title. A book’s title and its cover (despite all the sayings about refraining from judging, so forth) are what attract a reader—or not. It’s not just a matter of creativity; it’s a matter of marketing. Experiments carried on by publisher E. Haldeman in the early 20th century underline the crucial nature of a title. If a book didn’t sell at least 10,000 copies a year, he’d send it to his “hospital” where he’d tweak the title until it performed well. Gautier’s Fleece of Gold (6,000 copies) became The Quest for a Blonde Mistress (50,000 copies). Same book. In a similar way, The Mystery of the Iron Mask sold 11,000/year; The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask sold 30,000. Titles matter.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. This is How it Begins. Philosophy for Polar Explorers.

All of which returns us to my original confession: I have title envy. If you ever see a particularly clever title on one of my books, you can be sure it came from the editor or publisher, not the author. The author is busy browsing the shelves at her local independent bookseller, wondering why she doesn’t have as interesting a mind as do all these other authors with their awesome titles.

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. What We Were Promised. America is Not The Heart. Everything I Never Told You.

All that being said, I do try. I have a journal filled with lines of poetry and quotes I think might make decent—if not amazing—titles. Sometimes one of them will be my inspiration to start a new piece, which can be rather exciting. Having title envy isn’t the worst thing that can befall an author, especially one who has the wits to surround herself with smart and creative people (that’s where my cleverness comes in!).

Still, I look at those titles every Sunday I’m in the bookshop and sigh. Perhaps one day I’ll write The Story of How Jeannette Found Her Title.

Or… maybe not.