title, title....who's got a title?

[carsonshepherd]

hatin' myself right now because I gave my latest work a totally random stupid working title from a stupid song that was lodged in my head, and now it doesn't fit the work in any way but I can't make it go away and I can't think of anything else! It's ten chapters now. I'm screwed.

 

[Samandiriel]

I like one word titles personally.

 

[yui]

Titles always seem to come to me while writing, or soon after completion. In my mind they always seem to fit, but I think that might be because I know the story inside and out and I know what I was thinking. Sometimes titles without stories to go with them happen, too. I write them in my notebook, and like fragments of conversation, or lines of songs and poetry, sometimes they spawn a plot bunny.

 

[Ferawyn]

Titles for me don't mean too much. They're an articificial label stamped on your story. An attempt to reduce something beautiful and complex into a one, two or three words. It never works.

So, when I start a new story, I just take the first word that pops into my head thinking about the original story seed and go with that. I rarely change them later.

The hard one for me was coming up with the subtitle for my story for Lit. You get a few more words, but it also has to be more of a summary than a title. Even with a single-page story, how do you summarize that to one simple sentence?

 

[English Lady]

I like one word titles personally.

*points to my sigline*

 

[fieryjen]

I usually either come up with the perfect title before I finish the story, or I don't, which then leads to a really half-assed title because I can't pick anything better. Either it comes to me easily or it's a total and utter pain, never something in the middle.

 

[Boota]

Titles for me don't mean too much. They're an articificial label stamped on your story. An attempt to reduce something beautiful and complex into a one, two or three words. It never works.

So, when I start a new story, I just take the first word that pops into my head thinking about the original story seed and go with that. I rarely change them later.

The hard one for me was coming up with the subtitle for my story for Lit. You get a few more words, but it also has to be more of a summary than a title. Even with a single-page story, how do you summarize that to one simple sentence?

The flipside of what you're saying is that a bad title can relegate a good story into obscurity. A great title, and cover, is the first thing that catches someone's attention. The title of my novel is what got me noticed among the stacks among the other Authorhouse books, and from there everything started to happen. The title caught the eye of a marketing director there and the doors just started opening. So, I'm of the opinion that good titles are very important.

 

[variable Xy]

Anyone else have the trouble I do in coming up with a title for a story? I'm never able to just grab a title and run with it, and I'm always sitting here with a finished story, and no title for it.

I hate it.

My titles help inspire my stories, they are usually what I think up first then the characters, storyline, yada yada yada...

 

[yui]

The flipside of what you're saying is that a bad title can relegate a good story into obscurity. A great title, and cover, is the first thing that catches someone's attention. The title of my novel is what got me noticed among the stacks among the other Authorhouse books, and from there everything started to happen. The title caught the eye of a marketing director there and the doors just started opening. So, I'm of the opinion that good titles are very important.

Well said, Boota; I absolutely agree! An interesting title will almost always make me take at least a look at the back of a book to see what it's about. Good titles can often read like tiny bits of poetry.

My titles help inspire my stories, they are usually what I think up first then the characters, storyline, yada yada yada...

I know exactly what you are saying. I have a whole section of my notebook that is just "good" titles.

 

[variable Xy]

I know exactly what you are saying. I have a whole section of my notebook that is just "good" titles.

That's an excellent idea to have a notebook of just titles. I do that with characters - names and descriptions bits and pieces of people I meet throughout my day.

 

[yui]

That's an excellent idea to have a notebook of just titles. I do that with characters - names and descriptions bits and pieces of people I meet throughout my day.

And I save snippets of conversations, too. Words. Love 'em.

 

[M-Y-Erotica]

titles easy description hard

I've only finished two stories so far, but both of them followed the same pattern with titles. I came up with some random title that I've totally forgotten before I write the first sentence. I then write the story and at some point something pivotal happens, where I say "wow, that's what the story hinges on!" and the title appears immediately to me. For "A Gift of Tea" it was about two thirds of the way in; for 10 Minutes, which is still sitting as "pending", it wasn't until 3 lines from the end. Then I have to go make a few changes to make the title work. Then comes the hardest part of the whole process. Writing that damned description. Can't do it. They always seem lame. And to think that once your story leaves the New section, it's just that Title and Description you have to get people interested.

 

[Ferawyn]

The flipside of what you're saying is that a bad title can relegate a good story into obscurity. A great title, and cover, is the first thing that catches someone's attention. The title of my novel is what got me noticed among the stacks among the other Authorhouse books, and from there everything started to happen. The title caught the eye of a marketing director there and the doors just started opening. So, I'm of the opinion that good titles are very important.

You have a good point. When I look at a category and see 20 stories with basically the same word as a title, I'm not going to read any of them. I suppose it's worth more effort than I give it now.

 

[TxRad]

Normally i have the title before i even sit down to write or the title is what inspired the story in the first place... Only once or twice have i had to change it by the ending

now the story line...... well, that a whole other pile of fish which stink as bad as i do at filling that in.....