On Titling, Titles, and the Process Whereby We Condemn or Bless Works of Literature to be Forever Branded

by Nathan Norton

The title of a story is more than the act of picking the central image of the work and regurgitating it in front of all the other words you spewed onto the page. That’s just plain lazy. Your title is the first thing about your story the reader reads, people. Have some pride. Or, conversely, have absolutely no pride and then title it. But whatever you do, don’t use adequate amounts of pride while titling.

The title is the awning that stretches across the entirety of your story and casts its shadow on every syllable therein, coloring a reader’s perception of the prose. It’s important.

Perhaps that sounds a bit dramatic. It probably is. But it’s also true.  When a reader consumes the title of a story, then moves on to the meat of the thing, that title is always looming somewhere under the surface, altering how one perceives the tale being spun. If a story is labeled: Vixens, Foxes, and a Couple of Field Mice, a reader is going to be on the lookout for vixens, foxes, and some field mice. This could be literal, metaphorical, analogical, whatever, but even if they aren’t aware they’re doing it, they’ll look for it. This could dramatically alter how someone reads a piece of fiction. Keep this in mind while you construct your titles.

If you’ve never read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, I’m about to ruin it for you. It’s a fantastic satirical essay (here being cited for fiction, since sarcasm is the writer’s tongue of choice here and his approach is from a narrator with entirely fictional ideals from Swift’s own, in the literal sense) about how the impoverished Irish of 1729 could ease their financial troubles by selling children as edible delicacies to rich folk.

While we read, we are on the lookout for this titular proposal. When we realize what exactly it is, we are, for your understatement of the day, surprised. He’s modestly proposing the eating of babies. Like, with a fork and stuff. For a treat. Swift goes as far as to present possible ways to prepare the children as if they’re not small human people, but inanimate delicious blobs of tasty. He argues his point with actual monetary advantages they would be actual good ideas if it wasn’t for the whole cannibalism of small children, send your soul directly to Hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200 thing. The sarcasm and absurdity is so extreme throughout, we realize it was in play even in the title.

A title’s primary job is to subtly temper every element of a story, regardless of length, into a fun-size Halloween pumpkin-shaped bucket bite. It needs to be a whisper of the oratory to follow. Think of it as a Jeopardy-style giving of the answer to the question your story answers before the question is asked.

Consider a story by Donald Barthelme called Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby. Barthelme took this title straight from the first nine words of the story. This method is unique (and, I’ll point out, entirely more appropriate and satisfying than naming the story Colby—don’t name your story after the primary character. Just don’t). It immediately sets tone. Can you feel how the language is constructed to communicate nonchalance and a general disposition to think lightly? There’s an audible shrug in this title that can’t be ignored—a stroke of brilliance

It’s eternally important to remember that titles are not trifles. You’re not labeling a filing cabinet. Don’t just tell us what’s in this story, declare your confidence in your writing and tell us what is the story, but through subtlety and cleverness.

My last blog was about the importance of first lines. Well, a title is the line before the first line. It introduces your story and gives it character before it has characters. It gives voice before a voice is heard, establishes tone before its established, because, sayeth Dickens, it is the keynote. It’s the precursor to everything your work contains.

It’s nearly impossible to teach titling, so I’m not trying to do that. What I’d rather do is showcase some things that good titles are comprised of and a thing or two to keep in mind while trying to do it. Whatever you choose as your title, there’s a single thing that will always leave you with a more satisfying moniker than merely slapping the primary image or theme as a header.

Always enter into character as you write your title. Never write your title as you-the-author—write it in the voice and tone that your story carries throughout. It is your responsibility to enter into character in the title of the piece, to immediately declare your intentions to the reader. Never approach your title as an objective observer. Always have tonal and character-charged biases that shape your perception of the label. How you construct your title will either bless your story with a permanently memorable calling card, or condemn it to be instantly forgettable. Do you really want your story to be remembered as “that one story with the eccentric homeless guy apparently dressing himself with things he finds out of dumpsters in preparation for a party who’s also planning to steal away the woman of his dreams there” or Fresh or Also, Not? If for nobody else’s sake, do it in the name of brevity.

Nathan Norton serves as intern to the Third Coast fiction editors.

First Impression, Last Chance

by Nathan Norton

Certain things in life are kind-hearted enough to extend to you a second chance. Your story’s initial impact on editors is not one of those kind-hearted things.

You get one little lonesome chance. A chance. Not chances . . . chance. One. That’s it. One chance to hook the editor, assistant editor, reading intern, or whatever other English-savvy entity that might be holding your publishing future in the palm of their usually rather opinionated hand.

