How the heck does anyone ever come up with a title?!

Play around with words relating to the plot, the main character(s), and the setting.

My titles always come from something said by one of my characters or something related to the plot.

Puns.

Puns are always good.

I take the last line from a short story, and then come up with a poem that alludes to it. And then picks the best line.

I'll usually write some line that I really like, and then I just know. I'm not consciously looking for a title, or planning one out, but it just comes. Haha I don't know if that makes any sense

Well, for one I usually don't come up with anything fantastic until I finish writing. Usually during revision and writing the query etc I work on the title. You call it a WIP so I don't know how far along you are. If you're still drafting, pick a placement title and don't worry about it until later.

Then, I usually list out words that represent the novel. Things in the book, themes, words that fit the tone and play with them. Fit them together. Decide what kind of title you want. Simple, one word. A more lush phrase. Deep and dark or attention catching. Look at similar books and what they used. Google some things you've listed and see what kind of things inspire you. Song lyrics, historical refernces. Anything really. The more you play and explore the more options you'll find.

I always keep a little place at the end of my outline to mark down potential titles or inspiration for titles (such as specific keywords) as I come across them. I've yet to entirely complete a manuscript, so I guess all my titles are "working titles" currently, but they "work" for me ;P (sorry, I had to). I'm very fond of simple titles that are relevant to the story. The two main manuscripts I'm working on right now are named for the main character and the location the story takes place, respectively. Most of my other manuscripts follow the same thinking (usually focusing more on names, since I write character-driven fiction).

If you're looking for title inspiration, what about going to a bookselling website (Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, Barnes & Noble, etc), and seeing how other books in your specific genre have been named? Take note of which titles you like, and which you don't, and see if it gives you any ideas.

Either I know the right title the moment I come up with the idea for the book, or I stumble upon it through writing it, usually in dialogue or just a line I really like. MAYBE IN PARIS is a phrase repeated often by my MC in her own head. One of my shiny new ideas is titled HOLD YOU TILL YOU'RE QUIET, which is just a working title, but it's from the song that inspired the idea. I have a WIP called WONDERFUL because it the book is inspired by "It's a Wonderful Life." I have a story idea brewing right now that just popped into my head with the perfect title: LYRICAL SUMMER.

So yeah. Song titles. Words related to the inspiration. Dialogue or narration from the actual book. Other times I'll just give it a working title that is just the idea itself, like LESBIAN PIRATES or something and then think up a real title later.

Titles are haaaard. Here's my reasoning for mine:

Pantomime - there's a pantomime within the circus. Also a lot of people are pretending to be something or someone they're not.
Shadowplay - people are manipulating things behind the scenes. There's a puppet show here or there. Shadows are private investigators and two are following my MC.

For a long time, Pantomime was just called "Gene", the main character, before I finally came up with it. I had to come up with about 100 titles before I found Shadowplay. I really wanted to call it Phantasmagoria for awhile, but it was a bit too obscure.

Otherwise I like longer phrases. Sometimes they're lines from the story (like "They Swim Through Sunset Seas" or "The Ghost of Gold and Grey"), sometimes they're bits of well-known quotes ("False Hearts", from Macbeth's "False face doth hide what the false heart doth know, which is an epigraph).

Play around. I always know when I've finally found the right title - it fits. I sometimes go through dozens before I find it, though.

I love naming things. For me, titles are the easy part, writing the book to go with this awesome title I just thought up is hard.

How do I do it...well the title encapsulates the premise. Why do I want to write the book? What kind of story is it? What's the main theme? For example, just the other day I was thinking about my passion about inmates getting out of prison and the huge culture shock that they face. The longer they have been "down" the harder it is to adjust to the real world. This is one of the reasons so many return to prison. So I was thinking about a character facing those challenges and slowly overcoming them. I realized that simply getting out of prison was not all that "freedom" required but getting free in his own mind. Then the title came to me, "Freedom's Gate". Now, if I could just write the book . . . LOL!

I think practice helps too. In my family we "name" all kinds of things: cars, computers, and random nicknames for household things. It's fun!

For me, the title was a combination of an idea that I loved from the novel and a concept in real life that I really valued. Together, they worked for me.

