I must admit I dread writing titles. I never feel they’re catchy enough. I may come up with something creative, something I think is pure brilliance, but it doesn’t relay relevant information about the content of the piece. It may be too cerebral, too boring or simply a shock-value label.
Rick Warren recently wrote a post about writing “Purpose-Driven Sermon Titles.” (Yes, the man has a franchise. Everything he writes is “purpose-driven.”) The tips he provided for pastors could be for all writers, be they authors of sermons, nonfiction articles or sci-fi novels.
He suggested testing your tentative title with these four questions:
- Will it capture interest?
- Is it clear?
- How appealing is it?
- Is it relevant?
These are important questions that may prove quite helpful.
On the other hand, they may induce greater uncertainty. Only two of them are clear-cut Yes or No questions. The other two “tests” are rather subjective and seek open-ended answers. I may think it is appealing, but could it be more appealing? Where does it fall on the spectrum of least appealing to most appealing? And how do I know if others will find it appealing?
Here are a few other tips and guidelines for writing great titles.
Keep it short. Three to six words is ideal.
Use your title to label and represent. It should reveal what your content is (label) and who will read it (represent). You don’t want to mislead readers with a label that truly only applies to the first or last paragraph. Nor do you want to use high-impact words that appeal to a demographic that isn’t interested in your content. I once wrote a parenting article with “zombie” in the title. While the definition of the word was just what I wanted to portray, it didn’t adequately describe the article nor attract loving parents my direction.
Employ your Thesaurus wisely. You may want a more exciting way to say what you mean, but make sure you know what the words mean. Don’t choose words that you wouldn’t normally use. Use your Thesaurus to remind you of great words you already know.
Don’t settle too soon. First ideas are rarely the best. Keep a running list of tentative titles. Mull them over as you write your piece. Eventually one will stand out. Or you’ll come up with something even better.
For more tips on writing great titles, follow these links:
- How to Write Magnetic Headlines, an 11-part series at CopyBlogger
- Hook Your Readers with Great Chapter Titles
Posted by Bryan on November 24, 2010 at 3:27 pm
As a child, I always thought to myself that titles aren’t important since I love anime and I’ve seen a lot of animes with titles that are way different from the storyline and still love it but now, After reading article tips, I’ve found out that it’s totally different in article writing. It is actually the part of the article that will grab the reader’s attention first. Thanks!