As a reader for Third Coast, I can say with a certain degree of experience that this is resoundingly and inescapably true. If you don’t believe me, talk to some editors or other lit mag readers. They’ll tell you the same thing. Page one—often sentence one—is where you need to start shining, or else you’ll be discarded like Hillary Duff’s musical relevance.

The first line of a story has a hefty workload. Raise questions, introduce conflict, establish tone and voice, and many times introduce your primary player(s). It doesn’t have to do them all, but it has to do a handful of them. Without most of these elements in the first one or two lines, your reader is already asking, “Why am I reading this?”

The hairy and entirely realistic nature of the beast is that editors don’t have time to sift through your story looking for potential. Fluff is for pillows. Fat is for Albert. Cut them both. Be interesting and direct immediately.

Most editors I’ve spoken with and read advice columns from will give a short story one page to get them interested. The most generous among them ventured as far as three. The cruelest among them said if the first sentence isn’t unique and intriguing, they toss the piece immediately. That means that no matter how amazing your story might get on page twelve when your ninja-wizard detective launches a Montana-shaped fireball out of his Mysterious Trench Coat of Mystery and disintegrates the Dreaded Duck of Doom, the editor didn’t get that far. There wasn’t enough spice in the first page to keep him wanting more.

It really is quite a tall order. And if it crushes your soul just a little to know that many editors may be reading nothing more than a few paragraphs of that masterpiece you’ve been working on . . . well, it should. You have to be at the top of your craft at the top of your product. Evocative language, original voice, conflictive first sentences, they’re all early attention grabbers that seize readers by their easily distracted haunches and demand “I’M WORTH READING!”

Consider some of the following first sentences:

The Zamboni had to go around Joey Cooper, the man thinking about omelets. – Misha Angrist, “So Much the Better”

It was half-past love on New Day in Zenith and the clocks were striking Heaven. – J.G. Ballard, “Passport to Eternity”

A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. – Raymond Carver, “Viewfinder”

During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. – Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist”

I stood in my filthy overalls and boots serving deviled eggs to a woman who had lost her rabbit. – Peyton Marshall, “Bunnymoon”

I know, right? Don’t you just want to read all of those stories right this very moment to find out what in G. Gordon Liddy’s name is going on? These are great examples of mere sentences—not paragraphs, but sentences—that capture attention quicker than Tiger Woods’ personal infidelity captured frenzied media coverage. This is the kind of effect you want to have on your readers. You want a reader to say, “Tell me more, Master Storyteller!” not “Who cares, ya hack?”

Polish that first page. Read it over and over again. If you don’t find yourself grinning just a little at your accomplishments in the preliminary sentences every time the words pass your eyeballs, re-write them until you do. Then re-write them again until your friends and family do. Then re-write them again until complete strangers do. Be sure to make it sparkle. Your first impression could be your last chance.

Nathan Norton serves as intern to the Third Coast fiction editors.

Fanatical Fans: The Novel as a Franchise

by Candace Pine

It’s no secret that recently many novels or (even more popular) series, are being made into films. With books like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Twilight becoming their own cultural phenomenons, it’s sometimes hard to believe kids are all sitting at home staring at the TV or playing video games all day. Seeing massive crowds of fans dressed up and screaming to see their favorite stars from the movies that bring their beloved books to life is quite a fascinating sight. Some people disparage fanaticism in readers, especially since these books seem to attract younger and teen audiences, but there are also older readers (for example “Twilight Moms”) who can be just as obsessed.

So what is it about such novels that make readers fall in love with them?

Perhaps it feels like an escape from regular life. After all, many of these popular novels fall into the realm of fantasy. Or maybe readers like to imagine what it would be like to go on such adventures since nothing like that would happen in their own lives. Or it could be that people just find them exciting.

Despite the reasons for why these books are so loved, it’s the way they’re turned into full-blown franchises that really fascinates me.

Marketing types find a series that has a large fan base and exploit it, drawing in these fans first to the movies and then to the other large range of products that go along with it. There are the books and movies, of course, then the games, toys, trading cards, calendars, CDs, posters, backpacks, clothes, and anything else under the sun advertisers can think of to sell. The fact is, these books are turned into vast money making franchises.

In my opinion, that is the negative side of a really appealing book: The franchise takes something people love and vamps it up into a fanatic level because fans will pay money to surround themselves with commercial objects that go beyond reading. Plus, it draws negative opinions from outsiders who distrust it on the basis of popularity. The way people buy into these franchises just makes the opinion outsiders have about fanatical fans, and the books they read, sink even lower.

