Good and Bad Story Titles

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Barbara at Work, Barbi at Play

Two sides of the same person.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I would agree with this but including names in a title can be helpful to avoid duplicate titles and create some interest. I reviewed my list and I've included a name in some 20 out of 75 titles. Amy's Night Away, Shivering Sarah and Bill, We Need to Talk all use names but, IMO, create some intrigue.

I've nothing against including names in a title. Amy's Night Away, for example, seems like a decent title. I meant to criticize the titles that have nothing but a name or names in them.

 

[Trionyx]

I meant to criticize the titles that have nothing but a name or names in them.

Like I said, I would agree with your original statement. I was merely adding additional thoughts about names being included in titles and how they can be beneficial.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm going to give one by an actual author and the reason I'll say who it is, is because the story is a huge hit, and its an example of how I think we fret too much about what readers think.

What Mom Knows will fuck her in the ass

There is a slew of 'What Mom knows" titles and all just as eye rolling.

But its Silkstockingslover, a woman who is a far better writer than the smutty titles indicate, but also a woman and men are men.

I tell people that Stephen King could wipe his ass and submit the toilet paper to a publisher and they'd publish it and make a movie out of it.

I think Silk is the Lit version of that. Good for her.

 

[SimonDoom]

I generally, though not always, take a practical approach to titles. The story is the art and the rest is marketing. I think this approach works especially well at literotica, where quickly attracting attention is so important to getting readers.

So, most of the time I opt for titles with the following in mind:

1. I choose titles with myself in mind as a reader. As a reader i generally like straightforward titles.

2. Ideally the title should be descriptive.

3. The title should fit the tone of the story. An in your face story should have an in your face title. Eg, Mom, You're a Hucow! A more sophisticated story should have a more sophisticated title.

4. My mother-son stories always have mom and mother in the title. It seems to help.

5. I use titillating words when I can. Words that I think people who like that type of story will be attracted to.

6. I try to be clever or catchy when I can, but I'd rather be direct than clever.

7. I try to imagine what someone searching for my type of story would search for.


It seems to be working.

 

[Voboy]

There's a new story in the list with a typo in the title …

There's an old one, too.

In April 2016, I posted my fifth story on Lit: 11,500-odd words, a story of a daycare worker seducing a dad during a snowstorm. It just got a "favorite" for the first time in awhile, but something caught my eye about that notification: I mistyped "Customer" in the title. It says "Cutomer."

11 comments, not one of which mentions the title typo. I guess I won't bother editing it, lol. There can't be much point now. It's got 4.7 on almost 650 votes with around 86,700 views, so I doubt the typo has held it back any!

 

[SkyBubble]

I agree with you, but with a caveat - Fetish is, along with SF/F, probably the widest category, and we would assume that other categories will be narrower. But even in something like EV, there is the question of whether the story is E or V, which might make a considerable difference to a reader. Or consider BDSM - is the story B, or D, or S, or M, or some combination? Does it have a maledom or femdom focus? All issues which might attract or repel a reader. A lot of categories may have polar opposite readers who want something either black, or white.

Maybe they need subcategories.

 

[SkyBubble]

Sometimes I pun in my titles or at least try to.

Also, I try to make my chapters stand alone but also be connected.

 

[SkyBubble]

I did the standalones route with what I refer to as my "Book Club Series." Each story is a standalone, and the titles are completely unrelated. But they interconnect with the same characters

My "Belinda" series does that. Three seemingly unrelated titles, but teh same characters, each story standing on its own but with ties to the others.

I somtimes try to hint at a series by using a character name or another word from the title in the subsequent story(ies.)

 

[dirk2024]

Also, I try to make my chapters stand alone but also be connected.

This is the direction I am headed. I have a group of characters, focused around a main MMC and set up the situation. (not yet published). I have maybe six WIP's with the same characters, but separate stories. I suppose I could fold them into one long novella/novel, figure out a way to better connect them, but I don't have the interest for that.

 

[SkyBubble]

The Girl Next Door (I know, could vhe been better, but that's literally what she is)
Bed, Body, and Belinda
Belinda's Booty

The second story references the first (mentioning that it's a few days after those events), but is not a "continuation" of the first one.

 

[SkyBubble]

What would you expect from my story Love Is in the Cards?

 

[dirk2024]

What would you expect from my story Love Is in the Cards?

A poker game among single, coed friends. Woman is sure her aces over kings full house is going to win, yet has no money. She she bet's the clothes off her back. The guy has a straight flush. He collects in more ways than one. They go from lust to love.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

A poker game among single, coed friends. Woman is sure her aces over kings full house is going to win, yet has no money. She she bet's the clothes off her back. The guy has a straight flush. He collects in more ways than one. They go from lust to love.

Or a tarot reading gives a strange prediction of events that all somehow come true.

 

[designatedvictim]

I'll toss in my two cent's worth:

The Long Weekend - six parts of an ongoing story. The parts are all named The Long Weekend [Day Number 1-6] - {Day name/Segment] A lot of days: from Thursday evening through Tuesday morning.

