Titles and Taglines and Hooks, oh my!

Ray Dario

Literotica Guru
Joined
Dec 2, 2000
Posts
529
Hey guys I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

What makes a good title or tagline or for that matter a good hook?

Okay, I know the old cliched answers.

It has to grab your attention and make you want to read farther.
It has to pull the reader in.
It has to be honest to not piss the reader off.


But HOW do you make it grab the reader's attention and make him want to read farther?

How do you pull the reader in?

The last one is a no brainer so I'll leave it be.

Since I'm starting this thread I'll go ahead and give you my thoughts, jumbled and incoherent as they are, on the subject.

Titles: Short, sweet, relevent but something that isn't seen everyday. I think the title should hold some connection to the story but it should also be something you haven't heard ten times that day.

Taglines: Here I fall down. My taglines are NOT effective and I know it. How do you tell the reader, in 20 words or less, what the story is basically about without giving it all away and still make the reader want to read your story? I think that this is the toughest of these to come up with.

Hook: Ah... an entire book could be written on just this. Oh wait they have been! Creating just enough mystery and intrigue in your first paragraph is the single most important part of writing any story. It is also the most failed at, especially here at Lit, but even in published books and short stories.

I like hooks that start with some oddball, dramatic phrase and then quickly pulls me into the story. I hate melodramatic cliche's. And please leave the throbbing members out of the hooks.

Mystery is good in hooks if the story can back it up but I don't like stories whose hooks don't pertain to the story. Then I feel cheated and used.

Well okay, I've said my piece. What do ya'll think?

Ray
 
Interesting question

The most important thing to keep in mind when choosing a title, in my opinion, is to make sure it's not boring: there are already painfully many 'My First Time's on Lit, and I don't even want to think about the number of 'Dick and Jane Have a Hot Time/Weekend/Day/etc.'s. If the title is actually related to what the story's about that's cool too, but my first concern is to make it interesting.

I think what to write in your tagline depends on what sort of story you're writing. For stories with a lot of plot and character development, I use the tagline to give a little teaser about the plot. However, with a recent story that is pure jack-off material (I'm not disparaging smut here - it's an art form as well), I've had much more success since I switched to a tagline that just listed the point of view used, the gender of the narrator, and what sex act was taking place. My take on it is, that those looking for plot want a suggestive tagline that is intriguing but does not spill all the beans, whereas those looking to get off want a tagline that tells them straight out if this is the sort of story that's likely to make them hot.
 
Titles: for the main part i seem to have been able to use a short phrase from the story itself. (the Blood, Sweat and Fear story was a kind of brainstorm result with a friend's help).

Taglines: this is for me almost a bare soul look at the plotline. i've had problems with it since i first had to think of one. i have left them empty a couple of times in order to see what ends up happening with them when i submit a story. now that i have seen the result, i think i know how to put an effective tagline into place. it's like thinking of one phrase that sums up the greatest emotion or event within the story but doesn't give the story away. a kind of tantalising glimpse.

Hook: hmm this has me thinking. i don't consciously use a hook at the beginning. i use one basic plain sentence and continue the story from that. these days, the hook is in the story itself. if the story is well written and interesting, then the reader is 'hooked'.
 
Titles, I do fairly well with them, I'd like to think.

Hooks, I do fairly well with them as well, I'd like to think.

Taglines? Oh for the days of yore when Laurel wrote them for me.
 
Re: Interesting question

crysede said:
I don't even want to think about the number of 'Dick and Jane Have a Hot Time/Weekend/Day/etc.'s.

Actually, I haven't seen any "Dick & Jane" parodies. That might make an intersting challenge -- Write a XXX rated "Dick & Jane" reader. :p

See Dick

See Jane

See jane strip.

See Dick Lick Jane.

Etc.


Seriously, the title should stand out from the crowd and give some clue to the content. Of course mysterious titles can work too, causing readers to open the story to find out what the hell you're talking about.

The tagline should add to the title, almost like a subtitle, more than it should describe the story's content.

The hook should fit the story. Some stories need a strong hook to sustain the reader through the setup, and others just need to get to the action.

These three facets of story-telling are dependent on the needs of the story, like almost every other aspect of Story-Telling and Writing Style. What works for one story will destroy another -- there is no "right answer."
 
Titles are kind of hard. I usually go for something that sums up the idea of the story, or that is an abstract of the idea of the story.

Taglines are bloody hard. Trying to describe the story in a few phrases is not always easy. I found that the easiest way is to sum up the main sex scene from the story. Of course that only applies to stories being submitted here.

Hooks are another thing. I'd probably end up agonizing for hours about an effective way to start a story if it weren't for the fact that here, I'm writing sex stories. Writing and submitting here I've being trying to make myself think of a creative (hopefully) sex scene and then just building up to it. Otherwise I'd start every story in the middle of some action or another.
 
But when do you write the Title?

Do you know the title with the first word you write?
Is the title the first thing you write?

I always label my stories as the female lead character's first name. Sometimes halfway through, I'll come up with a good title, and sometimes, I never do find a good title.

And I'm no good with tags, hooks, lines or sinkers!

mlyn :rose:
 
A lot of times, I think of what I think is a great title and then I use that to develop the story in my head. Sometimes I think of a story and then the title comes to me while I'm writing. Sometimes I agonize over the title and never do find one I really love.

Ray
 
I feel I'm lousy with titles. I always have a working title, but it just wouldn't do. (For my story in the Gay Male section, the working title was "Gay Story" - hardly a winner there!) I do have to admit that in writing the Cassie series, it has made me a little lazy. It's alwasy "Cassie xxxxxx". This is an area I really need improvement on!

Taglines. These are another area of agonizing for me. I always run out of space! I don't know if it is Laurel or not, but I do know that some of my taglines have been re-written from what I originally submitted. And the re-write is much better than what I came up! So thank you, Laurel - or the gremlin who helps her!

The hook - I'm supposed to have one of these? :) I've tried this a couple of times, and it always seems contrived to me. I've had readers tell me I caught their attention from the first word, but I'm sure there are many more who hit the back button right off. I guess I won't have much to offer until I've refined my skills a bit more!
 
Taglines are a lot like advertisements.

Think of your story as a product worth selling--in this case selling to a reader who purchases your words with her time and effort.

If you can induce the reader to invest her time in your story you've succeeded.

Having said that, it's still the most difficult and the most frustrating bit of work you can do...

I suppose we could get away with the old ad cliche's like--"Just in time for your next orgasm!"
or "Cumming soon to a story near you."
 
OH NO!!!!!!

hello, my name is wildsweetone,

i just realised, i've been doing the dreaded CLIFFHANGER thing! ohhhhhhh help me please.

*gulp*
;)
 
I need to find the title before I write.
Every writer is different, so there is no rule, but I get the idea for the story, or get a character into my head and then start braining on the title.

When checking out the new submissions, I am always attracted to a cool title and tagline before anything else.

'He does his mother.... again' is a good example of a tagline that does NOT attract my attention.

But I have recently experienced that my series 'the5.erotic.senses' - 4000/words.on/smell' and the follow up on touch didn't attract much attention at first, until the regular readers got wind of them and now they are rather well read and have good voting ratios.

But the title doesn't grab the average reader so the number of views is lower than my other stories.
 
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