Titles

[jeanfrese]

If there is one thing I have a problem with it's coming up with a title for a story.

How does everyone else go about creating a title? If it's a series do you try to make them feel connected?

[mfstrnad]

I scrolled through song titles until I found one that fit, and then altered the title. Demons Just Wanna Have Fun was taken from Madonna's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

[Carradee]

Think about the mood, character, genre, theme, etc., and play with words until I come up with something. The ones I like best tend to be alliterative word play, like "The Hacker and the Hare" (a WiP).

[Mark Neumayer]

• Try googling the subject matter of your story and seeing if anything that turns up gets you inspired for a title.
  
• Go to a web site of quotes and search for your subject . You might be able to paraphrase something from there.
  
• Or use a particularly cool phrase from the story as a title.
  

I usually have a title before I start writing. It helps me focus. (i.e. my next book will be Valda Goes Through Hel)

Other writers, Dean for one, have used titles as triggers to get their creative motor started. I believe Dean has two lists that he works from where he grabs half of the title from each list to give him interesting combos.

I also know that Ray Bradbury kept a list of phrases that intrigued him. It supposedly took him a couple decades to work through the list and get to all of the stories but he did it. A couple ones I can remember were The Thing at the Top of the Stairs and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

[gerald]

Jun 16, 2011 16:21:35 GMT -5 Mark Neumayer said:

I usually have a title before I start writing. It helps me focus. (i.e. my next book will be Valda Goes Through Hel)

Yep, I'm the same. Sometimes, I start writing with an idea, but the title comes to me very soon after.

My current WIP has a working title of "Buried", but I'll need to see how many other works are out there with the same title. Other works include Bleak Midwinter Tales, Death in Print, Supermoon, The Arcade Murder, Twelve Days, etc etc.

I like to keep titles short, and have some relevance to the story itself. Having spent a lot of time writing short and flash fiction, you get used to coming up with titles.

[Carradee]

Jun 16, 2011 19:33:07 GMT -5 gerald said:

My current WIP has a working title of "Buried", but I'll need to see how many other works are out there with the same title. Other works include Bleak Midwinter Tales, Death in Print, Supermoon, The Arcade Murder, Twelve Days, etc etc.

Originally, the working title for Destiny's Kiss (YA urban fantasy I'm planning to release in July) was "Bound by Blood". It fits the story, even a major plot element, but there would be too many books with the same or similar titles.

"Destiny's Kiss" isn't a unique name, but the other 2 titles I found with that name came out over a decade ago and were outright romance, so there's little chance of it being confused.

[ajabbiati]

For me, I use the same analogy for titles as I do for nearly everything else in the writing craft: Lock and key. When you get that "lock and key" feeling, that feeling that whatever it is you've done is a perfect fit, a perfect solution, a perfect title, perfect phrase, perfect plot, etc. it feels like a key that fits perfectly into a lock. When that happens, you know you've done it. All you can do is follow your gut till your gut tells you the key fits. I use this expression so much, I named my publishing company after it! LAK Publishing.

Now, wading through the thousand keys to find the right one....that's the challenge.