In my opinion, the title should be a little nugget for the reader - a hint, but nothing more.

I intend for all three of my novels in my series to have significant titles, but not necessarily titles that give away the meaning within the novels. YIKES.

For Scrubbing Grandma - the title inspired the book
Clara's Wedding - is somewhat self explanatory - only it should be more Claras's* Weddings but that doesn't roll of the tongue quite as easily.
Seems titles come easier than character names for me.

Just give your WIP a working title for now - until it's under contract you can change it as many times as you like (and probably even after it's under contract - maybe until it goes to print).

*Yes, plural and possessive.

i always see other titles and think "why couldn't i come up with something that good!?!?!"

basically i suck at titles. let's hope if i ever get published the editor has a good idea up their sleeve...

I will be honest with you:

Divine inspiration!!! MWHAHAHAHAH!

Well, actually I normally sit down and ponder something that sounds cool, then total discard that thought and figure out what in the world is my book about and come up with a theme, that gets shortened to a sentence, and maybe even to one word and BAM! Title.

Once the plot is clear in my mind, I automatically start thinking of a title. It usually encapsulates something essential about the mood and theme in the book.So far, I've had the titles more or less ready before starting to write, or they emerge within the first few thousand words.

Of course, I don't have that many complete novels yet, but so far the titles have stuck from early on. (If they are still the same after entering the publishing stage remains to be seen, of course. I give a lot of consideration to naming, so I hope that this also shows in the titles I choose)
One current WIP has a working title that is different from the title I intend it to have, though.

Ellaroni said:

Once the plot is clear in my mind, I automatically start thinking of a title. It usually encapsulates something essential about the mood and theme in the book.So far, I've had the titles more or less ready before starting to write, or they emerge within the first few thousand words.


Of course, I don't have that many complete novels yet, but so far the titles have stuck from early on. (If they are still the same after entering the publishing stage remains to be seen, of course. I give a lot of consideration to naming, so I hope that this also shows in the titles I choose)
One current WIP has a working title that is different from the title I intend it to have, though.

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I'm a bizarre mix of these two. I HATE titles and naming things, but I find it almost impossible to write something without a title, and I even shirk against working titles. I often dislike my choices but, if there's no title with an idea, it's often a sign to me that it's destined to die on the vine. I could never just "pick something", but picking stuff is one of the hardest parts.

Sage said:

Even titles that are perfect for the novel get changed by agents and publishers.

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Ugh, I would totally hate that.

I think it's important to have a title that is 'different'/interesting enough that it catches the agent's attention in their inbox - if you have a dull title, they'll still read the book, but I always hope that one day I'll think up a title that makes an agent think "ooh, what's that about?" and open my query email.

I'm not great at titles, but they are fun to think of. So far I've had:

WHAT I DIDN'T TELL YOU - previously Consequences, The Brightest Fell, and Two Down,One Drowning. But the whole book is about one MC's secret, essentially, so this one might be boring but it works for the book.

THE LIGHTHOUSE BOYS - This book got scrapped at 20k, but I quite like this title still. I came up with the title before I had a book for it!

YOU, ME & EIGHT CRAZY GOODBYES - pretty literal, two teens completing a bucket list (of eight things) as a way of saying goodbye to someone. This took me aaaaaaages to come up with, and I'm still not happy with it, I feel it's a bit cringey. But the book's trunked now so hey-ho.

HIS & YOURS & NEVER MINE - My current project. I came up with the title first and then wrote it into a scene, and it gives probably no clue to the story but I still like it.

Here is one method I use. I outline the ending of the story, and then based on this ending I create a new word based on it. Of course if the ending changes, that title might change.

LadyA said:

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YOU, ME & EIGHT CRAZY GOODBYES - pretty literal, two teens completing a bucket list (of eight things) as a way of saying goodbye to someone. This took me aaaaaaages to come up with, and I'm still not happy with it, I feel it's a bit cringey. But the book's trunked now so hey-ho.

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I actually love this one the most, it hooked me right away! That's rare.

OP, I don't have any suggestions for you, I'm afraid. None of my works have titles, only placeholders to differentiate files (I'm not querying any of them, thank god for that).