Professional Writing Services from MagneticWeb

Here’s two more titles that I love

Dawn Of The Dead

Four Past Midnight

This last title you’ll probably recognise as a Stephen King title. Stephen King must be one of the most successful writers of all time, and anyone who’s read any of his books will know why – you simply can’t put them down. His style of writing is so engaging and magnetic, and you just never know what’s going to happen next.

And he has great titles for most of his books. My favourites are Needful Things, and Night Shift. Another is The Running Man, but I mentioned that in an earlier post.

That last title is one of comparatively few really good titles that start with the word “The”. Most fantastic titles, in my view, avoid that.

Another great horror fiction writer is Ray Bradbury, who has two great titles in Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes. And those titles don’t disappoint – the books are fabulous reading. As is The Martian Chronicles, though that title doesn’t quite have the magic of the others in my view.

In short, the title is everything. Writers working on their craft, whether they’re writing sales copy, or an article, or a book, or anything else, will spend as much time on the title as on the body of what they’re writing.

If any of the books I’ve mentioned in this series had been given an ordinary, nondescript title, would they have been the runaway successes that they are? I doubt it. But it’s only a comparatively recent phenomenon.

In Shakespeare’s time, for example, the title was treated as purely a description of what the play, or book, was about. The title, “Henry V” doesn’t do much to inspire you, even though it’s one of Shakespeare’s great plays that covers the historic battle of Agincourt. And as for “Henry VI Part III”, well . . .

More soon.