Have you crafted the perfect title for your memoir?

Traditional publishing companies usually choose titles for their books, but most of us here at SM 101 won’t be working with traditional publishing companies. Instead, we will self-publish our memoirs—and that means we choose our titles.

Because a book’s title is so important, expect to work hard on crafting the very best title for your memoir.

Let’s step back a minute: How do you decide whether to buy a certain book? The first thing you notice is the title, right?

If the title doesn’t appeal to you, you put the book back on the shelf. You want a book that makes you curious, draws you in, and makes it impossible to put the book back on the shelf.

If the title does grab your attention, if you’re like me you’ll read the back cover for more info, and you open the book and read endorsements that might be at the beginning of the book. But remember, it was the title that inspired you to do so. That’s why your title is so important.

So how do you piece together The Perfect Title?

Rachelle Gardner suggests you “identify what kind of feeling or tone you want to convey in the title” and ask yourself, “Does the tone of the title match the tone of the book?”

What is tone?

YourDictionary.com says, “The tone in a story can be joyful, serious, humorous, sad, threatening, formal, informal, pessimistic, and optimistic…. Tone in writing is really not any different than the tone of your voice. You know that sometimes it is not ‘what you say,’ but ‘how you say it.’…The definition of ‘tone’ is the way the author expresses his attitude through his writing.” (Don't miss all the good stuff in Examples of Tone in a Story.) 

Daniel Scocco offers additional tips—seven methods of crafting your title.

He suggests listing nouns, verbs, and adjectives that describe your story and “combine them into different phrases.”

Daniel also suggests describing an important turning point or climax of your story, noticing key words. “Mix and match these words,” he says, “to see what works for you.” I like that: “Mix and match.”

Read the rest of Daniel’s seven tips in his post, “Picking Your Perfect Title.” They are intriguing.

With Rachelle and Daniel’s tips in mind, begin jotting down ideas—lots of ideas. Use a thesaurus to look up key words and find alternative, more interesting words.

Then take a break from your title ideas. Over the next days and weeks, you’ll be surprised at new ideas that will spring into your mind at the strangest times of the day and night. Add those possible titles to your list and again distance yourself from them.

Come back later and take a fresh look. You’ll spot some titles that you can eliminate. Polish the other possible titles and again set them aside for a while.

Next time we’ll have more advice 

on crafting a compelling title for your memoir.

For now, have fun playing around with title ideas.

No one wants to stop reading to look up a word in a dictionary

“What does parsimonious mean?” my highly-educated husband asked. He was reading Eisenhower In War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith.

Parsimonious. I’d known of the word most of my life. It always reminded me of parsnips. But did I know what it meant?

Um… No, I didn’t. Neither did Dave, and we felt embarrassed.

I felt so embarrassed that I stood up, walked to my desk, and opened my thesaurus. Here’s what I found:

not enough

retentive

mean

selfish

self-restrained

Dave was still puzzled so I asked him to read me the sentence with parsimonious in it.

“Eisenhower…was parsimonious with the lives of the troops entrusted to his command….”

Eisenhower was not enough with the lives of the troops?

Eisenhower was retentive with the lives of his troops?

Eisenhower was mean with the lives of his troops?

Eisenhower was selfish with the lives of his troops?

Eisenhower was self-restrained with the lives of his troops?

That last meaning, self-restrained, had potential, so I checked that out in the thesaurus: self-controlled, self-disciplined, restrained. Self-restraint also has to do with being frugal, temperate, not excessive, moderate, measured, limited.

So Dave and I concluded Ike valued his troops’ lives and was frugal when it came to endangering them. He practiced self-restraint when it came to sending troops into harm’s way: He recognized the danger he could put them in but exercised restraint so no one would suffer or die unnecessarily.  

OK, that’s enough about parsimonious. My point is this: When you write your memoir, use words your readers will understand.

No one appreciates having to stand up, walk over to the bookshelf, take down the dictionary or thesaurus, and look up a word.

