Adele Geras ponders on the Guardian books blog whether novels sell best with straightforward titles.
I've always thought a concrete title (not necessarily straightforward, but offering a strong image) is best, but can only think of an abstract one for my latest work. My mother, although I didn't ask her, is trying her best to help me think of another, and this is how our conversations go:
Mother of the Bitch: How about 'Footprints'?
Bitch: What? Footprints? Why footprints?
MOB: Because it's about someone following on in another person's footsteps.
B: No it's not!!! It's the opposite! And anyway, there are no footprints in the book - if you use an image it's got to have been in the book.
MOB: Well, then, how about 'So the bough breaks'?
B: What? What's it got to do with boughs? And don't you mean branch? It's not a nineteenth century poem written by a maiden aunt, it's a modern novel written by me!!!
MOB: Well, I still think Footprints is smashing...
She's very sweet, you know. It's just sometimes I could throttle her.
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3 comments:
On my MA it was interesting how people were generally quite straightforward title wise. "Saturday Girl" was one - mine was "High Wire" (eventually), others were reticent, but even then they weren't fancy. I find a book finds its own title, like it or not, and sometimes that comes before the book, other times, a long time afterwards. These long ones seem a bit contrived at the moment, and Toby Litt is going through the alphabet, which is really disappointing somehow, what if his next book ought to begin with an "A" but he's already done it?
I am having title issues, so thanks for the link
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We had endless problems with the title of Little Monsters. It was originally called The Receipt of Fern Seed, from a wonderful bit of Shakespeare ("I have the receipt of fern seed; I walk invisible"), but this was trimmed down to Fern Seed by my agent. My editor at Picador didn't much like this either, but didn't actually veto it; she let the sales department do that! Then, after weeks of emails flying from agent to editor to, occasionally, author to agent's assistant, etc., after dozens of suggestions, taken more or less seriously (mine, generally less), the decision was made, run past sales, and accepted. It took me some time to get used to it, but now I'm behind it all the way. Interestingly, the novel exists in three substantially different drafts, and each now has its own title, rather like the three Lady Chatterley's...
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