Why are one-word titles so dominant in books, film, and games?
Something I talk about with friends when planning and sharing our projects & media we like is titles - and specifically my disdain for one-word titles. They seem to be more than dominant in multiple entertainment industries. Twilight, Injustice, Negation, Absolver, Bastion, Braid, Dishonored, Destiny, Anthem, Fallout, Inside, Crawl, Us, Psycho, Memento, Inception, Jaws, and a thousand others I can't remember.
Those are all good or notable ones, though, but i meet a lot of students writing stories and games who seem very excited to share that their new jumping game will be called "Jump" and their new climbing game will be called "Climb" and their new coming-of-age-novella will be called "Park".
This is obviously not an objective truth and I wouldn't assert as such, but in my opinion, one word titles are incredibly non-expressive. With the exception of made-up or very unusual words, like SUPERHOT or Westworld.
A one-word title with a vague word that encompasses your stories themes, like "Want" or "Stream" or "Condemned" might be apt, but isn't expressive. The people to whom the front cover of your book matters don't know why "Want" is relevant or interesting, and they're unlikely to feel anything at all out of the ordinary when they see the title. Sure, a title can just be a handle. It doesn't have to be interesting.. but why wouldn't you make it interesting, if you can?
Especially when writing games, choosing a title that doesn't stand out can make all the difference in whether or you game gets noticed or doesn't. Names I love and that people readily click on sound more like: What We Lost In The Flood, o_AbyssalSomewhere, There Will Be Blood, Things Fall Apart, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Please, Don't Touch Anything, Telling Lies, Hypnospace Outlaw, etc.
A good enough title can be interesting enough to express the whole or the essential parts of a work's tone and setting, and encapsulate its themes far more than a single, vague word can.
Having said all that, I appear to be at least partially wrong - high budget projects keep choosing one-word titles over and over again, and I'd be shocked if those decisions were not well-researched. One explanation might be that a project with a great deal of marketing can gain more from the ease of saying one word, or how well the one word fits in headlines, how catchy or punchy that one word might be, without suffering the consequences of choosing a name that doesn't stand out on its own. Or maybe a large project whose goal is having the largest audience possible is better off with a vague title that excludes as few people as possible.
So, what is the reasoning? Are there known studies about the appeal of one-word titles compared to longer ones? Is there a pattern you can see among successful works with and without one-word names?
P.S. I know I have a strong bias towards/interest in games in this post, but I think this trend applies to all kinds of media. I hope you find game writing to be relevant to Writing Stack Exchange and that you find this question interesting. Thanks! ^ ^
I think it's about aspiration, about claim-staking, and about self-importance — and, in some cases, ultimately about den …
5y ago
The reason, as you guessed, is marketing. One word that sums up something memorable about a movie is a mental handle, it …
5y ago
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48546. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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I think it's about aspiration, about claim-staking, and about self-importance — and, in some cases, ultimately about denying the competition.
The number of one-word titles is far smaller than the number of multiple-word titles; and for a given subject, there are only a few relevant single-word titles. So there's a certain cachet about using one of them. (If nothing else, it denies them to anyone else.)
Also, using an opaque name is tacitly assuming that people will learn what it means, that the work is worthy and important enough for people to become aware of it without the benefit of a descriptive title. (It may not be, of course; but the confidence and even chutzpah of choosing such a title may help its popularity nonetheless.)
You can see this in, for example, titles of Microsoft software. While competitors were coming up with original, distinctive, and memorable names such as ‘WordStar’, ‘WordPerfect’, ‘WordWise’, ‘1st Word Plus’, ‘EasyWriter’, ‘LocoScript’, and ‘MultiMate’, Microsoft went with the blandest, commonest, most abstract name they could: ‘Word’ — implicitly claiming that because it was from Microsoft, that alone would be enough to ensure its popularity without needing a memorable name too. (An arrogance which seems to have been justified…)
It not only denied that exact name to competitors, but probably many related ones too. It meant that anyone merely mentioning the subject of word processors was also inadvertently using their product name — perhaps a form of subliminal advertising. And another effect was to force people to use the company name to disambiguate — ‘Microsoft Word’, thus publicising that too.
So there would seem to be many benefits to using a short, generic name, some of which are more about denying the competition than about helping the intended audience.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48580. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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The reason, as you guessed, is marketing. One word that sums up something memorable about a movie is a mental handle, it can appear in far larger type on a billboard, it eats up only 1 second in a 15 second commercial, it is very easy for people to recognize and associate a single word; psychologically that happens faster.
If I say "Avatar" you know exactly what I'm talking about. Same with "Rocky". Even for a bomb, "WaterWorld" remains a memorable title. Short is better, even if it isn't ONE word: "Mad Max". "The Terminator". It works on TV too; "Sherlock", "Monk", "CSI", "NCIS".
Its about time (to say it) and space (to print it), and being a single word it is hard to get wrong when Googling it.
I understand the urge to make the title descriptive, but it can also just be a unique, recognizable label with connections to the story in someway, to make marketing more effective.
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