Janet Kobobel Grant Part Two of Titling Your Work

My deepest apology for posting so late in the day today. I was up late with family and friends celebrating Canada Day. Fireworks! Ooooo, ahhhh.

But, as promised! The second half of Janet's wonderful contribution, Razzle Dazzle Titles. Read the first post

(here, Janet adds to the first two "check points" of good titling):

--Does the title pinpoint your audience? Here are two examples: Hedges: Loving Your
Marriage Enough to Protect It, and Instant Message from God for Teens.

--Does the title set itself apart from other titles for the same audience? One of my clients suggested this title for a book on parents with prodigals (a topic that has inspired many books so the title has to immediately convey what’s different about this book). The author suggested Helping Parents Get Over Their Wild Child. I countered with Ready? Set? Let Go! How Parents of Prodigals Can Get on With Their Lives. Both of us were working to convey what was unique about this book’s message. You be the judge as to which one of us succeeded better.

--Is it memorable? Author Julie Barnhill said, “I think titles should be thought of much in the same manner as the names of children. You want something that rolls off the tongue.” Can a potential buyer remember it long enough to get to the bookstore to ask for it? An author had written a playful novel about a group of church ladies who had had it with planning Christmas for everyone so they ran away to Jamaica. The original title? The Christmas Club. The final title, which the publisher came up with: Jamaican Me Crazy. The Christmas Club is unlikely to stick in my brain, but Jamaican Me Crazy is so clever, I can get stuck in a traffic jam and still remember it by the time I reach the bookstore.

--Is it clever? Sometimes a clever title can cause a book browser to pick it up. Anita Renfroe’s The Purse-Driven Life (which came out during The Purpose-Driven Life phase) is an eye-catcher.

Other hints for making your title stand out:
--Use alliteration. Bubble’s Betrothed is a general market mystery about a former hairdresser turned reporter.

--Use a line from the book. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is a classic example of how inspiration for the title can be tucked away in the book itself.

Where do you get ideas? They’re everywhere. Here’s a sample I found in my church’s bulletin one Sunday: Loved the Wedding, Invite Me to the Marriage. Love, God.

Other sources might be song lyrics, movie titles, a play off of other titles, or twists on commonly used phrases. Often it’s a good idea to create something new from one of these sources by playing off of the phrase rather than just using it.

Recently I saw a title for a book that recounted the history of marriage from Adam and Eve to the Renaissance and beyond. Our minds would immediately go the phrase “I do” for the title. Well, this breezy and irreverent book was entitled, I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage.

Don’t be afraid to be playful when you’re brainstorming your next title. For sure, don’t be predictable. And do give your title some test runs with friends and family. Their facial expressions will tell you all you need to know.

Now, get out there and razzle-dazzle your reader!

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Janet, thank you for this great article! I'm inspired!

Okay, faithful blog readers - how have you been inspired by this article? Have you come up with the perfect title for your WIP? Share your ideas, titles, and successes here.

I'll be sending all of your comments on to Janet, who will reply all at once. I will post Janet's response to all your comments on a separate post. So, ask away! Janet is waiting to hear from you!

I bid you good writing.

Welcome Guest Blogger Janet Kobobel Grant

It's a thrill to have Janet as a guest blogger on Fiction Matters. She is a wonderful woman of God, and a prolific writer, in addition to being the founder of a literary agency. She's sharing with us her expertise in the area of titling your work. A colleague of hers has dubbed her "The Queen of Titles". And while Janet says, "That's hyperbole", she shows her expertise in this two part article called Razzle Dazzle Titles.


Janet Kobobel Grant established Books & Such Literary Agency in 1996 after working in the book publishing industry for more than twenty years. She had her own imprint at Zondervan Publishing and served as managing editor of books at Focus on the Family.


Janet understands the inside scoop on publishing as well, having helped to launch Here’s Life Publisher, managed her own imprint with Zondervan, and served as managing editor of books for Focus on the Family. Working in these capacities provided her with a strong publishing network, experience in negotiating contracts, and comprehension of each production stage a book must move through, from acquisition to printed matter.


Her desire to help authors create the most marketable, carefully crafted manuscripts and to see those authors succeed in their careers was probably born in the library she frequented as a child.

Here is a Sampling of Books by Janet:

With Fern Nichols of Every Child Needs a Praying Mom (Bonnie says: This book is on my "must buy" list!) A silver medallion winner





Several Women of Faith Bible studies.




The Breast Cancer Care Book (with Sally M. Knox, M.D. and a Retailers Choice finalist);

99 Annoying Attributes of God: Why God is God and You're Not
(Bonnie says: Don't you just want to order this one right now?!)


(There are more! But, for the sake of all you faithful blog readers, I'll save some for Wednesday's blog post from Janet)


Razzle-Dazzle Titles
By Janet Kobobel Grant

I recently was involved in a conversation about titling with several authors. Two authors had very different views on titles. One said, “’How to Title’ was left out of my gift-mix when the Lord called me to be a writer.” Another said, “I think I got my first book contract because of the title I gave it: Famous Jerks of the Bible. It still draws a lot of attention.”

Most of us probably fall somewhere between those two authors. But one thing we have in common with both of them is that we have to realize the title of a project can make or break it. I present more than one thousand projects to editors each year. It’s part of what I do every day. And I learn a lot from the responses editors give. Recently, I set out to pitch a project to twelve editors. Nine asked to see the proposal. One of the reasons: It has a great title. The Marriage Phoenix: When You Love Your Spouse but Not Your Marriage. The author wanted to title it: The Marriage Funeral: When Dead Is Better Than Divorce. His title was, uh…dead on delivery, negative and a real-downer. I turned the concept into a positive with the Phoenix title.

