The Power of a Great Headline or Book Title

Take a look at the most popular magazines or newspapers. What influences your decision to buy one magazine over another? The headlines. If you were to pick up a copy of The Reader's Digest, for instance, what is the first thing you do? You scan the headlines for anything which catches your attention and invites curiosity, don't you? Copy writers who use their skill to write headlines for The Enquirer exploit this trait to the max. The wackier, the more outrageous the better. When curiosity gets the better of us, it matters not if we know the headline can't possibly be true. We suddenly have the need to know what the story is about. We might hate ourselves for being pulled in and parting with good money for dubious content, but we do it anyway. Throughout history, words, written or delivered orally have shaped our view of events.

Heartfelt dialogue in a book can reduce a strong man to tears. A motivational speaker can stir the soul and make us desire to do better, be better than our current selves. A silvery tongue can make us choose one product over another simply by arguing its case in an infomercial. A prosecutor might convince you that a suspect is guilty beyond question only to have the suspect's defense attorney make you realize that there was no way his client could be anything other than innocent. An aggressive rock song playing on our car radio can make us push our pedal to the metal, while a relaxing tune can reduce our speed to that of the chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. Our brains are stimulated by many different visual and aural 'drugs' for want of a better word. Authors and copy writers know this.

Imagine (if you will) an author looking for a good book title for his latest literary effort. It is a murder mystery, and his friend suggested, Why I Shot My Father, as a title. Pro's and cons? Does it pique curiosity? A bit. The title suggests a reason for the murder of one's parent, but not much else. Cons? The title has too many words, and weak ones at that. The author decides to go with, Driven to Kill. Three words, two of which are power words. Driven and kill. Driven suggests going well beyond a want or a need. It is an action focused beyond the norm. Kill. A four letter word that invokes images of primal, vicious slaughter. Short sharp and to the point.

For fiction writers, it has been proven that titles containing one to four words, work best. One to three words is preferable. More than four words is better suited to non-fiction. Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course. There are exceptions to almost every rule, but 99 percent of the time, the rule holds true.