Read a Good Book Lately? : What's In A Title? ... by James Ellis

WHAT’S IN A TITLE? … What’s in a title, well, for me, quite a lot actually. A title can be many things. It can be a statement. It can invoke a feeling. It can set the tone, and it can ignite the imagination and the curiosity, or it can sum up the story you’re telling in a few simple words. So once you have a good idea of what it is you’re writing and what it’s all about then coming up with a suitable title should be easy, right? Yeah, if only it were that simple. This old age problem was brought into sharp focus once again when I originally came up with the title for my children’s novel, ‘The Fairytale Thief.’ I wanted to invoke the feeling of those classic books such as ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ series. I wanted to invoke a certain feeling. I came up with numerous titles, most of which ranged from the uninspired, to the interesting, to the flat out awful ( one of these titles, ‘Always Ever After’, oddly turned out to be perfect for the follow up which I‘m planning to write in 2014. A very rare case of having the title way ahead of time! ) I had all these titles bubbling away in my head for days. Most of them were interesting in their own way, but none of them were right. And they weren’t right because they didn’t feel right, they didn’t bring to life what I was aiming for. Nothing worked, not until the moment I was doing something else entirely and three words popped into my head. The Fairytale Thief. They were perfect. They felt right. Somehow these three words together perfectly invoked what I was after. Somehow it told you what I was aiming for. I’d love to say this has just been an isolated case, but oh no, every single time I put myself through the same thing, whether it’s an overall title, an issue title or a even just a chapter title. So what’s in a title? For me, everything …