Welcome back, writers! Who’s ready to talk writing?

As usual, of course, there is the small bit of news to get through. As of late last night (around 11 PM), the Copy-Edit for Axtara – Magic and Mischief has been completed!

“What does this mean?” some of you may ask? Well, it means that the book is almost entirely ready for publication in ebook form. All that remains is making the final file for upload, double-checking all the extra information (like title page, etc) and then … uploading it.

Which means that as soon as the cover is in my hands, pre-orders can open. Release will come soon after.

Now, this also means I can start editing a separate file for print copies. That’ll take a bit more work, plus it’ll need a print proof to be made. So as usual, the digital version of Magic and Mischief will beat the print copy into everyone’s hands. Ebooks are just easier to prep for.

Ultimately what this means is Magic and Mischief, long overdue, is finally about to arrive. Hopefully in the coming week or two I’ll have a release date for all of you, and pre-orders will open up.

Oh, and if you missed it, our first preview of Axtara – Magic and Mischief had it’s debut on the site last week! We dropped some fun comparison factoids between the first and second books, as well as an excerpt from the text of Magic and Mischief! Go check it out!

Now, this all does mean there’s one other item of news. What will be the “Next Big Project?” For those not in the loop, a few months ago I asked the Patreon Supporters to vote on what my next book would be after Magic and Mischief, the vote closing at a day of my choosing when my current project was essentially complete.

Well, that day is today, and we have our winner. Well, technically a tie. Which means I get to tiebreak. The two titles that won were The Dusk Guard Saga: Fires of the Earth, the next installment in that fanfic saga, and The Phoenix, a long-ago Unusuals project that only the earliest of fans will remember that, upon completion, was not up to my standards and shelved until I felt comfortable rewriting it.

Well, with both of those items tying (personally, I voted for the YA Space Pirate Adventure just if you’re curious) I serve the tie-breaker, and while I know this will be disappointing to some no matter what I pick, I’m going with The Phoenix.

For two reasons, mind. The first is that The Phoenix is a product I can sell, and right now my financial situation needs all the cash it can find. Secondly, the last Dusk Guard entry was a while ago, yes, but a lot less of a wait than the last Unusuals book. Seriously, Hunter/Hunted was 2019, which is a lifetime for some people, but Dead Silver was 2014. That ten-year anniversary we had last week for Dead Silver? I was writing the first draft of The Phoenix at that time. It’s been delayed for a long time.

So, with this now being June, my path is clear. It’s time for The Phoenix to rise from its old ashes at last and burn bright. The next project has been chosen!

All right, with all that news out of the way, let’s get down to business. It’s time to talk writing. And today, we’re talking about a very specific piece of writing. One that’s short and direct, but one of the most influential moments of your entire work.

That’s right, you already know. Because of this principle in action. Or in other words, you read the title of the post. So you know that today, that’s what we’re discussing.

Hit the jump, and buckle up.

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All right, where to start with this? How about the elephant in the room. Yes, I acknowledge that some writers have stated openly that the “title doesn’t really matter.” Yes, they’ve admitted to writing books or stories with no title whatsoever, and then letting the editor at their publisher figure that out. And I’ve seen people online use these (quite old) statements to justify not worrying about it, or even just making the title an afterthought.

These people (the latter group, just to be clear) are wrong. Because they’re not reading those old quotes accurately. Did those old authors say that the title didn’t really matter? Yes. To them. They were focused on writing a story and delivering that to their editor. You don’t then hear those same editors say “Title doesn’t matter.” No, instead those editors would then spend time and attention choosing a title that reflected the story.

The title clearly still mattered, but the authors who said that it didn’t weren’t lying. It didn’t matter to them, in the role they had taken. Because that work was going to be done by their editor. Now, there is a case to be made that the title of a work matters more or less than the name of the author (which does explain certain book cover types found in the wild, which is a whole different discussion) but at the end of the day?

A title is the first part of the fiction the majority of all your potential readers will read. Think about that for a second. Who picks up a book and doesn’t glance at the title? The only time a title doesn’t matter is when someone has already determined that they’re going to experience a specific story they’ve been previously informed of … and even then they’ll need the title to look it up.

