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Titles

6/22/2014

 

Ponderings by Henri Bensussen, MCWC board member and
Mendocino Quill's editor, a.k.a. The Maven

Picture
Web Log Maven Henri/etta Bensussen
Henri serves on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. She worries endlessly, fruitlessly, and in between writes tragic poetry and comical short stories.
5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, the Maven in her rocking chair restless with worry: should she title her latest poetry manuscript “Unframed, in Blue,” or simply “Blue”? Attending a Colrain Manuscript Conference, she learned poem titles must not be trite. Titles are as important as the content they describe. It’s job is to catch an editor’s eye as he/she scans the Table of Contents, or said eye could slither right off your page and onto someone else’s.  

She worries that “Blue” itself has become trite in the past ten minutes while she worried over it. At home, after the conference, she wrote a poem entitled “The Importance of Titles” and began it this way:  

The Editor scans the Contents Page,
points out my “Ode to Mom.” 
“Trite,” he says. To him it’s one
too many Romantic paeans  
for a dead parental icon. 
The poem expanded into a 5-stanza memoir of her chain-smoking mother, prompted by noticing, on a friend’s antique dressing table, the mark a burning cigarette leaves on wood—its smoke print.  Like Hansel & Gretl’s crumbs, such details might lead you home, or leave you lost.

The Maven found herself wondering where her beloved readers find their prompts. However do they choose their titles? She would welcome some answers.

The Maven’s Ravenings appear the last week of each month. Guest postings are welcome—click on the “Submissions” bar for directions.
Norma Watkins link
6/24/2014 10:08:43 pm


I'm terrible at titles. I spent years on a novel named after the main character: Wingate. A publisher said they liked the first part about a little girl at a hotel. I wrote a new novel about the little girl and what did I call it? Young Wingate.

Susan Bono link
6/29/2014 02:09:17 pm

I had several teachers in my early years who gave me exercises in titling articles and stories. I don't remember ANYTHING these taskmasters said about the process, but I came away with the idea that every piece of writing needs to have a title and that the best titles point to some aspect of the theme. Titles like "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" have always done more for me than "Moby Dick" or "Tom Sawyer." I lean toward the thematic in my own titles.


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