Plain or fancy? Apparent or paradoxical? Straight or contradictory?
I am talking about creative writing ideas for titles / summaries. Today I have read a question at 'Yahoo answers'. The question is about a title. The girl is writing a story and asking for help about creative title.
I assume the author wishes to write it catchy, doesn't she? To grab the attention?
What are the known/possible solutions?
As you know, this problem may have several solutions. You may go straight to the point: the principal heroine has such a character (a bad/good temper, an eccentric/normal nature, etc).
Or you may use a rhetorical question: "How to…?" "What do you know about…?"
Or you may scare / shock your readers: "If you don't know this information, you may happen to lose…".
How to choose the suitable solution?
I need to mention: we have more information on the story's main character. Rylie (that's the heroine's name) 'begins her senior year in bitterness that leads to rebellion. Once a sweet, innocent teen now an angry, faithless girl etc.'
OK. So we see a kind of contradiction here. This leads us to using a rhetorical device named Antithesis.
What is Antithesis?
You remember good known examples of antithesis:
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." (Neil Armstrong)
"Man proposes - God disposes".
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness." (Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities").
Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964)
How would I title / begin the story?
Maybe like this: "Is Rylie sweet or harsh, charming or nasty, attractive or unpleasant?"
Or: "How can a girl be innocent and impure, spiritual and worldly?"
Or: "Naive but experienced, open but angry, spiritual but faithless…".
Practice it, try other creative writing ideas (antithetical) and get new possible titles.
The above photo is from Flickr
