Something I never realised about choosing a title for your novel

One of my absolute favourite things about writing is choosing a title for a new novel. (My other love is naming characters and places.) In fact, I love coming up with titles so much that I’ve realised that the plots for all of my stories have been inspired by me thinking up a title I really like first. Once I have a title I’m excited about, I then think about the plot of a book with that title. Weird, I know, but that is how it works for me.

Something that I never realised about choosing a title for your character driven novel is that there are really two kinds of titles – those that work for theme driven stories and those that work for identity driven stories.  My stories are all really about the character’s identity – Diary of a Penguin-napper, Ruby Marvellous, and Double Felix. All of these titles give hints to the identity of the protagonist.

I recently came across these examples on well-storied.com that illustrate the difference between the two beautifully:

CHARACTER-DRIVEN NOVEL TITLES (THEME):

Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion by Jane Austen
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Voices by Ursula Le Guin
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

CHARACTER-DRIVEN NOVEL TITLES (PROTAGONIST’S NAME OR IDENTITY):

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Carrie by Stephen King
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Finniken of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson

See the difference? Of course, not every character driven story will fit this mold and that is totally okay too.  A well-written story wins every time – a great title just helps attract readers to it. And don’t panic if you don’t have a character driven story and instead have a story that is largely drive by plot. Kristen at well-storied.com has you covered too. Read her post here.