Do you check existing titles when naming a story?

[JaxRhapsody]

I often try to have unique titles, but I don't check, or care if it already exist.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't check. My titles are usually distinctive enough that they're unlikely to be duplicates, but it wouldn't bother me if they coincided with another work. There are quite a few novels out there sharing titles, and there are over thirty different songs titled "Hold On".

Perhaps worth mentioning that although titles aren't protected by copyright, some series titles are protected by trademarks.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I don't check to see if my title already exists. Of my nineteen titles submitted, only five already existed in Literotica. My story "The Gift" was the 168th submission with that title.

I tend to title my stories as I plan them out and I find it helps to set the tone of the story when I'm writing it. Since I'm a music lover, I tend to use song titles or lyrics from a song for my titles. As I'm writing, the song is playing in my mind to help me write the story.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I don't check. My titles are usually distinctive enough that they're unlikely to be duplicates, but it wouldn't bother me if they coincided with another work. There are quite a few novels out there sharing titles, and there are over thirty different songs titled "Hold On".

Perhaps worth mentioning that although titles aren't protected by copyright, some series titles are protected by trademarks.

I didn’t think about it…TILL NOW! Thankfully “all the devils are here” is the only one in group. I think people should try to make their titles distinctive where possible.

 

[vanmyers86]

One of the things I've always wanted to do is take an old CD and write a story to match every song title.

Might be an interesting author story challenge to pick a CD (preferably a double album so there are lots of titles to chose from) and invite people to write a story to one of those song titles.

 

[TadOverdon]

I Google my titles, and if I find one's already out there I use it anyway. Because they're all already out there.

 

[Seadog777]

I personally do not look. I just let the name come to me.

 

[pezzheaddazzler]

use this syntax no quotes replace XXXXXXX with query
"https://search.literotica.com/?query=XXXXXXXXXX"

 

[Bramblethorn]

use this syntax no quotes replace XXXXXXX with query
"https://search.literotica.com/?query=XXXXXXXXXX"

If you're searching specifically for a title, make that
https://search.literotica.com/?query=xxxxxxxx&where=desc&page=1

That will save you from getting hits on stories where the words appear in the story but not the title.

 

[DanDraper]

Sometimes, but not because I'm worried other people have that title, that's unnecessary.
You should use a title that you think best fits your story no matter how many times it's been used before.
I usually check out of curiosity to see what other stories other writers are using them for.
Sometimes you find some interesting random stories that way.




.....

 

[SimonDoom]

I experienced some hesitation once when I wrote my story Late Night on the Loveseat with Mom 5 1/2 years ago. I wrote the story in a week, which is pretty fast for me, and I came up with the title, and liked it because it was alliterative, had a good rhythm, was titillating, and described the story content. But on the eve of posting it I did a search and found there was an ongoing chaptered series "On The Loveseat," and the last chapter had been published only 4 days earlier. I was chagrined because I didn't want it to look like my story piggybacked on the other one or traded off its success (it was doing pretty well). But I decided to go with it anyway, since I'd independently come up with the title and I thought they were different enough to avoid confusion. It was a good decision, because it was my all-time most successful story, by far. The other author's series continued to do well and I don't recall getting any complaints.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I'll sometimes skim through my planned category for inspiration, more for what keywords to get into the tagline.

I did look up a planned title 'Turkish Delight' and found none which surprised and disappointed me as I was hoping to get ideas for description. Turns out there's a few, but they are chapters, or have A or The or an extra word. So the title still works for anyone who remembers the story to find it.