Instructional Title

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A title of the form "How To X", where X is descriptive of what happens in the story (and typically, not something the audience would have ever wondered how to do).

Examples of Instructional Title include:


Film

Literature

  • How to Teach Physics to Your Dog
  • How To Live Safely In A Science-Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.
  • There's a The Zack Files book called How To Speak Dolphin in Three Easy Lessons.
  • How To Eat Fried Worms
  • Dale Carnegie's "How To Win Friends and Influence People" line of books. Possibly the Trope Maker.
  • How Not to Write A Novel
  • How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is the title of an obscure 1937 book, a 2001 memoir, and a 2008 film based on the memoir.
  • John Barth's novel The End of the Road was originally going to be called What To Do Until the Doctor Comes, but the publisher was concerned it would be mistaken for a book on first aid.

Live Action TV

Music

Radio

  • Every episode of The Burkiss Way: "Peel Bananas The Burkiss Way", "Become a Rock Star the Burkiss Way", "Discover Gravity the Burkiss Way", ...

Theatre

Web Comics