How To Choose A Book Title: 10 Things Every Writer Should Know

Struggling to name your book? Discover 10 tips for choosing a memorable, intriguing title that captures your story and makes readers read it.

Choosing a title for your book can be harder than writing the book itself. You may have written 80 000 words, solved your plot problems, developed your characters, and finally typed The End. Then you realise you still have to name it.

A good book title can make a reader curious. It can hint at the story, suggest the genre, introduce a theme, or create a question that the reader wants answered. So how do you choose a title that works?

Here are 10 things every writer should consider when naming a book.

How To Choose A Book Title: 10 Things Every Writer Should Know

1. Make Sure It Suits Your Genre

Your title should give readers an idea of what kind of book they are about to read.

A reader looking for a cozy mystery, a romance, or a horror novel has certain expectations. Your title can help you meet those expectations.

There is a difference between:
1. The Murder At Willow House
and
2. A Very Merry Murder

Both could be mystery novels, but they create different expectations.

Look at successful books in your genre. What do their titles have in common? Are they short and sharp? Mysterious? Romantic? Humorous? Dark? Here are some examples:

1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson – It suits the horror genre. The title creates an eerie image and tells us the house is at the heart of the story. It is easy to remember and easy to pronounce. The word ‘haunting’ suggests both ghosts and the psychological effects of fear. It makes you wonder what happened at Hill House and why it is haunted.
2. The Firm by John Grisham – It suits the legal thriller genre. The plot is all about The Firm. It is easy to remember and easy to pronounce. It makes you wonder what it’s about. It creates an image in the reader’s mind. The impersonal name suits the sinister thread of the plot.
3. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – It suits the literary genre. The spiritual implications are intrinsic to the plot. It is also unusual but not so unusual that you would forget it. It is easy to pronounce. It is incredibly descriptive and reveals the lyrical quality of the book.
4. The Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris – It suits the crime genre. It is eerie and unsettling. It is easy to remember and easy to pronounce. It has immediate intellectual and emotional appeal. Why are the lambs silent? What does it mean? As you read the book you realise how the title impacts the main character.
5. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas – It suits the romantasy genre. It suggests a magical world with danger and beauty. There is also a hint of romance. It is creates a vivid image in the reader’s mind. The title makes you wonder what kind of court this.

2. Make It Relevant To Your Story

Your title should have some connection to the book. It doesn’t have to explain your story. It simply needs to feel as if it belongs to it.

It could refer to:

1. The main character
2. A place
3. An object
4. An event
5. A relationship
6. A line of dialogue
7. A central idea
8. A recurring image
9. The main conflict
10. The theme

For example, The Book Thief tells us something important about the protagonist and immediately makes us curious about the story. The Hunger Games tells us about the central event of the novel, and it makes the reader wonder what the games are.

3. Make It Memorable

Readers see hundreds of book titles. You want yours to stick out. A memorable title is often simple, distinctive, or unexpected. It may create a strong image or raise a question.

Think about titles like:

1. Gone Girl
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Road
4. The Fault In Our Stars
5. The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo

These titles are very different, but they all give the reader something to remember.

Try saying your title aloud. Then say it again later. Can you remember it? If you can’t, your reader may struggle too.

4. Make The Reader Curious

A good title can create a question in the reader’s mind.

1. Gone Girl: Who is the girl? Where has she gone?
2. The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo: Who is Evelyn? Why did she have seven husbands? What happened to them?
3. The Silent Patient: Who is the patient? Why isn’t she speaking?

Give the reader just enough information to make them want to know more.

5. Make It Easy To Say And Spell

Your title should be easy to read, say, and remember because people talk about books. They recommend them to friends, search for them online, and try to remember them later. If your title is difficult to pronounce or spell, it may be harder for readers to share.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid unusual words or names. A distinctive word can make a title better. Just make sure that the difficulty is deliberate.

But, if your reader sees your title and thinks, How do I say that?, you may want to reconsider.

6. Don’t Be Afraid Of A Short (Or Long) Title

Short titles are often powerful.

1. Beloved
2. Rebecca
3. Dune
4. It
5. Normal People

A short title can be easy to remember and look good on a book cover. But don’t assume that shorter is always better.

Some good titles are long:

1. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
2. The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society
3. The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo

Don’t cut a great title simply because it has more than five words.

7. Make It Visual

Think about what happens when someone sees your title on a book cover.

1. Can they picture something?
2. Can the words create an image, mood, or feeling?

Where The Crawdads Sing is a good example. The title creates a sense of place and mystery before the reader knows anything about the story. As does Little Fires Everywhere.

