Rate my future novel's title

>>9280394
alternative: A Monopoly on Truth

I wouldnt read it.
It reeks of pretentiousness. a claim to nothing but itself.
Make that a theme, or an abstract line for resonance but as a title it's terrible.

>>9280400
What are your favorite book titles then?

You know, so I know you know what you're talking about

>>9280405
why does it have to be my favorite?
even books i hate have beter titles than that.
trust me it's awful.

>>9280406
favorite book titles

not favorite books' titles

>>9280407
i know what you meant.
but it's really bad, man.
It's basically just a meta-title with no reference or engagement.
Its like titling a book "a bunch of pages inside a cover".
Its so smarmy and cute you wanna kill the author a little.

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>>9280409
Ok, suit yourself.

The main thing that pisses me off is that book titles are just so vague and general and portray generalities that they only are meaningful to the author himself, for whatever reason.

The main theme of my book is gonna be the futility of reason in the face of experience, and the superiority of phenomena over thought.

I figure my title is eye-grabbing, even if it sounds pretentious. I don't want some vague shit like some allusion to some historical figure, or some vague dichotomy or duality like "pride and prejudice" or "crime and punishment" or "war and peace"

>>9280394
So you still don't know how to choose a totally /lit/ title
>take a book written by Shakespeare
>smash the thing on the ground
>pick from two to four words
>here's your title

>>9280414
so it's a philosphical text?
The problem is that it's cold and yet insisting on an in-joke we already get.
It's going to be awful as a story unless you think about a more sensual and artistic title.
When you say vague and general titles are bad, i assume you have very little imagination. A good title is like a good painting, you kinda get it on first grasp, but the real juice is in the details.

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>>9280394
Sorry, but Gail Anderson-Dargatz won the gold medal for cute & clever book titles.
And that was almost 20 years ago.
Every publishing house that has tried to top her A Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe For Bees has failed miserably, and came off as dated, foolish, and overly market-driven.
Wally Lamb's saccharine Boomer/GenX-bait titles She's Come Undone, and I Know This Much Is True, released around the same time as Anderson-Dargatz's books, are particularly nauseating examples, but there are probably hundreds out there.

Anyway, unless you're a notable author your job is to write the book -- the publisher will figure out the title.

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>>9280416
>implying I can't think of my own, better title

>>9280423
>so it's a philosphical text?

I suppose, I want the novel to be vivid in its descriptions, almost manic. I want it to be glorious, a vision of impending doom.

>The problem is that it's cold and yet insisting on an in-joke we already get.

What about:

Upon Closer Inspection, the Horizon Betrays You

>When you say vague and general titles are bad, i assume you have very little imagination. A good title is like a good painting, you kinda get it on first grasp, but the real juice is in the details.

But that's just a copout. Like saying a book has multiple interpretations and thus has no onus of making any objective sense. Hogwash.

>Every publishing house that has tried to top her A Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe For Bees has failed miserably, and came off as dated, foolish, and overly market-driven.

Those are quirky and zany and ultimately senseless. Upon closer inspection, they mean nothing. Like a Wes Blanderson movie

meant to give you a (you)

>>9280425
>Anyway, unless you're a notable author your job is to write the book -- the publisher will figure out the title.

But why is this even a thing? Why is it assumed that publishers know more about titles than the flipping author himself?

>>9280442
>Upon Closer Inspection, the Horizon Betrays You
It's better. but still too long and kinda corny.

>But that's just a copout. Like saying a book has multiple interpretations and thus has no onus of making any objective sense. Hogwash.

no not at all. If you use your brain, all art is just sensual abstraction applied to logic and context. Different title work better for different stories and unless your book is pure philosphical meanderings, this title is gross.

>>9280453
cuz marketing you autist, soemthing youre demonstrating a very basic inability to do.

>>9280453
>But why is this even a thing? Why is it assumed that publishers know more about titles than the flipping author himself?
publishing houses have marketing departments and they are in the business of selling books.
Just because you are a capable writer doesn't mean you are capable at marketing.

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>>9280457
>no not at all. If you use your brain, all art is just sensual abstraction applied to logic and context. Different title work better for different stories and unless your book is pure philosphical meanderings, this title is gross.

Says the dude that can't give me any examples of a good title

Ya'll are a bunch of hacks. Go watch your candy flicks

>>9280469
Look, if you want my honest opinion, just about every book ever has a better title?
are you happy now? i didnt want to hurt your feelings.

>Ya'll are a bunch of hacks. Go watch your candy flicks

no one will ever care about your opinion.

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>>9280475
>, just about every book ever has a better title?

lol, this just confirms that you've never read a good book in your life

Hack status: CONFIRMED

>>9280484
okay.
you think that.
but i will rest tonight truly happy that im not as deluded as you.

