Dean Poling
How do you title a story about great titles? Titles can affect the nature of a story. The right title can grab your attention. It can remain etched upon your mind for decades. Even if you can’t remember the story.
One example is the title “Drink Frog, Me Bucko.” I can’t recall if the story was a true-account essay or a short story. We had to read it back when I was in junior high social studies.
If I recall, it was about the practice of parched Australian aborigines looking for water sources in the dried outback. If they found a damp, muddy spot, they’d reach in and pull out a large frog. Since frogs often swallow a supply of water before hibernating ... Well, without disturbing anyone's breakfast too much, that’s where the title “Drink Frog, Me Bucko” comes into play. I’m not 100 percent certain that was the gist of the story but the title has stuck in my memory.
Numerous titles have this powerful effect, even if we’ve never read the story. You may have never read any works by Dostoevsky, but most folks are familiar with the title of his 1866 book, “Crime and Punishment.” It’s a great title.
Sometimes authors have a working title while writing a book. Upon the book’s completion, either an author or a publisher changes the title.
Other times, writers don’t have a title until a book is finished. Some authors think of a title then create a story to fit it.
Harlan Ellison often falls into this last category. He is a master of the clever, bizarre and interesting title. Though he is often clumped into the science fiction/fantasy genre, Ellison is simply a master of the short story.
Ellison’s titles are compelling. A few of Harlan Ellison’s titles: “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” “A Prayer for No One’s Enemy,” “Lonelyache,” “The Outpost Undiscovered by Tourists,” “The Very Last Day of a Good Woman,” “The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World,” “The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie,” “Hitler Painted Roses,” “One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty,” “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes,” “Alive and Well on a Friendless Voyage,” “‘Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,” “At the Mouse Circus,” “The Night of Delicate Terrors.”
Author Kinky Friedman also has a way of developing a clever and catchy title for his off-beat series of mystery books. Some of his titles include “Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola,” “Armadillos & Old Lace,” “The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover,” “A Case of Lone Star,” etc.
Or Elmore Leonard’s books with titles such as “Maximum Bob,” “Freaky Deaky,” “Forty Lashes Less One,” “Get Shorty,” “The Big Bounce,” etc.
A quick scan of a bookshelf finds several great titles: Anthony Quinn’s biography “One Man Tango,” Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric!” Hess Kaplan’s book on political cartoons “The Ungentlemanly Art,” Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,” Willie Nelson’s “The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes” ...
There are really just too many great titles and sadly not enough. Some of the titles have a way of becoming part of the public lexicon, like “Crime and Punishment.” Or they can be as compelling as a line of poetry, such as Quinn’s “One Man Tango,” which is reportedly based upon a line Orson Welles used to describe Quinn’s confidence. Others, like Friedman’s “Armadillos & Old Lace,” play off better-known titles, such as “Arsenic & Old Lace,” to give a flavor of the new story’s meaning.
Still, just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t always judge one by its title either. In some cases, the wording of the title beats a book’s collection of thousands of words over hundreds of pages.
But some titles should be enjoyed for the sheer art of creating an image in a few words.
Dean Poling is The Valdosta Daily Times assistant managing editor.
