What's In A Name?

Ever struggled to come up with a title for your novel? Try this brainstorming technique.

Write down all the words you can think of that describe your book. As an example, imagine a fantasy book about a war against demons. Some words might include: swords, war, demons, shields, fighting, tragedy, betrayal, blood, magic, warriors, honour, intolerance, love, hatred etc...

Make your words as strong and emotive as you can. It doesn't matter if they conflict (it's better that they do), as long as they represent your story.

The next step is to combine two or more of the words. Some combinations will be silly: Magic Intolerance, Hatred Demon Shield. But then some will make more sense: Blood Betrayal, The Demon Shield, The Swords of War...

Try as many combinations as you can think of until you find the one that fits your story best. Remember, you want your title to be strong, and to be representative of what your story is about. There's no point coming up with a title like, Demon Blood, if demon blood isn't important to the story.

Your title has to stand out enough so that people will want to pick your book up from the shelf instead of the one next to it.