The importance of a good title in flash fiction
Titles are often undervalued by writers and not given the respect or attention they deserve. I am on a quest to help rid the world of lazy titles.
A good title in relation to all types of creative writing has two main aims:
- Help explain, predict or give context to a story.
- Attract the reader.
Titles are therefore important in all types of writing, however, in flash fiction they have a greater significance.
Firstly, in the majority of cases the title is not included in the total word count of a story, and as it is the word count that defines flash fiction as flash fiction, the title can be considered as ‘free’ words.
In a 1,000 word story a five word title is equivalent to 0.5% of the word count, this percentage obviously increases as the word count reduces (for example in writing for competitions or anthologies). A five word title in a story restricted to 100 words is 5% of the word count. If you extrapolate this to a 70,000 word novel, the title would be 3,500 words long!
If used well, the title can be used to:
- Misdirect the reader. This helps to set up the reader for the final twist/reveal which is a common approach in flash fiction.
- Help explain or give context (eg period of time, season, genre, character etc) without having to state it in the text.
- Be a fun pun.
Unlike longer works of creative fiction, in flash fiction the misdirection or pun is often not obvious until the reader has finished the story, or even read it for a second time. This is not a bad thing, a clever title won’t distract from the story but may not be immediately obvious to the reader or it may be realised days later, maybe never.
The title is crucial and a great deal of consideration should be taken in crafting it, as it may well make the difference between a good story and a great one (or a mediocre one and a good one).
How to create a good title in fiction
Below we firstly clarify some definitions relevant in title creation, then explain the process for the creation of a good title.
Synonym: A word that means the same as another word in the same language.
Thesaurus: Considered as a synonym dictionary.
Homophone: Two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings or spelling. For example: New/knew, buy/by/bye, sea/see or blew/blue.
Homograph: Two or more words spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and having different meanings. For example: Rose, tear, wind or date.
Idiom: An expression or phrase natural to a language or group of people.
- Process stage 1: Key words
What are the key words related to the story? Once these are identified then these may constitute the title, however, we want good titles so this is probably just the starting point.
Key words can be obvious but you may need to imagine coming up with three or four words which you would use for an internet search to find your story. In longer pieces of fiction you may find writing a synopsis or abstract of the work will help clarify the key aspects and therefore the key words of the story.
Character names can also be a useful word to use within the title, especially if unique or interesting.
- Process stage 2: Associated words
These words can help develop interesting, attractive titles as well as the basis for titles with puns or twists. Brain storm for associated words using the key words as a basis. These associated words and the original key words can then be highlighted for synonyms using the function on WORD (highlight the word and right click for options), which will increase your list of associated words. An online thesaurus or app can also be used (or indeed an old-school hard copy).
Sometimes your now extensive list of words might inspire a title in itself, for example if there is a single word or phrase which associates two or more of your key words such as in a homophone or homograph which may create some interesting word-play. An example of this can be seen in story 2 in the real examples below.
If nothing is apparent, you may also brainstorm ideas around each of the words on your list.
- Process stage 3: Idiom search
If inspiration has not yet hit, then a useful tool is to search for an idiom using an online search. These are common phrases associated with the word of choice which can then be used in tact (assuming no copyright issues) or altered to fit the story. An example of this can be seen in story 3 in the real examples below.
Examples
Story 1: worked example.
To illustrate the full process, I suggest following me in trying to construct a title to the synopsis of an unwritten story. Randomly I considered a very brief story synopsis of a woman called Claire who is due to marry her abusive fiancé but is finding it hard to decide whether to go through with it or not. What could the title be? By all means try it yourself before reading my attempt.
Key words for this story could be: decision, marriage, fiancé, love, hate, abuse. The title could simply be: ‘Claire’s Decision’ but that’s rather boring so I took it further….
Brainstorming words associated with ‘decision’ came up with ‘dilemma’, a more appropriate word. So a better title could be ‘Claire’s Dilemma’ or ‘The Dilemma of Claire’ but this still feels a little poor, so I looked to change the name of the main character (via a Google search of baby names) to something more interesting like Eloise or a name which is more rhythmical with the word ‘dilemma’ such as Odette or Della, but I still wasn’t overjoyed.
Next I considered synonyms of ‘dilemma’ via the synonym function on the WORD document:
This gave me: ‘quandary’ and ‘predicament’. Brainstorming around these words didn’t give me much inspiration so then I then tried Idioms via the website: http://www.theidioms.com which listed one idiom each for ‘predicament’ and ‘quandary’ but seven pages of idioms for the term ‘decision’, one of these striking me immediately as having potential — ‘Between a rock and a hard place’.
The final title being a slight twist to this idiom creating an interesting, relevant and catchy title: ‘Between Love and a Hard Place.’
Story 2: Real example (published in Thedrabble.wordpress.com in October 2022).
Title: The Creator
God had commanded an order to life: Love, marriage, consummation.
Raised correctly, Fiona had matured into a confident, slim, faultless young lady. She would undoubtedly attract the attention of the perfect man.
Watching her pure daughter dressed appropriately in white, drift down the aisle, Fiona’s mother felt nothing but pride. Pride in Fiona, but equally pride in her own parenting and beliefs.
With the approval of god’s representative and witnesses, Fiona stood at the altar and reached for the hand of the man she hoped to learn to love one day. With her other hand she caressed her flattish stomach.
The title I came up with is based on just one word ‘Creator’ and was simply an associated word from an initial brainstorm of ideas. There was no need to look further as it is a double meaning of both god and a mother.
Story 3: Real example: (published online http://www.FiftyWordStories.com, October 2021).
Title: Time will tell
He had time to write and he had a plot. His favoured genre was crime, schemes to outwit the establishment. This book would be an autobiography.
He wasn’t yet sure of the ending but there was time for that, a lot of time. The judge had given him ten years.
This story title was derived from the associated word ‘time’ because it is not only mentioned in the story but ‘doing time’ is a phrase associated with a prison sentence. Using an online idiom site the phase ‘time will tell’ was one of the outcomes, and as the phrase uses the word ‘tell’ which can easily be associated with writing or story-telling, then it was an easy decision to use as the title.
In conclusion, a good title is an essential aspect of good writing and you may find your own system of creation, but until you do, try this process and give your titles the respect and attention they deserve.
Fusilli Writing 