Saturday, September 10: Mississippi Mud
A STORY BY ANY OTHER NAME
by John M. Floyd
One of the few unpleasant things about writing fiction is that editors and publishers sometimes choose to change the title of an author’s short story or novel before publication. I’ve not met many authors who feel that the changed titles of their own stories are better than the original titles (I certainly don’t think mine were)—but those opinions don’t often matter a whole lot. Sometimes, in the case of a short story, the author isn’t even told that there’ll be a change, until after the fact.
Looking back over the seventeen years that I’ve been submitting stories to magazines and anthologies, I’ve found that about ten percent of my accepted stories have later had their titles changed by the editors. I’m not sure if that’s typical, but I do suspect that most short stories retain their original, untampered-with titles. And regardless of the odds, the possibility of a title change isn’t something I worry much about. Hey, if they’re willing to pay me for my story, they can do anything to it they want to.
Novels are a different matter. Unless a novelist is self-publishing, I’ve heard that he can almost expect to have his suggested title changed at some point in the pre-publication process. A funny thing happened recently, though. My friend Ben Douglas, who has published a number of mystery novels, told me that after having his first title changed, he didn’t put a lot of effort into selecting a title for the novel’s sequel. He decided to call it the first thing that occurred to him—Deadly Passions—because he knew the publisher would change it anyway. Instead, the publisher chose to go with Ben’s original title, and Deadly Passions it was, and is. Go figure.
Anyhow, here are a few well-known book titles that wound up being surgically altered. I’ve listed the original title first, followed by the final result:
Something That Happened – Of Mice and Men
Trimalchio in West Egg – The Great Gatsby
Fiesta – The Sun Also Rises
First Impressions – Pride and Prejudice
Sister Maggie – The Mill on the Floss
Strangers From Within – Lord of the Flies
Catch-18 – Catch-22
The Village Virus – Main Street
The Sea-Cook – Treasure Island
Tomorrow Is Another Day – Gone With the Wind
The Chronic Argonauts – The Time Machine
Stephen Hero – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Tenderness – Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Salinas Valley – East of Eden
Twilight – The Sound and the Fury
Come and Go – The Happy Hooker
The Tree and the Blossom – Peyton Place
Before This Anger – Roots
The Saddest Story – The Good Soldier
Elinor and Marianne – Sense and Sensibility
Mag’s Diversions – David Copperfield
Poker Night – A Streetcar Named Desire
The Last Man in Europe – 1984
Paul Morel – Sons and Lovers
Mute – The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
O Lost – Look Homeward, Angel
Kingdom by the Sea – Lolita
Mind and Iron – I, Robot
Cancer – Dreamcatcher
Return to the Wars – To Have and Have Not
Robotic Banana – A Clockwork Orange
All’s Well That Ends Well – War and Peace
(Note: In a few cases, what I’ve listed as the original title was just a “working” title used by the author, and sometimes I understand there were several titles considered by author and/or publisher before the final one was selected.)
By the way, here’s one way to feel better when the Powers That Be decide to change your well-thought-out title for your short story. (At least this is what I do.) Let them call the story whatever they like, and when the time comes to later submit that story someplace else, as a reprint, just submit the story to the new market under your original title. I’ve sold dozens of reprints that way, and the magazines that use them never seem to care a whit that those stories were called something different in their previous lives.
Getting back to my above list of novels, do you think all those changed titles sound better than the originals? If so, are they really better, or is it just that we’re already so familiar with the final titles? I think the same thing happens if you consider the producers’ or studios’ first choices for movie roles. Even if I squeeze my eyes shut and strain, I can’t see Frank Sinatra as Dirty Harry Callahan or Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones – but they were among the actors who were sought to play those characters, and who (thankfully) declined.
Maybe those final titles were meant to be. Let’s face it, Summer of the Shark just doesn’t blow my skirt up. But Jaws?
BUMbumBUMbumBUMbum . . .
John, I fully expected to have the editor change the title of my first Callie mystery from A Tisket, a Tasket, a Fancy Stolen Casket because it was too long. Instead, she loved it. Second book – Hey Diddle, Diddle, the Corpse & the Fiddle – editor loved it. Third book – Rub a Dub, Dub, Dead Man in a Tub – same publisher, new editor, new name – published as Casket Case. Callie fans are still complaining. Fourth book – new editor at new publisher – Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, There’s a Body in the Car. I admit that my titles were too long, but readers loved them. Also, my intention was for the first few words to be in smaller font so that the larger titles were: Fancy Stolen Casket, Corpse & Fiddle, Dead Man in a Tub, Body in the Car.
