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A lot of times we have heard people say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. This is because the cover of the book is not enough for anyone to make a valid and informed judgment on the entire book. And because we seldom read book reviews in this part of the world, most people are compelled to buy books according to the title of the work which is usually at the cover page.

A cover page is made up of the Title, Author(s) and sometimes a background picture. Our concentration here is on the title because that is first thing readers look at in any creative writing. So as a writer of any piece of work, be aware that titling is very important.

It’s quite understandable that some aspiring writers do have problem in picking the right title for their work for example titles like Tobe goes to school, Chika the wicked girl, missing Chibok girls etc. are bad titles and mostly used by amateurs. To get good patronage of your work you must have a very creative title. The necessary technique for arriving at a creative title is what I am going to be explaining shortly and this will help you better your writing skills.

So what then is a Title? A title is the heading of any piece of work that helps to express idea(s) of the work in few words. Title is also the casing of any literature in a smaller format of “a word”,“short sentences” or “phrases” which portrays the idea and adds beauty to the piece of work. Therefore a good title is necessary for any piece of work or in this case literature.

HOW TO CHOOSE A TITLE
The title is the most important factor in any writing. So, before writing a book or any literature, you must consider the title in some formats. These include:
· Titling by Name of a Character/Object
· Titling by Events
· Titling by Theme
· Titling by Location
· Titling by Figurative expressions


· TITLING BY NAME OF CHARACTER/OBJECT:
This is the first, oldest and most popular way of giving titles to a literature. This is the most sacred method of titling. In this method the title is created by using the name of the major character or significant object, some examples are most of the classical plays like: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, King Lear by William Shakespeare. others Include Harry Potter by J k Rowling, Aisha by Julie Okoh, The Adams Family by Julie Umukoro etc. While for object they include the Medallion, Sword in a stone.
Titling by Name of the character/object helps to bring your readers to want to know more about this character or object being stated in your title and if you were writing based on history or biography this method is much recommended.

· TITLING BY EVENTS:
This is a popular way of titling any literary work. This title is created with the use of main events or occurrences that took place in the story. An example is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, from the title you could tell that the book is talking about a salesman. Another example is Mrs Manfred Dream by Professor L.H Bell-Gam; from the title you can tell that the book would be centered on Mrs Manfred dream, gods are not to Blame by Ola Rotimi also well explain this factor because all the action in the story talks about a prophecy and how all attempt to avoid it brought it more closer to reality.
With these references, you can understand that titling by event is a good way of creating titles but it must center on the events or happenings in the story, if you go beyond this you have left this titling method. This method is best recommend when writing on history and social issue
A benefit of this method is that it helps to give the readers a briefing of what to expect in the course of the story and enables quick understanding of the book, but the side effect of this method of titling is that it gives away relevant situations that could have aided more suspense to the literature.

· Titling by Theme/Subject Matter:
Theme is the major aspect of a literature work that helps to portray the writers thought about the subject matters, characters and situations in the play. This method of titling is common among the Soap operas and Telenovelas. This title is gotten from the subject matters like Love, Corruption, Revenge etc. an example of this method include Obsession by Taylor Cane.
When writing with this title, make sure you explore the theme as the major aspect surrounding the actions in the play thereby supporting whatever title you choose. Remember, your readers must never get lost in your story with confusion of how your title relates to your story. This method is best preferred in writing Romance, thriller and sci-fi (if you are very creative).

· TILING BY LOCATION:
According Dr I.E Uwah, “a writer writes within his world view”, this means that the location is a determined by the writers point of view which involves critical analysis of the location in structuring of the play or novel you want to write.
Using a location as a title brings spontaneity to your play and motivates your readers to want to know why that location is so spectacular. When choosing a location Title, make sure it is not too fictional as readers tend to look at it as childish if it’s not close to reality. Some titles by location include Smallvile by DC, Women of Owu by Femi Osofisan etc. This play expresses more of location and how it influences action and title of the story.

As a writer learning how to express your story through the aim of location make your writing unique but beware, it is so easy to wrong title a story in this method as location may not be a priority in the story, thus when writing a story except you a writing on events that took place in that location don’t use this method. This is highly recommended for writing history.

· TITLING BY FIGURATIVE EXPRESSION:
This is yet another method of selecting a title for your work and my favorite of them all. It makes use of figurative expressions to beautify the body of the work thereby putting suspense to anybody who sees it. This is the most colorful form of titling a book. E.g who can fight the Gods? By Julie Okoh, the lion and the jewel by Wole Soyinka, gods are not to Blame by Ola Rotimi, An enemy of the people by Henrik Ibsen, etc. all these writers explored figurative expression to portray their ideas and made sure it accompanied the story.

In An Enemy of the people by Henrik Ibsen, you would see that the irony used in choosing the title, played a major role in the story. Although he tried to help the people in his community, he was seen as the enemy of the people because of ignorance. If you hadn’t read the book, you would have thought that it was talking about a Evil tyrant.

Making use of figurative titles should be in the minds of writers especially when writing something epic. So it’s important you get familiar with figures of speech because these are the good tool in creating a good title. This method is recommended in writing epic, historical, biography and horror.

RULES OF TITLING
No matter how polite we want to say this, all aspect of writing has rules or laws it should follow and these rules equally applies to poetry. Although freedom of writing is allowed (poetic license), you can’t just write anything and expect public acceptability, like speaking TALANGO to an IGBO man, you don’t expect him to magically understand you.
Here are some rules to be mindful of while choosing a title:
1. Your title must agree with your story.
2. Try to avoid titles that can give away details of your work.
3. Don’t make use of childish like titles like Bello the thief, Bisola is a girl etc. except when writing for children only and not comedies.
4. When titling with location make sure it’s not too far from reality.
With these rules you are guaranteed a bright future in your writing experience.


© Ona-Eki Oke Strange