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>>9280469
why in fuck do you think you'll be the one to choose the title?
are you intending to self-publish?
if not, it's highly unlikely you'll be the one choosing a title

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>>9280496
Because if I don't get to choose the title, GUESS WHAT?

THEY WON'T HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF PUBLISHING MY BOOK, JACKASS

Official Title Power Rankings

GOD TIER:

1. Title is allusion to mythology

GREAT TIER

2. Title is allusion to Shakespeare
3. Title is allusion to the Bible

Good Tier:

4. Title is a character's name
5. Title is allusion to some other literary/poetic classic

OKAY TIER

6. Title describes action or theme of story

MEME TIER

7. Title is line from the book

SHIT TIER

8. Title is stupid, pretentious, unrelated trash

>>9280394
I unironically like it, op. Just as an exercise though, if you had to come up with a two-word title, what would that be? A single word?

>>9280502
lol you are such a dumb fucking dweeb.
have fun with your edgy book about shit everyone already knows and can't be bothered to read about from an autistic kid with terrible aesthetic taste.

>>9280502
You're not even trying anymore :/

>>9280507
you can't tier names like that, it doesn't work

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>>9280507
Fuck your allusions, hack

>>9280508

Horizon's Vignette

Wanton Wants

Loved Lifeblood

Nebbish Unprovocations

Mien

>>9280569
>Horizon's Vignette
sepia-tier

>Wanton Wants
porn-star, gross aliteration shit

>loved lifeblood
just boring

>nebbish unprovocations
naive but probably the most accurate and suitable for your novel (though only if you become self-aware enough to realize the faultiness of your premise and work that into your novel somehow)

>mien
boring.

>>9280569
Also, "Love Trumps Hate"

>>9280462
>>9280466
poster probably assumes that, in a domain as "authentic" as literature, a good book will naturally spread by word of mouth.

Brief Moments of Clarity Amidst a Buggering
written under the pseudonym 'Lindsey Stillwater', because that's my captcha.

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>>9280576
Fuck you dude, you gotta be trolling at this point, if you haven't been already

And what exactly is the faultiness of my premise???

Also, another title:

"Bathetic"

>>9280588
>Also, another title:
>"Bathetic"

With a picture of Spurdo, indubitably

>>9280585
this is the first decent title in the thread.
It paints a sensual picture that actually intrigues.
take not OP

>>9280588
the faultiness of your premise is your belief that anyone would be interested in a philosophical "story" that doesn't have aesthetic and sensual draw for regular readers.

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>>9280592
>Brief Moments of Clarity

But if blatantly STEALS another book's title...

Another title: 'Frisson'

>>9280394
i wouldnt give it a second look if i saw that title.

>>9280595
nothing is original.
unless its a stupid made up word like frission or bathetic, which in those cases we'd be better off if they'd never been used at all.

The Pregnant Limitations of My Desire

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>>9280599
>>9280600
>>9280603
Now you're just fuckin shitposting

Rate my title guuys:

Nascence Crescence

>>9280613
now thats a title

>>9280613
Your titles are shit. Really. Which makes me think the writing is probably also shit.

Rate mine
Large men, as a present

>>9280613
i dont think you realize how many different peopel have told your your titles are shit bro.
Its not the same person, which i find hilarious.
you definitely suck dude.

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>>9280629
>>9280634
NO.

GIVE ME YOUR FAVORITE BOOK TITLES YOU FLIPPIN HACKS.

OR FOREVER CONDEMN YOURSELF TO HACKERY.


more titles:

Mr. Druthers
Co-evil
Jumped Up & Jazzed

>>9280646

>Mr. Druthers
decent but easy

>co-evil
doesn't ring properly but theres something here

>Jumped and Jazzed
lol this better be a light-hearted period piece

and trust me, more likely than not just about any book that is published, has a tittle better than yours.

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>>9280656
>and trust me, more likely than not just about any book that is published, has a tittle better than yours.

NAME ONE.

NAME ONE FUCKING BOOK.

FUcKING HACK.

What about:

Co-evil Col. Evil and Co.

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>>9280660
>Co-evil Col. Evil and Co.

or

Skeevy Feels
Inexorable Exhortation
Atavistic Shibboleths
Palaver & Cadaver

>>9280670
kek

The man who would never exist

>>9280502
my mistake, didn't realise you were trolling.
carry on...

>>9280681
No

>>9280689
Why

>>9280700
Just no.
'The man who would never be' is much better.

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>>9280733
planning a sequel?

>>9280749
It's a much better title than "man who would never exist", that's all I'm saying.

awful name

>>9280681
"that man did he exist? I'm not sure. can we find out if that man is existing or not?"

