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| Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - Spring 2013 |
Eudora Welty is reported to have said, “I’m terrible about titles. I don’t really
know how to come up with them.”
Writers often struggle finding the best title for their work. So how do
we name our stories? What shall we ‘name’ a story or novel, if we are to
suggest, intrigue, and connect with readers so that they say the title in their
mind? And if we truly find the perfect one, we can imagine our readers saying
it aloud or whispering it softly to themselves as they wander among the stacks
in a library or bookstore. Readers saying a title, bring it to life with their
breath.
Music and metaphor live within great titles,
especially when a title confronts the ear and the mind with the richness of promised
pleasures. Great titles leave readers with a desire to explore, to discover and
savor what else lies within the pages of the story.
Looking in my bookcase I see titles that truly
intrigue me now as much as when I read the books quite some time ago. For
example: Grace Paley’s The Little Disturbances of Man, or Ann
Patchett’s The Patron Saint of Liars
or Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow
or John Dufresne’s Deep in the Shade of
Paradise or Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable
Creatures or Muriel Barbery’s The
Elegance of the Hedgehog. These are just a few examples of titles that were
perfect for what I discovered upon reading these books.
In some ways finding the title within the book is a bit
like naming children. Both involve a difficult process requiring thought and
patience, if we hope to find both the truth and promise within.
David Madden's writers’ handbook, Revising Fiction, says, “Titles have a runic, iconic, talismanic,
touchstone, charged-image effect.”
About Jan Bowman
Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in
numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo
Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer
Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short
Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award,
her stories have been nominated for Pushcart
Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story
was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another
was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping
for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications
in Trajectory
and Pen-in-Hand.
She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life
and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers. Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or
visit blog: http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com
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