I'll admit it first: I'm terrible with titles. I've never understood how book titles are chosen, or why one movie title is better than any other. There's tons of science behind it, I'll bet, but it hasn't made much sense to me. For some reason our minds latch on to one thing and not another. It's very confusing.
There are a few books I've skimmed on the subject (sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to reading entire books on it), and picked up a few curious tidbits. One mentioned that titles with "The" or starting with particular letters weren't well received. I don't remember why not, but they had charts and graphs showing it all. Another nugget was how single word titles were lousy, and they also had statistics proving the idea.
My opinion is that if it sounds good, then go for it. It's all subjective, isn't it? We have peculiar tastes, and how can such things be quantified? For instance, one of my favorite books is Icefire. That's a single word title and it works just fine. Or how about The Lord of the Rings. That one has "The" in it twice. Well, it's a theory. I'm sure it wouldn't have worked as "Sauron" or "Hobbits, Fight or Flight."
Yes, I'm being silly. I'd love to know how to make better titles, or even halfway decent ones. Until then, I'll muddle along doing the best I can. Hopefully nobody will pout because my titles weren't better. I pray they'll read my books anyway. The stories always have my focus, and I'll let them speak for me any and all times.
- M
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