A visual title can also give you, or your publishers, ideas for the cover.

Try writing your title on a blank page. Does it look interesting? Does it create an image?

8. Let Your Title Reflect The Heart Of The Book

Your title can reveal something about the deeper meaning of your story. A book may have a complicated plot, but underneath it there may be a simple idea. It might be about:

1. Love
2. Loss
3. Freedom
4. Family
5. Revenge
6. Identity
7. Belonging
8. Ambition
9. Forgiveness

Find the theme at the heart of your story. Then see if there is a word, phrase, image, or idea that captures it. This can give you a title that means more to the reader after they have finished the book.

1. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – The garden is not just a physical place. It represents healing, growth, friendship, and emotional renewal.
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – The kite becomes a symbol of childhood, friendship, betrayal, guilt, and redemption.
3. Atonement by Ian McEwan – The single word captures Briony’s lifelong attempt to make amends for the harm she has caused.
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – The title reflects the literal days remaining in the protagonist’s life and the regrets left behind by the life he has lived.

9. Look For The Title Inside Your Manuscript

You may already have your title without realising it. Look through your manuscript. Highlight phrases that stand out. Look at chapter titles (if you have them), descriptions, dialogue, letters, poems, and songs. Pay attention to anything your characters repeat.

You can also look for:

1. Interesting phrases
2. Unusual combinations of words
3. Questions
4. Contradictions
5. Metaphors
6. Recurring images
7. Important objects
8. Places
9. Lines of dialogue

You don’t need to use the words exactly as they appear in your manuscript. They could simply lead you to your title.

1. Look at The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. The soldiers carry physical objects with them, but they also carry fear, memories, guilt, grief, and responsibility. The phrase appears throughout the book, so O’Brien found his title in an idea that was already woven into it.
2. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, ‘wallflower’ captures Charlie’s position as an observer who feels apart from the people around him, and the idea is woven into the story.
3. Look at Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Heller turns a phrase from the novel into the title. ‘Catch-22’ becomes the name for the impossible situation at the heart of the story.

10. Test Your Title

Don’t fall in love with your first idea. Write down 10, 20, or even 50 possibilities. Then test them.

Ask yourself:

1. Does it suit my genre?
2. Is it memorable?
3. Does it make the reader curious?
4. Is it easy to say and spell?
5. Does it create an image or mood?
6. Will it look good on a book cover?
7. Is it too similar to another well-known book – especially a recent one?

Ask other people too. Give them your shortlist without explaining the story.

1. Which title makes them curious?
2. Which one do they remember?
3. Which one sounds as though they would actually pick up the book?

Where Else Can You Find Ideas For A Book Title?

If you’re completely stuck, look beyond your manuscript.

You can find inspiration in:

1. Shakespeare – The Fault in Our Stars – the title comes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
2. The Bible – The Sun Also Rises – the title comes from Ecclesiastes and is echoed by the novel’s ideas about renewal and endurance.
3. Poetry – Things Fall Apart is taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by William Butler Yeats.
4. Songs – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – the title comes from a nursery rhyme that appears in the novel.
5. Literature – The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time – the title comes from a line in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze, which is referenced in the novel.
6. Proverbs – The Daughter Of Time – the title comes from the old proverb ‘Truth is the daughter of time’.
7. Myths and legends – The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood takes the figure of Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey and builds her own story around her.
8. History – The Paris Wife – Hadley Richardson was Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. The historical figure and setting are central to the novel.
9. Art – Girl With A Pearl Earring – the title comes rom Vermeer’s famous painting. The novel imagines the story behind the painting.
10. Places – Brooklyn – the title is simply the name of the New York neighbourhood, but it becomes connected to Eilis’s new life and sense of belonging.
11. Old sayings – The Devil’s Advocate – the title is an established expression about a person who takes an opposing or unpopular point of view in a discussion.
12. Newspapers and dictionaries

The Last Word

Choosing a book title is a creative process. Your first title may not be your final title. You may discover a better one halfway through writing the book. You may find it in a character’s dialogue, a line you nearly deleted, or an image that keeps appearing in your story. Don’t rush it. Write down every possibility, even the silly ones. Combine words. Try different lengths. Read them aloud. Look at them on a page. Then choose the title that makes you want to open the book.

For Fun – Use our generators for these genres:

1. Fantasy Book Title Generator
2. Literary Book Title Generator
3. Thriller Book Title Generator

by Amanda Patterson
© Amanda Patterson

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