Titles are hard. Very. They have to do so many things at once. They have to give an idea of what the book is about, without giving too much of an idea. They have to show what genre the book falls into. Have you ever noticed how different genres have different sorts of titles? They also have to keep up with the latest fashions, or consciously decide not to. Remember when the wonderful novel was published called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time? For a year or so after, a book had to have a long, multi-claused title to make it to the shelves, or so it seemed.

I actually like coming up with titles. It’s a bit like playing scrabble with your eyes closed. You come up with words that go together but you try not to be too editorial about it. And very often one possibility interlocks with another.  Although I’ve talked in more detail about how the title “A Clash of Innocents” came into being here, here’s a little list of some of my titles’ evolutions:
  my first novel: An Unlikely Guru + A Variable Constant became Tangled Roots
  my play: Table for One became The Bistro Down the Road
  my second novel: An Everywhere of Innocents became A Clash of Innocents
  my play: Touch became Touch Me There became Touching Joy
  my poetry collection: Tripartite became A Woman’s Life became Her Life Collected

I’m thinking about all this now because I am about a third of the way through the first draft of my wip and usually by this time I am amassing a list of possible titles. Or at least I’m getting some ideas of sound, structure and emphasis. But so far, I’ve got nothing. Nothing. I keep telling myself not to worry, the title will just pop into my head when I least expect it. One day I’ll be staring out the window, like I was when writing A Clash of Innocents, and BOOM – there it will be, the titular lightening bolt. I’m actually staring out the window right now and….wait a minute….how about……