>>9280613
They're genuinely bad

reeks of pomo cowardice, sorry OP

Are you Jonathan Safran Foer?

>>9280502
This is the issue with this website, you don't know if you're arguing with a genuine autist or a troll with autism.

more:

The Unbelievable Adventure
Dollhouse Meat
There might be a Story in here
My Book, MY TITLE
My Storybook
Open / Sky / Soul
Get 'em While They're Still Hot!
Feelin' Lonely?
BUY ME and other stories
Revengeance
Blood on the Moon
Sideways Grin of a Horse like a Cunt
Keep Reading

>>9281167
(cont.)

My Top 10 Favorite Stories

What I Talk About When I Talk About Love

>insight into what the book is about
>evokes carver's style
>fantastic title

How A Chicken Salad Sandwich Saved Me From Myself
Love in the Time of the Unbearable, Unending Loneliness
Cavity's Rainbow: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
My (666) Brunches in Hell

>>9280394
It sounds like a post rock album

Try 'words mean nothing' or 'the words mean nothing'
Last one's better

About as inssuferable as John Green novel

s/z

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>>9280670
OP here, back

The Wind's Visage on the Trees
I Have No Hands, but I Must Write
There is No Mart, but I Must Shart
"The Words, the Sentences", the Book

>>9280686
>>9280810
>>9280906
>>9280913
>>9280920
>>9282362
>>9280922
You're the fuckin trolls here, asswipes. Never amounted to anything in their lives

>>9280394
A bit hipster-ish, but not bad - unless you're writing a nihilistic novel, then this title is garbage.

>>9282324
It does, actually. I was thinking the something similar.

My novels' almost finished, ad here are my tittles (maybe)

1. [Insert Line From Shakespeare Here] - no, lol, that's literally the title, im not gonna put anything there, its just gonna say those words; allusuon to the fact that novelist writers often go to shakespeare for titles; clever, funny, meta, girls will like it

2. MY LIFE WITH ALL THE NAMES CHANGED - in all caps, just like that, because its a coming of age novel about me, and pretty much what happene'd in my life, exactly, nothing changed, except the names a la jerk kerouac's on the road again where he hung out with hunter thompson etc. but changed his name and the others.

3. Everything You Know About Me and Others - good title, very 2016-17, very hip, youthful,, empathy, togetherness, we're coming together, getitng to know each other, across divides, etc. Trust me it's good shit.

4. The Bathtub's Music - this is the one I would choose if I were going to write under a female pseudonym, and the cover would be a cello in the bathtub and the blurb would be me again under the name of another woman saying it's "achingly beautiful". trust me.

feedback appreciated

>>9280394
I've been struggling with naming my short story collection for two months already. My friends have rejected each title for following reasons:

>Little Good in the Hearts of Loners
"The wordplay on 'Little' is already used in the top book of the last year, also it sounds like a bad indie group"
>Stilted Introductions
"Nobody cares about your career, and even if it was thematically relevant to the work, it still would sound like you are talking about yourself"
>Antisolipsism [subtitle] I Exist Only As Long As I Am Percieved
"Too quirky, reeks of philosophy 101"

Current variant is
>The Sick and The Sicknesses
But this one I'm personaly not a fan of. At least it relates to common elements between stories, but on a very surface level, and still has the air of being overlong and unnecessary.

>>9280414
>The main theme of my book is gonna be

ohhohohoho

OP you're terrible at this, you have to give it a great ambitious name like Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow, or something starting with The

>>9280394
>coming up with a title before finishing your first draft

the ultimate mark of a pleb who will never finish writing anything, let alone something worth reading

Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down

the title of my diary

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>>9280394

These Are Loafers is clearly the superior title

>>9280394
Sounds like an album from Neutral Milk Hotel or whatever the fuck they're called.

>>9283985
>MY LIFE WITH ALL THE NAMES CHANGED
this one could actually work if you meme your book hard enough

What about 'Commencement Bay', last time I got high the two words just got stuck in my head for some reason

>>9280646

Fucked Up and Fazed

>>9284730
The Masturbations

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>>9280394
sufjan stevens/10

>>9280507
titles that are lines from the book are almost always also titles that describe the theme of the story, e.g. their eyes were watching god and you shall know our velocity.

>>9284373
wow, a sincere post? on /lit/? i must be dreaming

i might read "The Sick and Their Sicknesses," but the rest are pretty bad. antisolipsism especially. if you're going to invent a word for your title, you shouldn't feel the need to immediately define the word. it should be able to stand on its own as a complete thought. stilted introductions isn't nearly as good as Introductions, little good in the hearts of loners doesn't really seem significant enough to be the title of anything