I love writing titles. It is a challenge to craft a gate that readers will want to open and walk through. Many of the articles published in the onlineMagazine and now, Connection, have been re-titled to create a more compelling entrance to the valuable literary efforts of its writers.Here are six of my favorite ways to create titles:
1. I read the entire article and try to find a phrase that pops out. At the IRL* blog, Jamie Jo comes up with some phrases in her posts that are uniquely her. I usually play off her voice and originality to draw in readers. For example: Is There Some Hip New Way? came from a question she posed in the body of her post or Computer-induced ADD, a JJ original diagnosis to a cultural behavior she is afflicted with.
2. I like to twist a well-known phrase, song or book title:
- Motion in Poetry (article about a woman with MS who found comfort in writing poetry),
- The Long and Barfy Road (The Long and Winding Road, Beatles), and
- Of Jumpers and Tennies (Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck)
3. I like to be tastefully provocative. Two cover stories in the onlineMagazine come to mind:
4. I capture the essence of the article and put it in the title, appealing and pulling on the reader's emotional heartstrings: Kidnapped! or Furlough Grocery Tears.
5. I try to keep my titles short and to the point. Being on Twitter helps immensely with developing this skill.
6. If your article/post gives your readers some tips, or promises to make their life easier, or explains something they might need or want to know, put that beneficial promise in the title:
Finally, put yourself in the reader's shoes. Look at the current titles of your blog posts in your archives. Are they entrancing? Would you want to click on them? In the weeks ahead, put an extra measure of effort into writing titles for your blog posts. Take some risks; try one of the tips and see if more readers come to your blog through the gateway of a well-crafted title.
