Have you ever written a new story just because you’d crafted a nifty story title for it? 😂

[Voyeurkenneth]

“Oooh, that’s a fun title! Has a nice ring to it! I should write a story for it!”

—

Or alternately, you started with an idea for a story, but only felt compelled to see it through after coming up with a catchy title.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I wish - I struggle with titles CONSTANTLY. The absolute hardest thing for me to write, which I find funny.

My On the Job story was "On the Job Story" as the title until like an hour ago, lol.

 

[TheLobster]

 

[NuclearFairy]

I do know someone who's writing process always goes; Think up title --> find or make pretty pictures that suit title for inspiration --> make up summary to go with title and pictures --> plot out story --> write story!

But personally, I've never had a title until I've gotten at least a vague idea of what the story is about and where it's going.

 

[RejectReality]

LMAO At least half the stories in this name arose from the titles. I have a file just for collecting title ideas that have no stories attached to them. Multiple ones, actually, but the others are for specific story series, like my Magic of the Wood series where every story title is (Word) of the Wood, and the story ends with that as a tagline as well.

Not just this name, either.

One Whore's Town - It's not big enough for the both of them.

That Darkniciad story arose entirely from that title/description wordplay popping into my head. Odd as that story is, it's become one of my favorites.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

I wish - I struggle with titles CONSTANTLY. The absolute hardest thing for me to write, which I find funny.

My On the Job story was "On the Job Story" as the title until like an hour ago, lol.

This is exactly me. I can write 12,000 carefully-crafted words of smut but I am completely unable to come up with five words for a title. Then I'll pick a title and obsess over whether it was right forever after.

And my On the Job story had the same title until it was finished.

Why are titles so difficult?

 

[TheLobster]

Why are titles so difficult?

Are they really? You've got 35 characters to fill in, and "mom" and "backseat" already takes care of 11 of them.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

I wish - I struggle with titles CONSTANTLY. The absolute hardest thing for me to write, which I find funny.

My On the Job story was "On the Job Story" as the title until like an hour ago, lol.

Interesting. When I'm feeling stuck/exhausted with the actual writing of a story, I'll take a break and start fiddling with the working title and short description as an easier creative exercise.

 

[StillStunned]

I have at least half a dozen files in my WIP folder that are just titles and a single line. A handful of published stories that began as a title and concept that formed together, "Angry Fuck" and "Fairytale of New York" probably being the clearest examples.

 

[THBGato]

Nah, titles come last for me too most of the time and are often simply the name of the song I was obsessed with at the time of writing. (eg Thirty, Love is a Place, the Parting Glass.)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Sometimes I'm inspired. I once thought I should have a story that represents the best of what's typical of my offerings at the top of my alphabetical list (instead of 'Breathe - 750 Words'). What begins with A?

Accredited Sadist got written. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me that Lit uses strict alphabetization, so it's bumped down by A Tale of Two Christmases - another title that came early on, for a novella.

I was messing about with a story and wondering if I could make part of it into a Summer Lovin' story. when the title Messing About on the River came to me, which made it easy. Some other titles have also been easy - Gas Station Guy, Tell Me What You Want, Switching at KinkCon, Naked Bisexual Lube Wrestling. In retrospect, Smoking Hot wasn't as good as I thought when writing (guy gives up smoking using cock as a substitute for something long and round and satisfying in his mouth).

But some I've asked for help with. A couple of my beta reading gang helped with some alliteration, leading to "Anal Sex: A Scientific Approach". 'Educating Laura' wasn't exactly inspired, but it's 7 long chapters basically about a young woman making friends and choosing an interesting sex life and finding chosen family, so it wasn't like there was a simple aspect to pick on.

If in doubt, I use a bit of alliteration - Sex Swing Satisfaction, Interviewed about Indecency. If it's a longer more complex story, then the title can be more of a tease, eg Chaperoning Matthew. My favourite is possibly Image Nine Point Four - a Crime & Punishment story that's more of a legal thriller/procedural but gets to a court needing to decide if an image of a BDSM scene could actually be produced while being enjoyed by the participant. This being Lit, the scene has to be re-enacted...

I have a series of transatlantic scientists having anal sex, called I Say Ass, You Say Arse... and each subsequent story gets a word in alphabetical order. E may have to be Educational, unless I find a better word to cover 'gets introduced to BDSM, doesn't like it, but enjoys watching hot women doing it'. 'Enjoyment', maybe.