Another author wanted to write a book on worry but didn’t know what to call it. Actually, the author’s title was Managed Anger Jesus-Style. I suggested the title be Partly Cloudy with Scattered Worries: Weathering Your Fears, Fretting, and Fuming. After deciding on that title, the whole structure for the book fell into place with chapters entitled, “Anticipating a Storm: Fear of the Future”; “Ice Storm: How to Keep Wondering From Slipping into Worrying”; “Dense Fog: How to Wait Out Times When God’s Answers Are Slow in Coming.” And the publisher came up with a cover that matched the weather theme—all this was set into place through the title.

Titles have to carry a heavy load of freight. Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself that help to test if a title is bearing all the weight it needs to:

--Does the title convey the tone of the book? If you heard about a novel entitled Conflict, what genre would you suspect the book was? Suspense? Mystery? Women’s fiction? In actuality, the story was about a playwright who is afraid of conflict—so much so she can’t write conflict into her plays. The book’s genre? Romantic comedy. The novel eventually was published as My Life as a Doormat (in Three Acts). The new title is playful and hints at the play writing that serves as a centerpiece to the story.

--Does the title tell enough about the book to intrigue the potential reader? One author describes this as having both steak and sauce in a title. Example: Ann Coulter’s How to Talk to a Liberal (that’s just the steak) now here’s the sauce (If You Must). But don’t be so esoteric or literary that people can’t figure out what your book is about (especially for nonfiction). Here are two obscure titles: The God of Stones and Spiders and Twilight Labyrinth. But here’s an intriguing title you might have heard of: The Secret Life of Bees.
For nonfiction titles, don’t be afraid to have an intriguing title matched with a straightforward subtitle: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.


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Janet will be back on Wednesday with four more "tests" for your titles, and more hints for making your title stand out from the crowd (in good ways!)

Let's hear from you, faithful blog readers. How has Janet's perspective on titling your work got you thinking?

I know I'm impressed with her gift for titles, and inspired to dig deep for that perfect title that will 'razzle dazzle' an editor and/or agent!

I bid you good writing.

Welcome Guest Blogger - Joanna Mallory

I'd like to introduce you to Joanna Mallory, a professional member of The Word Guild. Joanna writes Christian women's fiction threaded with suspense and redemption, and occasionally dabbles in speculative fiction. Stop by Joanna’s blog, God With Us: Finding Joy for weekly spiritual boosts and monthly draws for Canadian Christian books.

Joanna continues the "blogathon" of writing workshops with her contribution about titling your work. It's a good follow up to the blog on writing your first draft. Titling is trickier than some writer's may think, and more important. Later on, we'll hear from another guest blogger about this critical component of our art. I love how each person brings their own richness, humor, and experience to a topic.

If you haven't spent much time considering the art of titling, then dig in, put on your thinking caps, and prepare to be challenged in a delightful way.

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“Titling Your Work”
by Joanna Mallory


Pop, there it is: the perfect title for your story. Perhaps it even comes first, teasing you to discover a plot to do it justice.

How many of you get your titles that way? One…two…three…. Congratulations, those who raised their hands. Please skip to the next blog entry lest we less gifted titlers rub off on you.

Titles aren’t on the tip of my pencil, but they’re an important part of crafting a story. A good title reflects the essence of the tale it introduces, but more than that it catches the readers’ (or editor’s) attention and lures them to read on.

One of the most liberating revelations for me in terms of finding the best titles for my stories was that titling is a process. It’s okay, even expected, that it will take a while.

A good way to begin is to set aside half an hour to an hour, brew your favourite tea (substitute other beverage as desired) and hang out in a distraction-free, comfortable location. Just you, your imagination and a pen and paper. Let your mind wander through what you know about your story, and jot down every title idea that flickers. Don’t worry if it’s good, bad or ugly. It may spark something else.

If you need a boost, consider wordplay. Can you twist a pun or a cliché? (How does A Ring and a Prayer sound for an inspirational romance about an airline employee?) Use half an expression or proverb? (Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts, is not a book I’d recommend, but the title evokes the book’s theme: the search for home.) How about splicing or inverting well-known sayings or proverbs?

The nature of the story sets the tone for the title. Cute or funny won’t suit a serious tale. Dark and introspective won’t fly for chick-lit. If twisting or splitting a common line or song title doesn’t work, find a word or phrase that relates to your theme or to key words in the text. Madeleine L’Engle named A Wrinkle in Time from one character’s explanation of a tesseract, a major plot point in the novel.

In the end, your story’s title is up to the publisher. It has to fit with the others, be they stories in a magazine or anthology or novels coming out in the same year. For that reason, some writers submit the story with their first choice as a working title, and include a list of alternates. The more you’ve invested in finding the best title for your story, and the better you understand how to convey your story in a few words, then the better your chances to influence the publisher to choose a new title that suits his/her purposes and still serves the story well.

Choosing a title is a bit like naming a baby. It can take a lot of thought and discussion, but you hope to live with the results for years. Take the time and decide with care.

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Well faithful blog readers, what do you think? Have you found that perfect title for your "baby"? Or are you rolling words around in your head. How come some books, stories, or articles seem to title themselves, while others resist anything you try to stick to them? Why is it that the author, the originator of the work is often the last person that can come up with an excellent title? How personally do you take it when an editor changes your title? (I personally am happy that my non-fiction book is being re-titled - but I don't think I'll be so happy-go-lucky should someone want to change the name of my first novel. Guess I'll cross that bridge when or if I come to it).

Share your thoughts, your stories, your ideas of how you come up with that perfect title. Share your process with us. Two points if you get us to laugh.

I bid you good writing.