Can you believe I spoke with my agent yesterday and he’s changing my newest book title back to the original one that I discarded? I don’t much care what he calls it so long as he gets it published.
I enjoyed the list, especially since many of those are favorites of mine. I knew about the changes for some of them, but not all.
Fran, a few of the changes I’ve had to my story titles were okay (I guess), but I thought some were pretty silly. Again, the ed/publisher is the boss on that kind of thing. I like your titles, and I think your plan for having the first few words in smaller font was a good idea, because it makes a long title seem shorter.
Some editors seem more likely to make title changes than others. For example, all the stories I’ve had published at AHMM retained their original titles, and also all those that have appeared in The Strand. And JLW told me none of his story titles have ever been changed before publication, which is a good record to have.
None of my short story titles were ever changed. But the publisher didn’t like the title of my first novel The Mother Shadow. All they could come up with was Dirty Linen. Thank God it didn’t get changed.
I’m sorry but Come and Go is a great title for a Madam.
John, will you share with us some of your changed titles?
Dirty Linen?? Melodie, I too am glad your original title prevailed.
Let’s see, some of my changed titles: “Guardian Angel” was changed to “Keeping an Eye on Crime” (?!?), “Smoke Test” was changed to “Switched Off,” “Name Games” was changed to “Who’s He?”, “Dry Spell” became “Listen Up,” “Good Samaritan” became “After the Storm” (which was probably a better title, for that story), “Diamond Jim” became “A Bright Idea,” “Backward Thinking” became “Baffled and Confused” (which left me baffled and confused), “Batteries Not Included” became “Too Many Choices,” “Silent Partner” became “When Samantha Smiles,”, “Henry’s Ford” became “Everyone’s Angel”, “Find Me” became “Where’s Emily?”, “Alumni Relations” became “Old School” (again, probably better than the original), “Neighborhood Watch” became “Stormy Weather,” “Old Soldiers” became “No Horsin’ Around,” “A Day at the Office” became “Take a Bow,” “Hold the Phone” became “Can You Hear Me Now?”, “Relative Strangers” became “All in the Family,” “A Gathering of Angels” became “The Ring of Truth,” “Right on Time” became “What Happened to Ernie?”, “Low Technology” became “Dial D for Desperate,” and so on. And some changes were minor: “Knight Music” became “A Little Knight Music,” which I actually liked better, and “The Quilting Project” became “The Quilting Caper.” But again, the vast majority of my stories have kept the first title that came into my head, AND I’ve made sure the titles that were changed by editors usually reverted to the originals when those stories were resubmitted, collected, or anthologized.
John, were certain editors more likely to change titles?
According to Isaac Asimov, Fred (Ellery Queen) Dannay often changed the titles of his Black Widowers mysteries. Sometimes Asimov liked the new titles better, sometimes he changed them back later. I think I’d be happy with publication.(Oh, and I laughed at “Come And Go” on the list above!)
Hey, Jeff, if Asimov’s titles were sometimes changed, I don’t think I’ll gripe too much if mine are.
As for your question, Fran (are certain editors more likely to change titles?), well, they’re probably just more likely to change MY titles. But yes, some editors are more apt to do it than others.
Specifically, the folks at Woman’s World have changed a number of mine (they’ve also left some “as is”) and I’ve had a few editors of anthologies change the titles of my stories before they appeared. As I said, though, neither Cathleen Jordan nor Linda Landrigan at AHMM changed a single one of my AH titles, for which I’m grateful.
But I’ve never complained about that kind of thing anyhow. As Jeff said, I’m just pleased that/when/if someone wants to buy my stories.
I’m torn; in half the cases I like the original titles better, about half not, and in some both are excellent. Of Mice and Men is definitely better and I have to wonder what Kingdom by the Sea has to do with Lolita.
The Chronic Argonauts is very clever but The Time Machine is easier to remember. Before This Anger is an excellent title, but arguably Roots appeals to a far broader commercial audience.
And Robotic Banana– I thought that was Come and Go.
I figured y’all would like Come and Go.
Leigh, I’ve heard that Nabokov initially called the novel Kingdom by the Sea because that was a line from the Poe poem “Annabel Lee,” and that Humbert Humbert visualized Lolita as another Annabel he’d known as a child. Or something like that . . .