Some of the articles I write for pay come with a title and some require me to create a title. Titling is something I think is kind of hard to do well. I think I have learned a lot in the last couple of years, in part from participating in online forums, in part from blogging and in part from reading things that weren't specifically about titling per se.
Reading the below linked article about Star Wars misquotes really helped me understand something important concerning making good titles. Specifically, the part I quote below gave me some insight into how to try to convey stuff in a nutshell better:
In specific, I wanted to evoke the scene from The Matrix where they talk about spoon bending and the kid tells him "There is no spoon." I looked up the dialogue for that exact scene and decided to go with the phrase "First, realize there is no spoon" as a nutshell version of the scene. I then changed it to First, Realize There is No Glass for an opinion piece talking about the proverbial Glass Ceiling.
Another recent-ish incident that was an epiphany for me was this blog post of mine: A small bright spot. If you look at the URL, you will see that it was originally called "A crappy day with a small bright spot." Please notice that the site is called Mic Eats. When I looked at the site after posting that, it read as "Mic Eats A crappy day..." and I went 'Um, no.' and I changed the title to "A small bright spot." Since then, most posts list a food as the first word of the title and that is frequently followed by some sort of descriptor as to why I chose to eat the thing in question (as I use diet to manage my health issues and often choose something due to specific symptoms, based on research).
I have listened to lots of stories over the years about how sensitive subjects or potentially problematic wording got handled for movies or famous songs or similar. A lot of those stories get handled in a way that gave me a negative view of the practice. But the above incident made me completely rethink the various stories I have heard over the years. It made me feel that handling things carefully is just a matter of good communication. It is not kowtowing to unhealthy expectations in "unsophisticated" people, which is how I had so often felt those examples suggested was the case.
Thus, these days, I try hard to be aware of possible unfortunate interpretations of phrases when taken out of context. If I am pulling a phrase from an article to try to work into a title, I stop and think about how that phrase will sound when removed from the context of the article. Titles need to be pretty information dense. They need to sum up the article fairly well while being snappy and fairly short. Summing it up in an unfortunate manner that will give the wrong impression when taken out of context is not something I want to do.
I generally start with some basic phrases for the main idea and do some brainstorming as to different ways to say that. I try to come up with something fairly short that captures the most important information. I play around with what idea should lead. In other words, I am frequently trying to convey at least two pieces of information in a title and sometimes it makes a big difference which piece of information comes first. Sometimes, it isn't such a big deal. But I like to swap it around and see what impact it has.
Reading the below linked article about Star Wars misquotes really helped me understand something important concerning making good titles. Specifically, the part I quote below gave me some insight into how to try to convey stuff in a nutshell better:
The explanation about how and why the word "No" in the original quote got swapped out for "Luke" in the famous misquote was a huge epiphany for me. I later tried to recreate that effect for a piece I put on a blog of mine. I looked up a movie scene I wanted to reference, and it didn't have anything snappy that captured what I wanted. So I tried to capture the scene in a nutshell, like the above misquote does, and then tweak it to say what I wanted it to say.
1. "Luke, I am your father."
"Luke" probably snuck into the real quote because, taken out of context, "No, I am your father" is not that impactful or recognizable. "Luke, I am your father," on the other hand, is immediately obvious as a line from Star Wars (even if you're not doing the voice, though this line is usually quoted because people want to try out their impersonation of Darth Vader). As a result, the "Luke" version become one of the most memorable movie misquotes of all time.
Famous Star Wars Quotes (That Were Never Said)
In specific, I wanted to evoke the scene from The Matrix where they talk about spoon bending and the kid tells him "There is no spoon." I looked up the dialogue for that exact scene and decided to go with the phrase "First, realize there is no spoon" as a nutshell version of the scene. I then changed it to First, Realize There is No Glass for an opinion piece talking about the proverbial Glass Ceiling.
Another recent-ish incident that was an epiphany for me was this blog post of mine: A small bright spot. If you look at the URL, you will see that it was originally called "A crappy day with a small bright spot." Please notice that the site is called Mic Eats. When I looked at the site after posting that, it read as "Mic Eats A crappy day..." and I went 'Um, no.' and I changed the title to "A small bright spot." Since then, most posts list a food as the first word of the title and that is frequently followed by some sort of descriptor as to why I chose to eat the thing in question (as I use diet to manage my health issues and often choose something due to specific symptoms, based on research).
I have listened to lots of stories over the years about how sensitive subjects or potentially problematic wording got handled for movies or famous songs or similar. A lot of those stories get handled in a way that gave me a negative view of the practice. But the above incident made me completely rethink the various stories I have heard over the years. It made me feel that handling things carefully is just a matter of good communication. It is not kowtowing to unhealthy expectations in "unsophisticated" people, which is how I had so often felt those examples suggested was the case.
Thus, these days, I try hard to be aware of possible unfortunate interpretations of phrases when taken out of context. If I am pulling a phrase from an article to try to work into a title, I stop and think about how that phrase will sound when removed from the context of the article. Titles need to be pretty information dense. They need to sum up the article fairly well while being snappy and fairly short. Summing it up in an unfortunate manner that will give the wrong impression when taken out of context is not something I want to do.
I generally start with some basic phrases for the main idea and do some brainstorming as to different ways to say that. I try to come up with something fairly short that captures the most important information. I play around with what idea should lead. In other words, I am frequently trying to convey at least two pieces of information in a title and sometimes it makes a big difference which piece of information comes first. Sometimes, it isn't such a big deal. But I like to swap it around and see what impact it has.
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