There is a tendency to look down on franchised books such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight, and claim that they’re not good literature and therefore people shouldn’t waste their time on them. However, the love of reading fostered by such series could led to more advanced levels of reading and a taste for higher literature. What some people may consider "meager beginnings" could turn into a greater love for literature and a higher standard of quality.

What people should be careful of is being too negative about criticizing readers for being devoted fans because we don’t want to chase them off from reading. As long as people are reading and enjoying it and that feeling stays with them for the rest of their lives, then what does it matter what they’re reading?

Not everyone is going to agree on what’s “good.” The classic canon of literature has been in constant flux over the past three decades as scholars rediscover minority and women writers and fight against New Criticism’s notion of “aesthetics only.” No one should be discouraged from reading something they like, and if they want to buy into the franchise side of it too, that’s their decision. As long as they’re still able to make the distinction between fantasy and reality in their own lives, then people should just be able to read whatever they want without being judged for it. The world needs as many readers as it can get, not other condescending readers passing judgment on their choices.

Candace Pine serves as intern for Third Coast's managing editors.

Just a few more revisions and it’ll be finished…

by Nathan Norton

Yeah, all us writers have said it once or twice or thrice or umpteen million times about one piece or another. Who can blame you, though? You want it to be good. You want it to be moving, to inspire, to make readers set your story down afterwards and say, “My dear sweet God. I’m so very glad I consumed that nugget of literary brilliance.”

So the rest of us can’t blame you. Mostly because we’ve all been there. We revise, revise, revise, revise, only to look up from the computer screen to realize a year’s worth of suns has set on a fourteen page story. This is not the fast track to the writerly production train. In fact, it’s just downright unproductive. Don’t get me wrong, revision is important. Ridiculous amounts of important. But the danger of the revision process is that it’s comfortable. Nestled safely under the awning of the “finishing touches,” a writer never has to hear criticism not his own, never has to experience rejection, and never has to settle into the reality that yes, the story is done and it’s not getting any better. But what if that’s not good enough? Well, then your story is about as useful as mustard-flavored ketchup and you ought to try your hand at writing up another.

A finished story is a scary thing. Is it good enough? Is it, like the Army man, all that it can be? Annoyingly, a writer’s work is never finished in his own eyes. In every read through there’s something sticking out, be it a humdrum verb, a particularly and especially redundant adverb choice, a character name you suddenly wish was Jake instead of Jack, whatever. There’s always something. The rub of it is that there will never not be something. You, as your story’s creator, will never be finished. Get over it.

There comes a time when you have to let go of your story. A time when you have to say, “I suppose I’m pleased with this” and just set the thing down. Many times, a story is actually pretty good, but the author may think quite the opposite. This is an excellent, effective way of becoming completely obsessed with your piece. Don’t turn into the mentally creative equivalent of a petrified birchwood tree trying to make a single story your Magnum Opus. You’ll stalemate yourself and more than likely end up churning out pounds of useless verbiage because you want so very very bad for your piece to doted upon by literature buffs everywhere.

Revisions are absolutely necessary. Fill in those plot holes, make clear those blurry sentences, tighten loose paragraphs. But if you strive too hard for perfection, you may find that revision has become a crutch.

Writers can’t rely on revision. Many do, but they shouldn’t. Let trusted peer critics read your piece. Let your mom read it, let your significant other read it, let your mentally unstable Grandpa Jack read it and mention how “back in his day, revisions were done with some white paint and a piece of charcoal” and take their advice to heart. Make the necessary changes, but know this: run away if you find yourself continually revising. Beating the dead horse will just get you covered in flies, so freshen yourself up a bit by exercising your head on a new story. When you’re creative slate is clean, go ahead and read through that first story and see if you still feel the same about it.

It’s important that writers realize that revision ought to be done only as much as it needs and precisely no further. Fixating yourself on a story will often do it more harm than good. So after your first few revisions, stop and take a brain break. Remove yourself from a piece, and see what it looks like with fresh eyes.

Nathan Norton serves as intern to the Third Coast fiction editors.

Blogging Series: From the T.C. Interns

Every fall, Third Coast takes on a handful of talented interns to aid in the production of the magazine. These interns learn valuable skills for working both in publishing and other real world occupations. Our interns are culled from the general undergraduate population here at Western Michigan University through a two stage process of both application and interview before the work even begins. They may have wrapped up the majority of their internship projects, but we are pleased to say they are still around and still working hard through the spring.

And so we are pleased to bring you thoughts directly from several of our talented interns. Their posts on topics such as revision, and the novel as a franchise will grace our blog in the days and weeks to come.

WMU students interested in the opportunity to intern should look for information to be posted in September of each year.