Summary

The author discusses the challenge of creating compelling titles and how they utilized ChatGPT to generate and refine title ideas for an article about Edith Wharton's unique writing advice, ultimately finding a balance between intrigue and authenticity.

Abstract

The article delves into the author's personal struggle with crafting engaging titles, emphasizing the importance of a good title in the digital age where content is abundant. The author contrasts their initial ineffective title with a viral one to illustrate the impact of a well-crafted headline. Seeking improvement, the author experiments with ChatGPT, an AI language model, to brainstorm title ideas for a piece on lesser-known insights from Edith Wharton's perspective on writing. Despite initial skepticism about AI's ability to produce creative titles, the author finds value in the AI-generated suggestions, which include buzzwords and clichés. By iterating and combining AI-generated phrases, the author crafts a title that is both catchy and reflective of the article's content without resorting to overused language. The author concludes by encouraging others to use ChatGPT as a tool for title creation, suggesting that it can enhance the quality of their headlines.

Opinions

The author acknowledges their own difficulty in writing effective titles, highlighting the commonality of this issue among writers.
There is a critical view of the quality of titles commonly found on platforms like Medium, Vocal, or Newsbreak, suggesting that most titles are subpar.
The author expresses skepticism about the usefulness of ChatGPT for writing, given its tendency to produce generic content, but finds it useful for title generation.
The author advises against using AI-generated titles as-is, advocating for personalization to avoid clichéd phrases like "untold secrets" or "trailblazing pioneer."
The author values the use of a headline analyzer tool to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of titles and uses it in conjunction with ChatGPT's suggestions.
The author believes that even with the help of AI, the human touch is essential in crafting a title that resonates with readers and reflects the article's content.

How To Use ChatGPT To Turn Terrible Titles Into Awesome Headlines

Most people suck at titles. But don’t use it straight out of the box, it sounds like a marketing bro. Here’s what I did…

Y’all, omg, I have struggled so much with titles.

Not. Even. Kidding.

Embarrassing truth. I remember one day logging on to Medium and seeing a story with a title something like “My Husband Cheated. She Can Have Him, I Just Want My Dress Back.”

That’s not verbatim. But under it? Was my lame title. Something stupid about a bird. It was about writing, not that you’d know from the title.

Sigh.

I wrote a story about how famous writers can’t even write good titles. Like, Seth Godin can’t write a title to save his life. Course, he doesn’t need to. He’s Seth Godin. I’m not. Neither are you. Duh.

(Unless he’s reading. In which case, I’m sorry Mr. Godin. Gah. The shame!)

See?

Screencap by author. Here’s the link to the story.

5.8K claps on that crazy dog. Clearly, a lot of people resonated with how hard titles are. Honestly. Titles are the worst.

We’ve all scrolled down the homepage of sites like Medium, Vocal or Newsbreak and wonder why it’s all crap. Crap, crap, crap.

lol. Well, it’s not necessarily all crap. But the titles usually are.

Most of us can’t write a title to save our lives.

Writing a good title is HARD!

I needed a killer title for a story I’m writing…

In the early 1900s, doctors thought it was bad for women to read.

When Virginia Woolf was put in a mental institution, the doctor gave her father hell for letting her read. He said that’s what made her mental. Had nothing to do with her half brother raping her repeatedly. Nope. Books fried her poor lady brain.

So — in that context — pretty amazing that Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer in 1921. She wasn’t even supposed to be reading, much less writing.

I found some really interesting things she said about writing. Things that don’t fall into the typical writing advice. So I’m writing about it.

But I didn’t want to flush the whole thing down the loo with a boring title.

Here’s what I didn’t want to do…

That’s how most people write titles. Basically, most titles suck.

Plus? Not like most people know who Edith Wharton is.

Gotta love when writers “name drop” names no one knows. lol. I see that a lot in my History of Women submissions. Little tip — don’t “name drop” names that no one knows unless you also inspire curiosity.

So I didn’t want to do that with this story idea.

I wondered if ChatGPT could help.

ChatGPT writes titles like a self help bro. lol

I don’t use ChatGPT to help with writing. Because it’s all regurgitated stuff with no personality. It stifles me. You are what you eat. You know?

They “trained” it on text from the internet. Nuff said?

Also? Trained isn’t the right word. They fed it words from the internet. Then it uses a probability generator to figure out how to put the words together. That’s literally how ChatGPT works. I wrote about that.

Anyway... I thought maybe ChatGPT could help with title ideas.

I started with a short synopsis. See?

I had to laugh. They sound kind of like a self help bro. All those buzz words. Untold Secrets! Trailblazing. Beyond the headline! Pioneer!

lol. A little too hokey for me.

But still, I wanted to see how they scored in the headline analyzer.

I checked to see how ChatGPT scored in the Headline Analyzer…

The scores are good. But honestly, I don’t like all the buzz words. I’m not an “untold secrets” sort of person.

But I wondered if I could use the bits I liked and come up with something good. Use it for inspiration, instead of verbatim.

I mixed and matched the ideas ChatGPT gave me…

That was my first shot. I like it better. No “untold secrets” and none of the trailblazing pioneer nonsense.

But still, little Goldilocks porridge... Not quite right.

So I tried again.

Here’s another one…

So there’s a couple of decent ones. I just didn’t use the hypey words I didn’t like. No Untold Secrets! Trailblazing. Beyond the headline!

If you struggle with headlines, ChatGPT can help. :)

If you struggle with titles — and most of us do — you can do the same. Open two tabs. ChatGPT in one tab, the headline analyzer in the other.

Then play with the titles it gives you. Don’t use them “as is” unless you really like them. But mix and match them to come up with something that has a decent score and doesn’t feel so shouty.

It’s going to be better than the titles you’re writing now.

If you try it, I’d love to know what happens.

“Trying to explain what makes a headline good is like trying to explain what makes a joke funny or a photo pornographic. You recognize it, but you can’t necessarily explain it.” — Jim Heinrich, editor Pittsburgh Post-Gazette