o. writing help

FINDING YOUR BOOK'S TITLE

to help you find

a good book title

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don't settle on a title until the whole book is written. as we all know, sometimes characters, or even a whole story, take on a mind of their own - your story may not end up where you expected it to. therefore, by the time you're done with that final chapter, the title you picked before you started may not make sense. it's more than normal to have a working title while you write but i advise you to wait on confirming one until the whole writing, revising, and editing process is complete.

note that most titles are short - typically 2-4 words. naturally, my brain first went to something that could contradict this: the harry potter series. however, if you take out the "harry potter and - " part, the titles are still less than five words (the prisoner of azkaban, the deathly hallows, etc). you have to be able to draw in someone's eye and if your title is too long, they may just scan right past it. if you have to make it longer, consider a subtitle.

if you're writing fiction, think about using a character or repeating theme/phrase from your book as the title. it's something that will make sense and, if interesting enough, will attract attention.

in the event that you're writing a series, think of something that can thread throughout the series. j.k. rowling used "harry potter and-," janet evanovich uses numbers, james patterson used nursery rhymes —- you'll be next in that list!

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RESEARCH/BRAINSTORM: look up other books in your overall genre and then ones more specific to the book you're writing. what sort of titles do they use? do they cater more to their character or their theme? longer titles? shorter? try researching the bestseller list to see what those titles look like. this isn't to get you to pick something near identical to one of those, it just provides you with an idea of some successful titles.

MAKE A LIST: you're going to be continuously thinking of your novel while you're writing it. hell, even when it's just a small idea in your head. every time you think of a possible title for your novel, write it down somewhere. the more your book grows, the easier it will be to eliminate some options or even add some. this will make it at least a bit easier when you get to the titling point, at least you will already have some choices that meant something to you at some point in time.

USE RANDOM BOOK TITLE GENERATORS: trust me this helps, you never know some titles may inspire you.

LISTEN TO SONGS: if you don't already, make a playlist full of songs that remind of you the book. refer to the songs in it and maybe one of the songs can be used in your title. lyrics as well!!

i hope this helped!!

even if it's still summer

i'm still hella stressed

is it just me or ??