It’s funny. It’s not hard to find plentiful writing advice on figuring out your opening sentence, opening paragraphs, or even your opening chapter (as evidenced right there) … but choosing a title? A little rarer, even though that’s what’s going to be read even before that first word of text printed on the inside. Writers will workshop and attend courses to get a good opening sentence … but I’ve never once seen a workshop on choosing a title.

Is that right or wrong? Well … some would definitely say that the opening sentence, the actual content of any story certainly matters more than the name on the front cover. But at the same time, the rule of drawing in an audience, of hooking them with an idea or concept that makes them want to look further … doesn’t that all apply to your title as well as your opening line?

Well, the answer there is … yes! It does. Clearly a title, short or long as it may be, is something that any writer should be considering.

In fact, there is a whole set of genre now where the title has become the opening sentence or synopsis of the book. Lightnovels, specifically Isekai and LitRPG (which look, I’ll admit I don’t enjoy, but they are a legit genre with a ton of readers so I’d be a fool to pretend it doesn’t exist), discovered that the best way to draw in new readers wasn’t by having a flashier opening line or synopsis, but by titling their book in a way that summarizes exactly what the reader can expect.

Sands, let’s look at a few of these titles. That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime. Ascendance of a Bookworm. Survival Quest: The Way of the Shaman. And some of these are older titles, that haven’t quite leaned into the full effect of this approach. Titles that are coming out now? They have names like Dahalia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start With Magical Tools or The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army Was a Human.

Yeah, I can see some rolling their eyes at those titles (me included), but here’s the thing. They work. They tell people right up front exactly what they’re getting into.

And at the end of the day, isn’t that what a title should do?

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Okay, I want to step back for a moment. Obviously I’m not advocating that all titles be like Isekai/LitRPG stories. But they’ve accepted what some haven’t: Titles matter. They are a reader’s first exposure to our work. And while I don’t want to name Axtara – Banking and Finance something as LitRPG as I’m a Dragon Running a Bank Instead of Kidnapping Princesses, the fact that this new genre is booming does suggest that there’s a wisdom in crafting a title that speaks to what our book is, rather than just slapping some random words together. Titles are important. We should given them their due.

Right. All well and good. But now comes the real question: How? How do we choose a proper title? What should go into picking a title? Should we start there?

All good questions, and I think I’ll start with that last one first. Because I have seen young writers sit and speak of writer’s block, putting off starting their story, until they have the “right title” picked out. Yes, even when they’ve got the rest of the story in mind already.

Yeah, don’t do that. If the story is already in your head, then start writing. Sands, put a fake title up if that’s what you need, but get that story out!

More to the rest of us however, there are a few ways to go about picking a title, as well as deciding when to do it. Sometimes the title is what drives our creative process. We choose a title before we write because that title is evocative. For example (and fast and dirty, mind) we might sit down to write a werewolf love story and call it Mournful Moon because that sentence sets for us the expectation for our creative endeavor ahead. In other words, we need a title that tells us what the story is about so that we can remind ourselves of our goal as we write.

At the same time, maybe we don’t do that. Maybe we just put “Untitled” at the top and start writing a story because we already have the mood and direction all figured out. This is also fine. All this means is that later we’ll need to go back over our text and find a title that encapsulates the story we’ve told. Fun fact, this is what I did with Artifacts, while Hunting Parties had a title before I started writing the story.

Really there’s no wrong way to do this save ignoring that there will need to be a title and then just slapping some words on it.

But let’s go into this a little deeper. What should a title be made up of? Should it be long or short? What element of your story should it reflect? Should it directly reference something from the story, or should it be vague?

I can’t actually answer these questions. Only you can. But here’s the thing: You need to ask these questions. Failing to ask them will result in a title that’s just sort of there, slapped on at best. A title that won’t be as gripping to a prospective reader as one that sells or sumarizes the work.

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Now, here’s the other thing we haven’t talked about yet. So far we’ve come from the angle of “Pull a reader in.” But what about titles that don’t need to do that, but misrepresent the book?

