When you go to write a book, you might notice that you want to come up with the name of your fantasy book right away. The title is one of the first things that is encountered by the reader, after all, and can be really indicative of what your story is going to be about, or at least some type of element in your story. However, the title can often be the most confusing part to come up with at the same time because we may find ourselves a little bit unsure about what precisely makes up a good book title. So, for today’s post, I’ll be talking about how to come up with a captivating book title for a fantasy novel as well as how you can use different resources to help you. There is also a free fantasy book title generator at the end of this post!
Why Fantasy Book Titles Matter
1. Wonder and Curiosity
Fantasy is all about the unseen, the speculative, and the whimsical, as well as a different world. When a fantasy reader picks up a book, they are expecting to be transported into an entirely new world that is different from their own where they will explore things like war, politics, adventure, action, magic, relationships, and more. The title of the book is the first sort of contact (aside from the book cover, which you should check this post out to learn more about this topic) the reader will have with your story. At least, the title is at best the first written sort of contact that your reader will have with your story. The cover is the first true contact point because of its visual nature.
Think about titles that exist in fantasy books out there like The Blade Itself, The Name of the Wind, or even my book, Malware. Immediately, each one serves to try and represent something from the story, whether it be something significant, something symbolic, or more. For my story, I chose the one word title because it’s such a basic word, but the story within it is about transporting from basic to complex, with the main character exhibiting a very similar pattern of growth and change.
2. It Sets the Tone
Fantasy is a very broad genre that encompasses many different styles of fantasy like grimdark fantasy, high fantasy, science fantasy, and more. The title of a book almost sets up the reader to expect what type of fantasy they’re going to be reading. My series is a grimdark science fantasy, so when you see the titles, you get that sense. Book 1 is Malware, Book 2 is Soldat, Book 3 is Chaos Eve, and the rest I won’t say until I’ve announced them :)! If you notice though, each title is indicative of something that makes sense in the context of the series. Sure, Malware may not invoke “fantasy” right away, but in combination with the cover and the series being called The Fallen Age Saga, you get the hint that it’s more than just a simple story.
The title will hint at the tone of your story as well. By utilizing words like Malware, Chaos, etc… I’ve already set the reader up to expect that this series has a dark tone without the reader even knowing what subgenre I’ve chosen to write in for my series.
3. Marketing and Positioning
Writers are ultimately marketers these days, especially in the vast world that is social media. Of course, this includes positioning yourself in the market and trying to actually make a significant name for yourself in this vast world of many stories. The fantasy niche is not necessarily more oversaturated, but there’s a lot of fantastic fantasy books that already exist, and so you have to position yourself and market yourself to the readers of these books and capture that demographic for your own story.
So, using keywords in your title might actually help you a lot with marketing and appealing to readers. I’m not the biggest fan of titles like A [blank] of [blank] and [blank], but there’s no denying that these titles are automatically associated with the fantasy genre, and moreso, even sometimes the romantasy genre. If you want to learn more about romantasy, check out this post!
How to Create a Fantasy Title
1. Think About Your Themes, Symbols, etc…
One of the first things I recommend you do when it comes to creating a title for your fantasy book is that you think about the core themes of your book as well as what sort of symbols exist in tandem with said themes. For instance, in my series, The Fallen Age Saga, I can identify the theme of the overreliance on technology and that there are organizations that benefit from making people dependent on said technology in order to influence their thoughts, bring forth their apocalyptic ideals, etc… therefore, we can assume that there will be symbols in the book, such as the figure of Malware himself as a character. He is symbolic of many elements of the story. So, from this, the title Malware seemed the most appropriate to me because it makes sense in the context of the story and the themes.
2. Think About Tone
The tone of your story can and should technically impact the title of your story. If your story is more on the comedic side, then a comedic-style title makes the most sense. If your story is more on the dark and serious side, then it makes sense for your title to also be dark and serious. For instance, The Black Company is a grimdark fantasy series and from the title we can tell that it’s not going to be a very lighthearted series. The Fallen Age Saga, my series, is similarly titled in a way that properly conveys the dark and grim tone of the overall series.
3. Play on the Classic Titles or Make Your Own
Many fantasy stories have a very recognizable title for the series or individual books. For instance, here are some popular fantasy title structures:
- [Noun] of [Place]
- The [Adjective] [Noun]
- [Noun] and [Noun]
- A [Noun] of [Noun] and [Noun]
You can also choose to do something entirely different, so long as it works for your story. My book is titled with one word, but Book 3 has two words, and so on and so forth. You can experiment with this. My series combines sci-fi with fantasy, so you have this sort of homage to the style of the sci-fi books out there that utilize singular words.
4. Take Inspiration from Mythology and Lore
I always mention how mythology and folklore are some of the best sources of inspiration for writers and how stories that have been passed down from generation to generation are all very interesting and have a lot of potential to be used in your own books. Concepts from mythology and lore can easily be utilized in your own stories and you can take ideas from titles used in those mythological stories such as The Odyssey or The Iliad to create your own story ideas. These title structures have been around for a long time for a reason and are very interesting as inspiration.
How to Use the Book Title Generator for Fantasy
Below is a little randomized book title generator that gives you three separate titles at a time, specifically made for fantasy books. Now, you don’t have to actually take the title word for word (unless it’s something you end up liking), but the idea is that you can take inspiration at the very least from these random titles to come up with your own title or to at least see how some titles could actually look like on your screen.
The generator is designed to use common fantasy related keywords and title structures that we observe in the market to create several options for a book. Again, feel free to make up your own and use this purely as inspiration and brainstorming!
Fantasy Book Title Generator
Your Generated Fantasy Titles:
Before you head on out though, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you can get updates on all my latest book releases, WIPs, posts, workbooks, guides and more!