How Do You Come Up With Titles? (Just For Fun!)

[JC_WELLS]

I'm curious. How do you come up with your ties? Whats your method? Do you have one or do they just come to you? This is just something I was wondering about. Not truly in need of it, just curious.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Someone (@SimonDoom ?) likes to tell people to write the stories they want to write, and then write the titles and descriptions and tags that will get their stories read.

I like that take.

 

[Voboy]

It usually just occurs to me.

When it doesn’t, I just scan the piece and pull out a phrase that seems “title-ish.”

Sometimes I really screw up and pick a non-attractive title. It’s always reflected in the view count.

 

[NoTalentHack]

It really depends. A lot of my stories start as titles, just a little bit of wordplay that I laugh at or like for some other reason. In Vitro Veritas is an example of this; I was watching Tombstone and the part of the exchange where Doc and Johnny Ringo are tossing Latin back and forth. They got to "in vino veritas," and my brain replaced a word. Bam! Story.

Then I search for the title on LitE (I always do this, because I like to have unique titles) and see if it's available. If it's not, and I like the story well enough, I come up with a new one. Philanthropic is one example here.

Other times, I absolutely struggle over what to call a story. As much as I like the story Reassessing My Life, the title really feels like I just couldn't come up with anything better. But it got the point across, and it picked up a red H in LW without any significant burning; I'll call that a win.

 

[Djmac1031]

I usually start by thinking of words. Then I try to put them together in a form that makes sense. If it makes enough sense, I use them.

OK I know. I'm a wiseass .

For me personally, my titles USUALLY come to me at the same time as the story idea itself. Sometimes the title IS the story idea.

Other times though, I just have to write it and then figure out something that fits.

I like to think my titles are clever as opposed to direct.

For instance I titled my very first story The Doctor Is In...Me.

I thought that more fun than "Woman Doctor Massages My Prostate."

That said, "clever" is subjective and in the eye of the beholder .

I say have fun with them, be creative, and just try to make it fit the story itself.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yep. My philosophy (generally, not in every case) is that the story text is the art and the rest is marketing.

Things I try to do, most of the time, with a story title:

1. It should be titillating--specifically, it should titillate the readership of the category in which the story is published.
2. It should be descriptive. Let the reader know what they're getting. Don't be coy.
3. Research the most popular tags for the category in which the story will be published. What are popular tags? Include a tag word in the title, or at least include an alluring and sexy word in the title that will be the kind of word that readers of that category are looking for. Example: I wrote a story six years ago about a woman who went to the beach in a new bikini, so I included "bikini" in the title. That story has never scored over 4.5, but it continues to get over 100 views every single day (that's 36,500 views every year), probably because readers of the Exhibitionist category find the word "bikini" a turn-on.
4. If you can make it fun and playful and sexy, so much the better.
5. Ask yourself, "If I saw a list of 50 new stories, would this one stand out? Would it excite my interest?" That's what a Literotica title should do.
6. If it's an incest story about a mom and a son, always put "mom" in the title. You cannot go wrong doing this.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm curious. How do you come up with your ties? Whats your method? Do you have one or do they just come to you?

EB looks closely at the post, and decides, my wife or my daughter buy them. Their sense of fashion is so much better than mine.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

I hit my head against a thesaurus until something sticks.

 

[jaykaythree]

What I'll do is kick ideas around, with help from looking in the search engine. I try to go with titles that no else has done, if possible; many times, I surprise myself with what shakes out.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Then again I am the idiot who went from "Baseball And The Death Of The American Dream" to "Home Run"

So take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

[oneagainst]

The good stories name themselves. While it's weirdly anthropomorphic, it's a sign for me that the story has come to life. Often I start with a crap title until the story itself comes up with something better. It doesn't need to be titillating it just needs to be different enough to stand out in the New Stories list.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Most of the time I know the title before I even start writing. Before I've figured out half the plot even at a conceptual level.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Then again I am the idiot who went from "Baseball And The Death Of The American Dream" to "Home Run"

So take my advice with a grain of salt.

Your original title was intriguing. It has a Hunter Thompson feel to it. So why did you change it? I hope it wasn't to please the readers. Make them think a bit if you can.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Your original title was intriguing. It has a Hunter Thompson feel to it. So why did you change it? I hope it wasn't to please the readers. Make them think a bit if you can.