I had this happen recently with Axtara – Magic and Mischief. The original title was Magic and Mayhem. However, for a number of readers that set an expectation. They were looking for mayhem, true and applied, and the story didn’t quite live up to that. Hence, it was changed to Magic and Mischief, which fits a lot better, even if it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

The problem was that the title didn’t quite represent what was in the book. I’m certain many of you out there can recall having run into similar issues with books (especially if you’re looking at a book with the word “dragons” in the cover) and perhaps even put books down because the title promised one thing, but the text delivered another.

This can be tricky, because sometimes as authors we see a title as okay, but our readers may react differently. Don’t worry, this is an area where pre-readers or editors can be quite helpful, but remember that you’re going for a big audience and not just an audience of one, so get a lot of feedback, not a little.

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Now, will all this said … How can you choose a title for your story? Either before or after?

Start by looking at what the story is. What’s the theme? What sort of elements are on display? What mood does the story have?

Now think about what sort of title can encapsulate those elements, themes, or moods. Also, which serves your story better? A long title that explains a bit of what’s going on? For example, a title like Star Wars: Heir to the Empire certainly evokes a sense of what the plot is going to be (It’s a Star Wars book, and there’s going to be someone trying to take up the Empire’s reigns or inheriting it), while a simpler title like Star Wars: Thrawn just says “It’s about this character, dude.”

We can find examples of this outside of Star Wars, of course. Troubadours and Space Princesses, for example is a book that is exactly what it says on the tin: Stories about troubadours and princesses in space. Meanwhile a book like The Martian or Jungle doesn’t tell you a lot about what’s happening past a vague concept, but relies on the uncertainty left by the vagueness to attract the curious.

That said, neither of those last two are inaccurate in any way. The Martian is all about someone marooned on Mars and fighting for survival, while Jungle is about an expedition to a jungle-world that turns out to have horrifying secrets buried beneath its pleasant façade. In the very plants and leaves, to be precise.

Now, could each of those books be given a longer title that encapsulated the stories (and presented them) further? Sure. But … that isn’t the approach the creators went for. Sometimes less is more. One-word titles are sometimes all you need and are evocative enough.

But that’s a call you’ll have to make on your own. A one-word title? A sentence? What works best for each story?

Again, I want to stress that a title should represent something from the story. A theme, an event, a mood, a concept. Our story shouldn’t have a title that doesn’t tie into it somehow. Also, the more of those you can layer over one another, the better. A title that just hints at the theme is one thing, but a title that also gives the mood, and a character, and an event? That’s much more powerful because as the reader goes through the story, each as it comes up acts as a form of repetition, amplifying the story’s effect. Or even just getting a reader to grin and realize a particular pun or clever bit of wordplay.

For example, the title of my story A Power in Ink is a multilayered one. Initially to the reader it seems like a reference to the magic system of the story, in which items can be stored on a person as magical tattoos and summoned forth. Power contained in ink. However, as the story goes on, it’s revealed that the protagonist has the last surviving member of the royal family bound to her back as one of those tattoos, a royal attempting to regain their throne. The “power” of the government everyone is after is literally in the ink the princess has become on the protagonist’s back. There’s a third layer to it as well, but I’ll leave that unsaid.

Multifaceted titles like this can reinforce a story in a reader’s mind when they figure them out. Sometimes they work better than others, but usually they’re a solid approach. What they’re not however, is a title drop. Which can be … good or bad. Some people really don’t like it when a title shows up story text, even if it fits (in fact, sometimes the title is just pulled from a bit of the book because it worked as a title, but this still annoys those who don’t like title drops).

But look at your story (or the one you’re about to write, depending on when you want to title it) and ask questions about theme and context. What sort of word or phrase can you find that encapsulates those meanings or themes? Sometimes there may be only one clear choice. Other times you’ll have a couple of options, and be forced to weigh each one to find what works best for your story.

But you should do that weighing. Don’t ignore the title. It’s just as important as any other part of the story. Keep it in mind, and pick a good one.

Good luck. Now get writing.

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