Of course with every title out there, you can derive some sort of feeling or something from it. I doubt anyone would name a book with no relations in according to what the book is about or have no hint of anything doing with the story. I mean, I guess someone could make up an ambiguous title that has nothing to do with the book, but the publisher is probably going to change it anyways. You want a title that is catchy or markets or at least describes the book in some way. I state again, I was only answering marcusl's question, "Must a book title hint at the tale's contents?" which is "No, it doesn't have to, but as long as the title does have something to do with the book."
The "hint" can be pretty thin. Just off the top of my head: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr These are not titles that really tell you what the book is about. Certainly not as obvious as Robert J Serling's The President's Plane is Missing.
For me a phrase jumps inside of my head. And this phrase stays as the title forever because it fits the mood.
For novels I think of the overall theme and keep it as simplistic as possible, usually three words max, one word if possible. Ex. End Weapon Theory , Enemy Within , The Bestial For short stories I pick the name of the particular subject of the story, but I try to keep it catchy too and I don't mind if it's a little longer. Ex. Six Minutes, Six Dead , The Complex , Fatal Answers I'll change the title only if the theme changes. Once I pick a title I'm usually content. When I change the title friends and family will always use the old title so I try to avoid that.
I'm stubborn, and sometimes I try to force myself to come up with a title before starting.... not exactly an official one, but just SOMETHING. I've recently sort of forced myself to stop doing that, though. I'd sit around for an hour concentrating on catchy titles only to become completely frustrated and no longer feeling in the mood to write. It was total writing buzz kill, lol. Lately I've just started writing and giving the story silly throwaway names like 'purple' and 'monster', etc. /SHRUG
My stories are always title-less until the very end. I'll brainstorm ideas as I write, but usually I'll be like "Nah..." or find that it's close to another title I heard of in the past. I'll be honest, I never finished a Novel before, so I never had the problem of finding a good title.
Let's say you're writing a series of books with your main character (Let's call him Howard Gibbins) set in the 1770s when he's 10 years old. He's got a goal and during the course of the series, he accomplishes this goal after much trial and hardships. The series ends on a happy note and everything's all happy, fine, great. Now...let's say you want to start a sequel series involving our dear Howard Gibbins and all his friends (that are still alive), only now it's set years later...about ten or twenty years later. He's 30 years old in the decade of 1790. My question is: How do you make the new series just as good as the older one? The thing is, I've heard that sequels often aren't as good as the older series and plus, what if Howard had already resolved the big goal that had driven him on in the first series? What other thing could he do? Also, would it be too jarring for the readers if they pick up the new book and Howard is now 30? Just curious.
You mentioned Howard already resolving his big goal. To me (my opinion) that is your biggest obstacle. My choice would be to take someone else that was in the Howard Gibbins books and structure your new stories around this other person. It allows you to stay in your "world" and gives you a fresh soul to torture, metaphorically speaking.
Ah! Now that you mentioned it, I forgot to mention that in the sequel series, Howard may/may not have a kid. So maybe the new series follows the son or someone else who knows Howard. Would it be too much of a cliched to have the second sequel revolve around Howard's kid? That may be too much like Star Wars. :/ Well, as long as I don't make Howard evil or anything. XD But, wouldn't some people think I'd be milking it?
There are series you can refer to as examples. In Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series, we have seen her brilliant niece Lucy grow from an insecure, socially inept teen to a mature multi-millionaire in her early thirties. You could also read Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, set many years later. You could also read the various Orson Scott Card books that feature Andrew (Ender) Wiggin and Julian (Bean) Delphiki. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow focus on these characters as children, but other novels follow their adult lives.
There are totally new conflicts that happen when you're an adult that never existed when they were a child. You would probably have to figure out the kinds of things that would happen to the character between 10 and thirty. Going through that kind of process, a new conflict could reveal itself.
EDIT: THERE'S A MINI SPOILER IN THIS POST I don't think it would be a bad idea to write with How's kid as your main character. Feist did something similar, but it was not many years later as you describe. Rowling as well said if we was going to write another Potter book, it would no be based on Harry, but on his youngest son.
Good point. Just because Howard has things perfect when he's 10 doesn't mean it's gonna be that way when he's 30. He's gonna face new problems. But maybe by that time, I may be sick of writing from Howard's POV and focus more on maybe his friends or his children and they see his problems while having some of their own. EDIT: Wait, Rowling said that? COOL! If that's true, I'm getting into the Potter series again.
She said that but she also said she's not going to write another book in that world in the near future
He could potentially have the same conflict at age 30 as he did when he was 10. Look at Harry Potter. It's the same conflict (and same plot) for 7 books. Harry goes to school, Voldemort tries to kill him, Harry wins, Harry goes home. Each time, Harry dealt with the conflict in a different way. So, if you don't want to write from the POV of his children, then this could be one way to go. Of course, you could try to condense everything into one book and have a conflict that lasts for 20 years (or more). But I'm guessing this might not be feasible.
That may be too complicated, writing a singular story (or a series) spanning 20 years. :/ But I think it's a good idea if I focused the sequel onto someone else, like Howard's kid. Sure we'll see Howard and whatever new problem he's facing, but he's told his story in the first one. Time to let someone else take the spotlight.
erm, I haven't read the series, but in Earthsea, isn't the story written from the eyes of Jed from when he was a boy till he was an old man over a span of novels? The whole series, much like Lord of the Rings, has 1 singular story as well I think.
You wouldn't have to actually write all that stuff that happens between those years, just think about it and make notes on it the way you would when you're writing a character for the first time.
I have some trouble too, in fact reading this has helped me a lot. What I do, despite my complete inhability to come up with a proper title is to minly think about the story and really find something that is symbolic, this meaning, well i'll just give an example: Eternity - the plot for this story is simple, the earth was invaded by some aliens, turns ot that there is actually more to those aliens than what meets the eye; two guys from the Neo earth go back to earth a year later after the invasion to check if there are survivors, in the end the plot resumes to the quest for the lost elixir of life, the one that caused the whole mess (the story goes deeper but i don't really want to bother you). eterniy is related to the elixir of life, which grants eternal life, its not a title of a caracter, its just something that is symbolic as far as the story goes...but like i said, i'm not good at coming up with titles....i hope i could help
clive cussler did it, too, with his hero dirk pitt mysteriously producing a son and a daughter, who are protags in cussler's later books...
Cool. I guess it's not as bad as I thought. Um, I just had a disturbing brainstorming about it. What if in the sequel involving Howard's child, Howard died of old age? That'd just be too tragic, especially if you go back to the beginning of the whole thing. D=
theres no problem with picking up a story many years later involving the same character even if originally their story had been resolved, take a look at the adrian mole novels for instance which take place over many years, and lets not forget that The Lord of the rings is a sequal to the Hobbit and takes place many years afterwards. All that matters is that the story stands on its own in some way, after all not evryoen would have read the original. having said that there is nothing from stopping teh new story being connected to the original in soem way, maybe something they did whilst ten will have an impact on their future life?
I like to have a title, but it doesn't always come about. It usually has to do with the idea and basic synopsis of the novel. My NaNo is "Tall, Skinny w/ Whip". A barista with self-image issues among other things. She happens to be tall and skinny, at odds with her weight in a society that glorifies "real women" with "curves".
I prefer to write a complete work with no title. It allows you to be restricted. Think of it like a song title. There are songs out there where in no way is the title (words) in the song themselves. Come up with titles AFTER your work is done. But who am I kidding here? Everyone is going to do what they want. This isn't set in stone.
