Unique Titles

[oggbashan]

Almost all my stories have unique titles that no one else on Literotica has used.

Why has no one else used 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao?'

There are a few exceptions: Genie, Hitchhiker, and Photo Shoot that others have used as well, but most of the rest are just different.

Is that an advantage? Or not?

Do you think your story should have a title that is different, or are you happy with using titles that have been used many times before?

 

[NotWise]

Almost all my stories have unique titles that no one else on Literotica has used.

Why has no one else used 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao?'

There are a few exceptions: Genie, Hitchhiker, and Photo Shoot that others have used as well, but most of the rest are just different.

Is that an advantage? Or not?

Do you think your story should have a title that is different, or are you happy with using titles that have been used many times before?

I'd like my story titles to be unique, but it isn't that important to me and the site doesn't seem to care.

My Summer Lovin' story is "My Sister's Wedding," and I had a hard time imagining that the title hadn't been used, so I searched for it and came up with nothing. Then I published it, and it came up as "my-sisters-wedding-7." I guess there were six previous instances that I didn't find in the search.

 

[SimonDoom]

Most of the time, though not always, I take a pragmatic rather than artistic approach to titles. My approach is for the text of the story to satisfy whatever artistic standards and goals I have, but everything else -- category, title, tags, taglines -- is geared toward maximizing my audience. So I'm much less concerned about the title being unique than I am about it pushing the buttons of potential readers.

My first published story was "The Holiday Party." I didn't even think about checking whether that title had been used. It had. There are 5 stories at Literotica, including mine, with that exact title.

 

[Omenainen]

I don’t know if is an advantage or not, but I’d rather have unique titles. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. One of mine is called “Class Reunion”, and it was number 13 with that title. Every time I see the title I’m like duh, that’s dull. The story isn’t even about a class reunion, it was just the starting point. So, in hindsight, I wish I had taken the time to come up with another name. I don’t know if it matters to anyone else, though. I can imagine that if someone searched by name they’re probably not gonna read the 13th on the list, but I don’t know if anyone searches by name for anything they haven’t already read.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I'd rather go unique, unless I really like a title. My Nude Day story was called Into The Woods, which had been used before, possibly by another Sondheim fan, but I liked it for being short yet suggesting the content.

I posted Tell me What You Want before considering the title - there's a few others with the same title but clearly hadn't stopped people liking it. I was very pleased with my titles Chaperoning Matthew and Gas Station Guy - I was surprised no-one else had used the latter.

I wanted a short title for my current series and was pleasantly surprised Smoking Hot hadn't been used before (the protagonist is trying to quit smoking...)

Given I have some later chapters with more readers than the first chapter, I'm guessing description and tags are probably most important.

 

[vanmyers86]

I prefer to go with something unique, but I'm also a pragmatist at heart. I've learned the title needs to sell the story, so catchy/quirky can be good choices for what I do.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Do you think your story should have a title that is different, or are you happy with using titles that have been used many times before?

Given the gazillion stories here and elsewhere, unique is a challege. If you can think of one, I guess it helps readers remember the story, and results in a prettier URL.

I try to make titles short and sorta poetic. For uniqueness sometimes I search the top lists to make sure I'm not stealing the name of a really popular work, but that's it.

And better a well-used but lyrical title than something clinically descriptive.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Since I often write stories that are unexpected my titles may on the whole be atypical, I don't know. It's not something I ever think about - my title comes from the story, and it's never occurred to me to wonder if it's unique. I'll never have "Mom" in a title, though. I do know that, for sure.

When a story gets a comment like this, I figure the title caught someone's eye:

This is worlds outside anything I typically read, and I loved it. So creative and well written.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I dont really think about it one way or the other.

I just checked, and out of 26 stories, only 4 have URLs with numbers indicating the title had been used before.
Not surprisingly, my story "Doctor's Orders" is the 22nd of that title.
I was a little more surprised that "The Birthday Presents" hadn't been used previously.

Anyways, I just stick with a title I like, that I think captures something telling about the story.

 

[yowser]

I dont really think about it one way or the other.

I just checked, and out of 26 stories, only 4 have URLs with numbers indicating the title had been used before.
Not surprisingly, my story "Doctor's Orders" is the 22nd of that title.
I was a little more surprised that "The Birthday Presents" hadn't been used previously.

Anyways, I just stick with a title I like, that I think captures something telling about the story.

What an interesting exercise!

Unique is always good, bland not so much ('My first cock' has 27 entries!) but I was surprised that of my 62 titles, only four had been used before (2 were 'seconds') and two, 'Ambushed' (of course) and 'A is for Anal' had been chosen five times before.

I have no explanation for this distribution.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Almost all my stories have unique titles that no one else on Literotica has used.

Why has no one else used 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao?'

There are a few exceptions: Genie, Hitchhiker, and Photo Shoot that others have used as well, but most of the rest are just different.

Is that an advantage? Or not?

Do you think your story should have a title that is different, or are you happy with using titles that have been used many times before?

I don't check for duplicates before posting and I wouldn't be particularly bothered if one of my stories had the same title as something else, here, but so far I think they're all unique. I usually aim for a title that's memorable and will pique the readers' curiosity so duplicates are unlikely.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I don't check for duplicates before posting and I wouldn't be particularly bothered if one of my stories had the same title as something else, here, but so far I think they're all unique. I usually aim for a title that's memorable and will pique the readers' curiosity so duplicates are unlikely.