It's too long for lit

 

[gunhilltrain]

6. If it's an incest story about a mom and a son, always put "mom" in the title. You cannot go wrong doing this.

Try to get a station wagon name in there too. "Billy's Popped Cherry, His Hot Mom, and a Ford Country Squire." If that doesn't doesn't fetch the crowds, then I don't know Arkansas. Although, for more modern eras, an SUV can be substituted.

https://hagerty-media-prod.imgix.net/2022/04/Klockau_Country_Squire_Lead.jpg?auto=format,compress&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=1492

I now, that's a bit long for a title (35 letters?). How about, "The Country Squire: Mom Bangs Billy In The Back Seat." Well, you get the idea.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The good stories name themselves. While it's weirdly anthropomorphic, it's a sign for me that the story has come to life. Often I start with a crap title until the story itself comes up with something better. It doesn't need to be titillating it just needs to be different enough to stand out in the New Stories list.

Precisely.

 

[JC_WELLS]

Thanks everyone for throwing in your methods! It's interesting to hear all this!

My titles really just come to me. When they come, depends. Sometimes I get the title with the idea other times I get the idea and then I get the title and characters and then a title

Like my current project a series with the title currently under construction. The first book is called White Roses though. The main character was named Bianca Rose. I came up with the idea, some of the world, and then the title which gave way to her name.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Your original title was intriguing. It has a Hunter Thompson feel to it. So why did you change it? I hope it wasn't to please the readers. Make them think a bit if you can.

Oh! I do miss him.

 

[oneagainst]

One way to sense check the quality of the story title is to imagine how it would look on the top of the credits at the end of the film that they make of it one day when Netflix picks it up.

Then imagine who you would cast in the MC roles. It's endless

 

[gunhilltrain]

It's too long for lit

There are ways around that. A part could be in the title, another part in the description. Or it could start in the title and continue in the text above the story. Like, "The Death of the American Dream," and the text could continue with, I don't know, something about baseball. "The Death of the American Dream," catches my attention, but then I'm a bit pessimistic about the future of this country.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oh! I do miss him.

I'm still amazed that he shot himself. But then, the way he rode motorcycles, and his drug use (unless he exaggerated a bit) seem to be problematic too. He admitted that he liked to ride motorcycles as fast as he could until he was at the very edge of losing control.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

There are ways around that. A part could be in the title, another part in the description. Or it could start in the title and continue in the text above the story. Like, "The Death of the American Dream," and the text could continue with, I don't know, something about baseball. "The Death of the American Dream," catches my attention, but then I'm a bit pessimistic about the future of this country.

I ultimately went for home run because of the double meaning that was more relevant to the part of the story that I uploaded. The Death of the American Dream bit is referring to Yuma's lofty notions on how progressive American culture is getting completely shattered when he actually moves there and discovers the US has its own, more violent brand of homophobia, despite gay marriage being legal.

 

[RoperTrace]

I usually start by thinking of words. Then I try to put them together in a form that makes sense. If it makes enough sense, I use them.

OK I know. I'm a wiseass .

For me personally, my titles USUALLY come to me at the same time as the story idea itself. Sometimes the title IS the story idea.

Other times though, I just have to write it and then figure out something that fits.

I like to think my titles are clever as opposed to direct.

For instance I titled my very first story The Doctor Is In...Me.

I thought that more fun than "Woman Doctor Massages My Prostate."

That said, "clever" is subjective and in the eye of the beholder .

I say have fun with them, be creative, and just try to make it fit the story itself.

That title: The Doctor Is In. . .Me, actually caught my eye when you published it. Good story!

My titles often come from a line or phrase in the actual story. I wrote a story called, 'Bare Ass Beach', that I originally wanted to call it the 'Summer of '69', like the Bryan Adams song. I used a few lines of the song at the end of the story, and it got rejected, even though I gave credit to the songwriter and used less than 25% of the total verses. So I pulled the verses out totally.

 

[gunhilltrain]

One way to sense check the quality of the story title is to imagine how it would look on the top of the credits at the end of the film that they make of it one day when Netflix picks it up.

Then imagine who you would cast in the MC roles. It's endless

When I used to experiment with screenplays, I sometimes would cast the films. (I guess I wanted to be Stanley Kubrick perhaps.) I rewrote an existing movie and used the entire real cast, although they seemed more interesting (or course!) the way I portrayed them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I ultimately went for home run because of the double meaning that was more relevant to the part of the story that I uploaded. The Death of the American Dream bit is referring to Yuma's lofty notions on how progressive American culture is getting completely shattered when he actually moves there and discovers the US has its own, more violent brand of homophobia, despite gay marriage being legal.

That is only one of our problems. So where did he start from before he came to the U.S.?

At least we're not Iran. The claimed (maybe they still do) that they don't even have gay people.