In fact, I suspect most readers simply won’t do it.

Your goal is to make it easy for everyone to read your memoir.

Many years ago, journalism instructors taught us to write for an eighth grade audience. That’s not a typo. Eighth graders!

Recently I ran across that same advice.*

And it’s good advice. It yields benefits:

“We shouldn’t discount simple writing,

but instead embrace it.

We should aim to reduce complexity in our writing

as much as possible.

We won’t lose credibility in doing so.

Our readers will comprehend and retain

our ideas more reliably.

And we’ll have a higher likelihood

of reaching more people.”

Shane Snow,

This Surprising Reading Level Analysis

Will Change the Way You Write; emphasis mine

You can still use interesting, expressive, musical, graphic, textured, dazzling words—words that zing—as long as they’re familiar to your readers, effective words like:

skedaddle

befuddle

jolly

jovial

harrumph

hooligan

ruffian

rascal

scaliwag

scoundrel

a blowhard

paunchy

tattered

merry

beguiling

spirited

whimsical

Dear William Zinsser wrote about the importance of choosing words: “Banality is the enemy of good writing. The challenge is to not write like everybody else.” Writers should avoid a word that’s merely serviceable—useful, practical—or dull, he said, and instead strive for freshness.

I jotted down of a few simple yet vivid words penned by Zinsser in his Writing About Your Life:

a sea of codgers, codging the time away

a courtly man

a lofty wicker chair

he listened…with exquisite courtesy

a cultivated man

a rangy, easygoing man

a compact man

he had a scholar’s face: intelligent and quizzical

A word of caution: Use your dictionary and thesaurus wisely. Janice Hardy blogged about “an episode of Friends where the dumb-yet-lovable Joey wrote a letter of recommendation. To sound smart, he used the thesaurus and replaced all his ‘dumb’ words with ‘smart ones.’”  Janice continued, “‘They’re warm, nice people with big hearts’ became ‘They’re humid, pre-possessing homosapiens with full-sized aortic pumps.’”

So go ahead and use words with sparkle and pizzazz—just choose words that most people understand.  

*Additional resources:

Pretentious and More: The Words Most Often Looked Up

Top NYT list of most frequently looked-up words

Words, words, words

Written words are merely shapes and scratches on a paper or black squiggles on a computer screen.

But they pack punch. They have power. Potential.

Words inspire, comfort, entertain, make the heart soar, cause laughter and tears. Words can change lives.

Words are a memoirist’s most important tools. We must learn to use them with excellence.

“Words—especially religious words, words that have to do with the depth of things—get tired and stale the way people do," writes Frederick Buechner. "Find new words or put old words together in combinations that make them heard as new, make you yourself new, and make you understand in new ways.” (From Now and Then; emphasis mine)

So, use crisp, bright, refreshing words—

but avoid ornamental words,

extravagant, snobbish words,

self-important words to impress readers,

elusive words that make your readers get up and find a dictionary.

A good thesaurus and dictionary can be a memoirist’s best friend. Computer programs usually have a thesaurus—a minimal one, but one that could help find a better word quickly.

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner,” writes Diane Setterfield. “Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”

 “I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions,” writes James Michener.

“…The right words in the right order might be worth a thousand pictures,” says Roy Peter Clark. 

“Words whispered, shouted, and sung.

Words that move, dance,

and change in size and color.

Words that say,

‘Taste me, smell me, eat me, drink me….’

[T]he word has the power to create.…

When God says,

‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1:30),

light is.…

It is this creative power of the word

we need to reclaim.…

(Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey,

emphasis mine)

One of my favorite blog posts from the past is Gather “crackly”words for your memoir. Don’t miss it! (If you haven’t already started the practice of gathering “crackly” words, you’ll want to start right away.)

You’ll also enjoy reading another blog post from the past, The power and potential of words.

Take four minutes to read those two posts and then get out your manuscript and replace boring, tired words with words that have zing and melody and texture.

“Writing is the painting of the voice,” said Voltaire.

Have fun!