Can't go wrong with the 'what it says on the tin' approach. Not that I've written any mom, backseat or bikini stories, but Naked Bisexual Lube Wrestling (mostly lesbians) and Only One Bed, Again! worked
from that perspective.

 

[SimonDoom]

Absolutely, yes. I often come up with over-the-top titles and a vague concept to go along with it, and then I work out the story to match the title.

Examples:

A Bikini With A Mind Of Its Own
Bubble-Butt Gym Whore
Fuck Bus
Mom, You're A Hucow!
Hotel Exhibitionist
Mom-Son Club

With all of these stories, the title came before the clear outline of the story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Titles seem to come easy to me-not claiming they're all great, but I don't struggle with them.

I've written stories based around a stock photo I've seen that really popped to me.

Tag lines are at times a PIA over character limit, but my biggest struggle is the 400 character limit blurb for Smashwords and other sites. I just wrote a 40k story, but getting a decent description with that limit is a bitch for me.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is an example of the image leading into a story

Saw the pic, thought it has Halloween story all over it. What genre? Looks more dangerous than sexy, some revenge story. What's a great genre for revenge? Scorned woman mixed with a cuck hotwife theme. Final results. I'm holding it back until the Haloween season.

.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

nteresting. When I'm feeling stuck/exhausted with the actual writing of a story, I'll take a break and start fiddling with the working title and short description as an easier creative exercise

I freely admit that I am weird in this regard because once I get started, I am like a freight train and I keep going until I am finished.

But the title?

How do I convey this 20k+ word story or this massive series in a few words that are good enough to convey the idea, interesting enough to entice someone to click and aren’t derivative and clumsy (like - BWC Fucks Hot Waifu In the Butt Ch. 69)?

I always worry that the wrong title will sink the whole thing and it becomes a massive pain in the ass, lol.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Around half of my stories are published with something other than their original, working title. As the story develops, my list of potential titles grows, sometimes to three or four., with the eliminated titles struck through (not deleted) so I don't write them down a second time and start reconsidering them. The title in bold is type is the current favorite.

That said, Where the Buffalo Roam, is a classic case of the title inspiring the story. Set in a small town on the American Great Plains, the members of the local fraternal order, the Shaggy Buffalo Lodge have their usual order shaken up when woman moves to town, joins the ranks of the lodge's Suitably Shorn and Depilated Sisterhood of Beautiful Bisonettes, and proposes a new annual fundraiser event in place of the usual ice cream social. There have been two sequels similarly inspired by other lines of the poem/song "Home on the Range," with a third in the works.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm about fifty/fifty on this. About half of my stories were inspired by a title that came to mind and the other half were stories in search of a title.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

“Oooh, that’s a fun title! Has a nice ring to it! I should write a story for it!”

—

Or alternately, you started with an idea for a story, but only felt compelled to see it through after coming up with a catchy title.

Yeah, a couple of times a title popped into my head, and prompted the subsequent stories. Both Boardroom Bitch and Soccer Mom Slut began as titles. I had no idea what either story would entail until I started writing them.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Yup. Usually I come up with the title last, but both Eight Dates with the Dead and Pumpkin Splice started as nothing more than titles. Both are Halloween stories, but dunno if that has anything to do with it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Have you ever written a new story just because you’d crafted a nifty story title for it? ​

Synchronicity-driven drive-by:

I came up with the website name WhoreBnB.com - thirty thousand words later…

[Note: link above is to my story, the website doesn’t exist. Why not is a something of a mystery to me ]

 

[Bloodandglitter]

Yes! That's probably one of the reasons I never can finish what I write lol

 

[TiberiusPrime]

A lot of my stories, published and WIP, have begun like that.

 

[Djmac1031]

I've got at least a few that started out as a story title first:

Night Of The Giving Head - my zombie porn parody

Friends With Bennie Fitz - a friends to lovers tale

One Night Of Sindi - a stranded sex worker makes an offer to a lonely businessman.

 

[Erozetta]

Cherry's Jubilee
Blood Wine
Missed Connections: New Orleans
Bully's Birthday
Neighbor's Shadow: All Grown Up
Fucking Mondays
A Loss of Power.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Literally saw a sign in a bar and just had to write; Ride it Like you Stole It