Question Title Length

A lot of Whateley stories, especially recently, have a tendency towards longer titles. One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another, I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore, Diamonds Are a Vamp's Best Friend, etc. It is my personal opinion that such lengthy titles are to the detriment of the stories, and that trying for shorter titles would make them more striking and memorable and less annoying to write about without losing the intended impact of the titles.

In particular, I would like to point to the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire which, like One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another, uses Shakespearean quotes for every title. But she uses a much smaller portion of the quote, leading to titles like Chimes at Midnight, Ashes of Honor, One Salt Sea, and Once Broken Faith. The titles are much catchier and since the first chapter opens with the relevant quote none of the meaning is lost.


If I were to rename my three example stories, here is how I would do so:
One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another would become Woe Doth Tread, and the full quote below the title would remain the same.
I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore would become Kansas No More, or perhaps Not in Kansas or Not Kansas, with the full quote of "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" provided beneath the same way Woe Doth Tread does.
Diamonds Are a Vamp's Best Friend would become a subtitle, like so: As the Drow Flies, or Diamonds Are a Vamp's Best Friend (With formatting and stuff to make it look like a title and subtitle, and probably a better main title than that. Alternatively, you could go simpler and just use Vamp 2: Diamonds Are a Vamp's Best Friend, like some of the earlier WU stories do - it's less catchy, but provides a convenient handle without requiring a second clever title)


This is of course a personal peeve of mine, and I'm guessing that most people don't feel strongly about it. But I think there is a reason that the vast majority of published novels have titles with 3 or fewer words (not counting articles, short prepositions, and conjunctions)

I did exactly this with Myriad Meetings: A Tale of Two Cottages.

Perhaps you don't remember Diane's titles, such as

Ayla and the Birthday Brawl
CHAPTER 11 – The Legend of Florimell, or of Wittiness

by Diane Castle (and the usual troublemakers)


I wonder who has used more title words, Elrod or Diane?

Valentine wrote: Perhaps you don't remember Diane's titles, such as

Ayla and the Birthday Brawl
CHAPTER 11 – The Legend of Florimell, or of Wittiness

by Diane Castle (and the usual troublemakers)


I wonder who has used more title words, Elrod or Diane?

That title has only three words: 'Ayla', 'Birthday', and 'Brawl' (plus an article and a conjunction, but those don't count) . Of course, it has a subtitle as well. So it fits exactly into types of names that I like more.


I don't have a problem with every WU title. I haven't counted, but I'd hazard that less than half are long enough to bother me. But they are common enough that I thought it worth mentioning. It's not a huge deal, but One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another brought it to my attention since I've been on an October Daye binge recently and the contrast stood out, so I thought I would mention it.

Longer story titles can be fun, like Imp 5: The Imp-ossible Tale of the Tell Tail Hart.

There is meaning in my titles, more then just being Shakespearian quotes.

The titles I gave my stories use exactly the parts of the quote I want them too.

"One Woe Doth Tread Upon Another's Heel" - A dark story, with miseries coming one after an other.

I wanted in the title both woe (great sorrow or distress) and the sense of repetition (Doth Tread Upon Another's Heel), so all the words in the titles are needed to be there.

Morpheus wrote: Longer story titles can be fun, like Imp 5: The Imp-ossible Tale of the Tell Tail Hart.

But... I thought it was Imp 5: The Imp-robable Tale of the Hell Tail Tart

DanZilla wrote:

Morpheus wrote: Longer story titles can be fun, like Imp 5: The Imp-ossible Tale of the Tell Tail Hart.

But... I thought it was Imp 5: The Imp-robable Tale of the Hell Tail Tart

Imp 5: The Imp-lausible Tail of the Hell Tart's Tale.

Well, the next Imp story is actually A Teacher's Tail, and it's hard to complain about that title being too long, but it looks like I have a title ready for the story after that one.