or, Why Good Titles Are Important

One of my side gigs is working as a slush reader for an online periodical. I read the incoming stories, determine which are worth my time and the primary editor’s, flag any obvious places for improvement, and pass them along. It’s hard work, especially considering the negligible pay, and if you’re not careful it can be soul-deadening. Some of the horrid content that gets submitted could make the skin crawl, and not in a good way.

On the other hand, the experience has been invaluable. I’m a far better writer now because I’ve gone through the fires of this torment. The lessons were many and varied; the process, if painful, has certainly been memorable.

One of the first things I had to learn was how to insulate myself from the worst of the slings and arrows of outrageous would-be writers. I soon developed a process which, at least thus far, has prevented a truly obscene amount of psychic damage.

The first thing is to do an initial scan, a surface-level look-see where I make sure the text won’t hurt me too much to read. If it’s badly misspelled, has passages ENTIRELY IN CAPS, contains either too little punctuation or, too, much, or consists of massive unbroken page-long paragraphs uninterrupted by anything remotely resembling a pause, I give it the notation “Written in crayon” and put it in a Danger Do Not Read pile. What my editors do afterward is entirely their affair — but they’ve been warned.

No doubt you’ve inferred this, but it’s worth making explicit: The first thing I see is the title. If it shows any of the above markers, it’s usually a waste of time even to look at the rest of the piece. I’m thorough by nature, so I always take a quick scan. It’s paid off twice in the past several years… out of thousands of rejected stories.

Mind you, this is the most cursory of scans. I don’t demand that the title be clever or even meaningful. That’s above my pay grade. All I do is make sure it’s not written in crayon, metaphorically speaking.

After publication, there’s a marvelous little widget for each story that tracks numbers of readers. There’s also a Like button. Something I’ve noticed is that hits are fewer when the title is bland, and so are Likes. It’s a reliable metric. It tells me plainly that, even before a reader reaches the opening lines, that all-important hook, something inside them has already decided if they’re going to enjoy what’s in front of them.

I’m reminded of an old poem written by one Horace Smith, a banker with literary aspirations. It was titled “On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below.”

It’s in sonnet form, with a pleasant rhyme scheme, a simple rhythm, memorable metaphors, a literary allusion, and a truly marvelous twist ending. Yet it’s virtually unknown today, in part because the title is almost as long as the text as well as being eminently forgettable.

Another reason might be the companion piece composed by someone rather more famous, Percy Bysshe Shelley — except that, during their lifetimes, Smith was by far the more well-known. Shelley lived and died more obscurity even than infamy, of which he had a decent share. Horace Smith published twenty or so popular novels, reams of poetry, and even the odd play.

Yet today we know Shelley’s poem, quite possibly because it’s entitled “Ozymandias”. Far more evocative, surely; easier to remember, too.

Mind you, it’s also true that, while Horace Smith enjoyed literary success during his lifetime, Shelley was propelled to fame post-mortem largely through the efforts of his widow, who devoted decades of her life and efforts to the task of making him palatable to a Victorian public which had earlier despised him as an immoral radical. Smith’s fame ended with his death, whereas Shelley became an immortal only long afterward.

But the title certainly didn’t hurt.

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

“I am great Ozymandias,” saith the stone,
“The King of kings: this mighty city shows
The wonders of my hand.” The city’s gone!
Naught but the leg remaining to disclose
The sight of that forgotten Babylon.

(excerpts from the two poems -JS)