This essay, published in 2014, is one of my favorites, so I was delighted to see The Millions recently re-upped it on Twitter. The writing arose from a fascination of what seemed a vernacular drift in titles of novels and story collections, so it was a pleasure to dive in and investigate how this direction came about and the extent of its variations.
What I’ve come to think of as the colloquial title rejects literary tone for the purely voice-driven. Colloquial titles can be wordy, even prolix, and often make use of a purposefully curious yet catchy syntax. The colloquial title is based in common parlance, but also draws on aphorism, the stock phrase, and familiar expressions. For a more elevated voice-driven title, look to the literary/biblical allusion, the colloquial title’s highborn cousin. With exemplars like As I Lay Dying and Slouching Toward Bethlehem, the allusion-based title has undisputed gravitas, and frankly, when it comes to authoritative tone, is hard to beat. Think of The Violent Bear It Away and A River Runs Through It.
Read the entire essay here.