Other than implying a lot of time passes, so it's not likely a one-night stand, it doesn't tell you anything else (straight/LGB/group/non-con/LW/first-time?). One AH-er (blanking on the user, at the moment, ght? - sorry) once commented that 120K words (and counting) was an awful lot to cover just seven (with epilog) days.

A Week of Sunrises - pretty much the same problem.

Neither hints at the type of characters or relationship (although AWoS is in T/I, which helps, TLW is in N&N, which doesn't help at all).

Other than telling the reader that they have a lot of time to make/let things happen, each is actually different, in that respect.

TLW has the main characters naked in under 6K-ish words and staying that way for most of the story.

AWoS was deliberately written as a slow-burn, 12K-ish words before the first sexual contact and 25K-ish words to the first sex.

So, my story names give away nothing about the stories. AWoS strikes me as being evocative of the slow-burn, potentially languid, but that's pretty much where it ends.

When I named them, I wasn't keeping the idea that the names should be able to advertise in mind.

Technically, they're both bad.

P.S.
I just recalled a mumble, mumble years ago college writing class where I named a short The Hunting of the Snark. It was a piece on finding that most mythical of creatures: an open parking space in the perennially-full parking lots. Everyone looked at me and gave a collective WTF?

Maybe naming stories isn't my forte.

 

[SkyBubble]

I have some titles I think are quite good, and I have a few that are deadly clunky, but I couldn't think of anything better.

 

[SkyBubble]

It was a piece on finding that most mythical of creatures: an open parking space in the perennially-full parking lots.

We have an Amish market here, open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You can cruise for 20 minutes or so trying to find a parking space.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

We have an Amish market here, open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You can cruise for 20 minutes or so trying to find a parking space.

Welcome to London. You might think it'll be quicker to drive somewhere if there isn't direct transport, but then it'll likely take 20 minutes to find somewhere to park and 10 min to walk back. My record recently was failing to find anywhere legal to park within half an hour, so I just stopped in a private road and waited for the family to return.

The nearest Waitrose (supermarket for posh people) has a small and awkward car park. I've learned never to even try parking if it's December, after seeing punch-ups over spaces. Either take the pully trolley on the bus, or pay to park on a side street.

The mythical bit is the free coffee for customers - the coffee machine working correctly is a true snark!

 

[APilgrimSquare]

Most of my titles are fairly pedestrian. I should probably put more thought into them. I certainly put a lot of thought into my writing. I think it's a function of usually not picking a title until the moment I'm uploading, and then I just want to get on with it.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Good Title: The Open Kimono by U Seymour

Bad Title: Rusty Bed Springs by IP Knightley

Ugly Title: The Last Fifty Yards to the Outhouse by Willie Makeit (with foreword by Betty Wont, Andy Diddint)

 

[Djmac1031]

I've always tried to find a balance by coming up with a clever title mixed with a good short description.

Sometimes I hit, several times I've failed.

An example of one I consider a "hit:"

Title: In Plane View
short description: Strangers make a connection during a long distance flight.

It's published in E/V so it definitely hints at the story without trying to spell it out, which can get clunky.

One that kinda failed:

Title: Riders On The Storm
short description: Her thought he controlled her. He was wrong.

published in Erotic Horror. While i stand by my title, my main problem was trying to write a short description without giving away two major plot twists.

And so instead I told readers absolutely nothing, and, well... yeah, its a terrible short description.

 

[JennyCapricorn]

I have a connected question on titles: my writing partner (@genzsub) and I have a series that's running through 12 stories of one a month for a year where each individual story is distinct with no reference back to the "A Year in Service" collection, which made sense to me. And then I saw a comment on a story where the commenter said he knocked a star off because the title didn't reference the existing connected stories.

Does anyone have a feeling on both the protocol of this, or whether including the larger collection title makes the stories more or less enticing to the reader?

 

[Djmac1031]

I have a connected question on titles: my writing partner (@genzsub) and I have a series that's running through 12 stories of one a month for a year where each individual story is distinct with no reference back to the "A Year in Service" collection, which made sense to me. And then I saw a comment on a story where the commenter said he knocked a star off because the title didn't reference the existing connected stories.

Does anyone have a feeling on both the protocol of this, or whether including the larger collection title makes the stories more or less enticing to the reader?

You're always gonna get a few picky knuckle heads just looking for something to complain about.

Stick to your guns on this one.

 

[Writer61]

I've always tried to find a balance by coming up with a clever title mixed with a good short description.

This is my usual approach too. I haven't received any comments for or against.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Does anyone have a feeling on both the protocol of this, or whether including the larger collection title makes the stories more or less enticing to the reader?

Something being connected to a larger collection of stories might be a turn off to other readers, because some of them will feel like they need to read the others before they read this one.

If its not a standalone having the titles be similar to each other in some fashion is nice.

But if it's a standalone that just so happens to be related to another story, then I make no mention of this until the end where I've put up authors notes pointing out other works in which you can find the same characters. I've not gotten any complaints about this.