Same - although I seem to have settled on two-part titles. Pretty hard to duplicate those.

 

[Emirus]

Simple titles (like me)

I’ve never thought of coming up with a title that’s unique. I choose titles that fit the story and over half of them are the name of the main character. So no imagination required there. Probably with a more striking title a story might get more reads but I’ve not thought of that maybe because, subconsciously, I’ve thought if it did increase the readership it would be only minimal.

I’ve only got two story titles which could be considered slightly “different” in any way and they are: Dynasty... The True Story...Really? and Paddy the Irish Vampire. Although the latter does fall into the “name of the main character” category but he is Irish and he is a vampire, albeit not a normal one. I must admit Paddy is my favourite title and I do like him as a character because he’s different.

This thread has made me think maybe I should try thinking about a unique title but I doubt it’ll happen. It won’t be my next story, because that’s already got a title, which I won’t be changing, and it’s only four letters and it’s the name of the main character. So nothing different there. I suppose as far as titles go I’m pretty boring but I can only hope readers find my stories the opposite.

 

[Phantom300]

My first couple stories have pretty bland title (My Sister and her Friends) As I have written more, I've started to put actual thought into the titles. (27 Hours, You're Safe) They may not be original, but they are definitely a step up.

 

[leespiked]

all for unique titles

I've been here for years and some real talent here!
My biggest regret is not loging the great stories... I always thought they'd be easy to find again.
NOT SO.
I so miss ALWAYSWANTEDTO and you can find his stories with google but without his name or some UNIQUE story titles... good luck!

I am so trying to remember details of a story I read years ago.... no luck so far....

unique titles be good for that!

 

[LexxRuthless]

I always check before submitting a story to see if it is unique within that category, with one exception. I had started writing My Best Friend's Mom as a spinoff. The story developed so quickly that it was done within two days, and I submitted it without thinking about the title.

Some of my titles turned out to have been used before (from the URLs) but they were unique within their category. However, I submitted one story and saw that another author had used the same title the very next day!

You do what you can, and try to laugh at what you can't control.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I really don't try for uniqueness, just a (hopefully) good title. I just went through about half my stories... only a few of them are not unique. One that isn't unique has twenty-nine other stores with the same name.

 

[Omenainen]

One that isn't unique has twenty-nine other stores with the same name.

Hey, maybe it’s just a great name. Maybe we should all write one by that name.

 

[oggbashan]

One of my non-unique titles is Hitchhiker. I got comments and feedback commending me for writing a different version of the Hitchhiker meme.

But back to the beginning. It doesn't seem to matter and the readers don't care whether a title is unique or has been used many times.

 

[WoodmanStark]

I guess title uniqueness was a consideration when I posted my first story: the original working title of "A Visit From the Sex Goddess" was "The Succubus", and I checked the Nonhuman category for other succubus stories and decided the title was too basic. But after reading a couple of other stories I also decided "The Succubus" as a title would set certain expectations in the reader that my story wouldn't deliver on (I.e., it seems a succubus is invariably evil and sex with one is to the detriment of the human partner.) So a bit of thought came up with the final title, which appears to be unique, and much higher up the alphabet too.

My only other story "Jennifer" is a pretty basic title, but at this time seems to be the only one.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hey, maybe it’s just a great name. Maybe we should all write one by that name.

It's called Party Time. https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/party-time-29

There are probably more by now but there are 29 ahead of mine. The first title by that name does not have number at the end of it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I guess title uniqueness was a consideration when I posted my first story: the original working title of "A Visit From the Sex Goddess" was "The Succubus", and I checked the Nonhuman category for other succubus stories and decided the title was too basic. But after reading a couple of other stories I also decided "The Succubus" as a title would set certain expectations in the reader that my story wouldn't deliver on (I.e., it seems a succubus is invariably evil and sex with one is to the detriment of the human partner.) So a bit of thought came up with the final title, which appears to be unique, and much higher up the alphabet too.

My only other story "Jennifer" is a pretty basic title, but at this time seems to be the only one.

There are several other stories with just the name Jennifer as the title, one is a series. There are 181 pages in the search returned with the name Jennifer in the title. Just thought you'd like to know.

 

[Omenainen]

I wonder if that’s the most common one. I haven’t heard of anything more common, but then I haven’t been looking. My common one was only the 13th.

Okay, who can come up with the most common title? And how would we know? I’m surfing with my phone so checking links etc is quite impractical.

Edit: searching for “My First Time” got 7907 pages of results... 395 314 stories...not all of them were literally just that phrase, but damn.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I wonder if that’s the most common one. I haven’t heard of anything more common, but then I haven’t been looking. My common one was only the 13th.

Okay, who can come up with the most common title? And how would we know? I’m surfing with my phone so checking links etc is quite impractical.

Edit: searching for “My First Time” got 7907 pages of results... 395 314 stories...not all of them were literally just that phrase, but damn.

Wouldn't that result also include all the stories that had "first time" as a story tag?

 

[oggbashan]

Wouldn't that result also include all the stories that had "first time" as a story tag?

And all the stories in the First Time category.