Evolution Erin Talks about Titles

I haven't submitted to The Virginia Quarterly Review, but you'd never know it from looking at their ten most common titles of submissions. (via) I know for a fact that I have a story with title #2 somewhere. The only reason I haven't used #3 is because it is the title of one of my favorite Flannery O'Connor stories. #6,7 and 10 are right up my alley, though #8 and 9 are a little too flashy for my tastes.

All of that said, even before I read this? I've been trying to put myself through Title Rehab. It's kinda dumb to have stories whose titles you hate, like giving your child some name you can't stand. When I went back and thought about it, the pieces I've written that I've really liked over the years have one thing in common: the titles don't suck. One of them even has some function.

So I've been writing down titles that I like. Both real and as yet unused. Most important, completely independent of the stories to which they may belong. My criteria is this: If someone asked me what I was writing, I'd want to respond by saying "I'm working on a story called..."  Real titles that pass this test: Slaughterhouse-Five, The Franchiser, Why I Live at the P.O., The End of the Affair, Harriet the Spy. Titles that do not: Survivor, Unstuck, Feed, everything on that VQR list. See some trends there? Yeah, me too.

This is still all new to me, though...so I suspect I'm going to go through pubescent phases where I try out title styles. Like this one thing I've got, formerly called Promotion. It's now Dennis Explains the Stash, which a few days later sounds to me like a combination of Nickelodeon/Disney programming and a demented Beverly Cleary book. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, though. It's better than Promotion, therefore in accordance with what are apparently my personal tastes, which is a start.

Comments

[Waldo Jaquith]

I've been compiling a most-common-titles list just for the heck of it every few months here at VQR, just because a) we've got this new electronic submission tracking system that makes it possible and b) I'm a big dork. But I assembled this list without any judgment as to the merits of the titles. It's nothing more than a list of the most common titles that we receive, in order of frequency from greatest to least -- there's no moralizing embedded within.

Incidentally, I'd be, like, 1,000% more likely to read something named "Dennis Explains the Stash" than something named "Promotion." I'm a programmer, not a reader, in my capacity at VQR, so my tastes don't much matter. But we get approximately 1.6 kajillion submissions every month, and I can only assume that catchy titles are going to lead readers to approach a work with perhaps a better mindset than yet another memoir titled "Revelation." Or, for that matter, yet another memoir. :)

[erin]

Waldo, thanks for dropping by!

I think someone could step up and name fantastic short stories and novels whose titles follow the convention that unfolded in your data crunching...in the world of litbloggery, it won't surprise me if I see it in the next week or so. Your results struck a chord with me mostly because titles are a part of fiction writing with which I've never been satisfied, yet also never paid much attention to until recently.

[Waldo Jaquith]

I just checked, and we've published four works by the listed names: Smoke, Work, Waiting and Reunion. All were published in the 90s, oddly. Two are poems, two are prose. I'd link to them, but your blog doesn't allow HTML in comments.

[erin]

I have to keep my comment controls turned up to nuclear to combat spam, unfortunately. If you send the links to me at gnomeloaf at gmail, I'll give them their own post and you, of course, much thanks!