Title and Premise: How to Hook the Reader (and Editor) Before You Write A Word

Handout by Jennifer Ashley
 

Title and Premise: How to Hook the Reader (and Editor)

Before You Write a Word

by Jennifer Ashley, Author

Desert Dreams Conference, 2006

 

You can write the best prose, be the best storyteller in the world, but before readers (or editors) can discover this, they have to pick up your book!

  • Many sales happen by people browsing shelves

  • Catchy titles can make a reader pick up a book

  • Catchy premises can make the reader decide to buy

  • If you are new and unknown, a title and premise may be all you have

  • Premises coupled with good writing sell the book to an editor

  • Title can catch an editor’s attention, even if it’s later changed

  • As a contest judge, I tend to read entries with good titles first

Titles

  • Past titles: Love's Tender Fury, The Flame and the Flower, etc.

  • Now—the title must go beyond to indicate subgenre or tone: humor, drama, erotic, paranormal, light or dark

  • Examples of intriguing titles

  • How to Marry a Marquis (Julia Quinn)

  • The Care and Feeding of Pirates (Jennifer Ashley)

  • The Naked Duke (Julie Ann Long)

  • Undead and Unwed (Mary Janice Davidson)

  • Single White Vampire (Lyndsay Sands)

  • Nerd in Shining Armor (Vicki Lewis Thompson)

  • A Hard Day’s Knight (Katie Macalister)

  • Why these are good

  • Eye-catching in bookstore

  • Took something familiar and twisted it

  • Gives reader an idea what the book will be about

  • what is tone of book

  • what kind of story will they get

Premise

  • Similar to title

  • Tells what is book about (in a nutshell)

  • Should intrigue reader: make them say “oh, I want to read that”

  • Should tell reader the book is unusual—different from rest on pile

  • Twist on the tried-and-true can be very catchy

  • Premise should set tone, and should spark the question in reader’s mind: “What’s going to happen?”

  • Examples:

  • Premise of a vampire slayer called Buffy

  • Bride for a Bit (anthology with Pam Osback)

  • Examples of how tone can change premise:

  • Two people meet on a cruise ship and fall in love

  • Humorous (parents' 50th anniversary with wacky family)

  • Sexy (winning a night with a guy at the poker game)

  • Dramatic (woman meets up with man who broke her heart years ago)

  • Adventurous (space demons take over and heroine must save man and his daughter)

  • Premise is your Promise of what the book will be about

  • Your job: To deliver that promise!

  • Premise can be catchy, funny, emotional, etc., but your storytelling and prose must be the gift that readers took the trouble to unwrap.

 Which comes first? Title/premise

  • Doesn't matter

  • Title can spark premise

  • Premise/book can spark title

  • If you are bad at titles, you and your editor will come up with something!

Copyright © 2007, Jennifer Ashley
All rights reserved.
You may reprint this chapter in whole or in part
provided credit is given to the author.