My girlfriend @Nicoel is publishing a book as part of a publishing class. So it is just for practice. We worked on the material she is publishing together. Neither one of us can think of a great title. Don't worry, we aren't cheating. Her grade isn't affected by the actual title, but we both want it to shine as you can probably imagine. Because it is gonna be printed all official like, and she will get to keep a copy(school will keep the other copy for examples to future students.) So I was hoping you guys could help us brainstorm title ideas. So, currently we had. "The Order: Recruiting the Gems" The Order part is fixed. Because that is the universe it takes place in. Recruiting the gems is the part that is tricky lol. A brief summary of the book. It is an anthology style book, each chapter being from a different point of view. The theme tying them all together is the fact that a character in each chapter is being recruited by the same man. Samuel is a villain, but a very gentlemanly villain. A bit of a snob too I suppose. Because that is where the gems as a term comes from. He thinks of these people as "precious" and calls them gems. His team of elites has been codenamed the gems. So each chapter we planned to just title the gem he was recruiting. The POV is always in someone elses perspective though, never his. So, any thoughts guys? Thanks in advance.
You could probably play around with some terms from the gem world - Mining, Cutting, Polishing, or something along those lines?
That was my first thought but Nicoel had a great counter I think. Which is she is afraid that it might make the book seem about actual gem stones and push people away.
Maybe you can make the title a symbolic one based on your own theme/story/characters etc. Like: "The Order: Worldly Desires" Or "The Order: The Chance to Shine"
Do people think The Stand is about a small, high table? Do they think 50 Shades of Grey is about a paint collection? Twilight is about the time just after sunset? I think you need to trust your readers to understand figurative titles.
The title makes a lot of sense considering the actual story, but annne picking up the book for the first time not knowing anything about it might be like: “Wait you can’t recruit gems, gems are little stones, this doesn’t make any sense” and might not bother reading the blurb to see that it does, technically, make sense. Perhaps just “the gems” or “the [number of characters] gems” Personally I like @Surcruxum ’s idea of having a title that is related to the idea of a gem (being shiny or desirable etc) but a little broader.
