Annie Proulx’s short stories make a fantastic use of space in an important way. She completely understands the limitations of the form and uses all available space to work for her, as the writer, and you, as the reader. The titles feed into the story, so that she either gives a hint as to what she wants to you read out of it, or simply kicks off the first part of your mindset before you launch into the meat of the story.

In publishing, works go through a laundry list of titles to ensure that the work is catchy, appealing to the right audience, and dissimilar from either a recent work or a famous one. The short story collection can be titled from a list; the magazine has its own title to appeal to a predetermined audience. In the short story itself, all ink on the page must perform a function.

Pick a short work you’ve titled. Cover the title. Uncover it. I can’t decide. What you can ask yourself is this: Am I repeating myself? Or is the title saying something new that isn’t stated within the work?

Sometimes we want to repeat ourselves. Sometimes we want to clarify. Sometimes we’re just desperate to call it something and be done. That’s okay, too. But you have all this real estate above your name to work for you.