Your book’s title is crucial for its success. It should evoke emotions, invite intrigue, and stir curiosity or even fear of the unknown. These things are essential for novels and memoirs. Although nonfiction has different expectations, it must still incite curiosity and make your potential reader wonder.
To achieve all of this, you must follow the proverbial W-5.
The W-5 refers to the five questions a story needs to answer: Who? What? Where? When? and Why?
You don’t need to include all of them in the title; there need not be just one answer. However, answering these questions can help you develop a unique and interesting title.
By creating a chart with the question in column one and the answer (or more than one answer) in the next column, the title often jumps out at you from the table you have created.
In the “Who” section, we can name the protagonist or someone or something he will save, like “Don Quixote” (Miguel de Cervantes), “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (Mark Twain), “Antony and Cleopatra” (William Shakespeare), and many more.
To answer the “What” question, you must look at the obstacles and challenges the protagonist goes through. For example, a title that answers the “what” question is “The Man in the Iron Mask” (Alexandre Dumas).
When answering the where? Consider whether your novel takes place in an unusual or exotic location. The place could be real or metaphoric. Examples of books that answer the “Where” question are “East of Eden” (John Steinbeck), “A Passage to India” (E.M. Forster), and “Animal Farm” (George Orwell).
The When? Deals with the story’s time frame or origins. Examples include “Tuesdays with Morrie” (Mitch Albom) and “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Arthur C. Clark).
How did the obstacles your character faced come about? This answer finds the reason for the story. Examples of this are “The Guns of Navarone” (Alistair MacLean) and “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (John Le Carre).
Now that you have filled the table, you can start running combinations. Take place and name like “Anne of Green Gables” or time and a metaphor, like “The Day of the Jackal.” Once you have a few titles in hand, ask a friend what they think the book is about based on the title or what feelings it evokes in them. Make sure the title has no alternate meaning you didn’t know of.
I can promise you one thing: when you get a good title, you will have a gem in your hand, and the road to success will be opened.