From china_shop: Where does one find a title? What makes a good

[sprat.livejournal.com]

(Hi, yes, me again. I'm snagging another question for selfish reasons--I really want to hear what you guys have to say about this one. *waves*)

I like writing. Mostly I do, anyway--there are those times when I hate hate hate writing and I want to kick writing's stupid ass because it is stupid. But for the most part, I like it. It's satisfying and absorbing and occasionally giddy-making. I can't imagine any activity that could possibly take its place in my life. It's something I've always done.

But for as long as I've been writing, I've been dreading those moments when it's time to think up a name for the story. Every single thing I come up with seems cheesy, or pretentious, or totally not related to the story in any way I can fathom; I could overthink the decision for hours, if I let myself.

Clearly that would be crazy behaviour, though, so I've had to come up with a few strategies to prevent my weird brain from getting in its own way.

1. Pick out some word from the body of the story that sounds pretty! Add bonus points if the word means two things at once, because then you can kinda imply that you had deeper things in mind than the hotness of Fraser licking Ray's hip.

2. Steal lines from songs you like! I did this with The Best Parts of Lonely (which is from Left and Leaving, by The Weakerthans) and also with April After All (which is a song by Ron Sexsmith). Again with the bonus points if you can kind of draw parallels between the subject matter of the story and the song.

3. When all else fails, panic and call it whatever stupid thing pops into your head when you close your eyes! I, uh, don't actually recommend this. Just, sometimes, for me, it's this or not posting a story at all. Which is how I end up with gems like Untitled Ficlets 1, 2 and 3! Or, you know, Auralphilia. *g*

4. While I was putting this post together, I found this here amazing little script by someone called Maygra, who is maybe or maybe not the same as the LJ maygra, and anyway, it is an automatic title generator! Seriously! I don't know how well it would work in a practical sense, especially for dS fic, but I kind of love it anyway. It gave me "The Silky Thief"! And "The Academy of the Slaves"! Tell me those are not great titles for pretty much anything.

All right, that's what I've got. Obviously, I am in desperate need of some better ideas, and since there are lots of very good story titles out there, I know you guys can help. How do you come up with titles for your stories? How do you tell if it's a title that works? Link us to your favourite resources! GIVE US YOUR SECRETSESSSS!!

Comments

[sage]

I think all my best titles have come from quotes. I'm going to blame thete1 for this, because back in the day, she said that she relied heavily on Bartleby for her titles. Basically the trick is to plug in a word or phrase from the story and see what Bartleby comes up with. It also has the cool benefit of making you look a lot better-read than you actually may be. :P

Sometimes I get my titles out of the research I'm doing. Like I got "Search Without Warrant" from skimming the RCMP training manual (I was trying to figure out what sorts of stuff Fraser would be learning at Depot). Or else a link will lead to another link that has a perfect word in it.

And sometimes (quite a lot, actually) I get the title (and often an epigraph, too) from opening my Norton Anthology of Poetry at random and pointing blindly at a page. I use other books, too, because sometimes it takes six or seven tries before the right phrase jumps off the page at me.

Normally I have the title well before the story is finished, though. One exception to that was "Vinculum" (which came out of Bartleby's thesaurus). I had a totally different title for it because the story that I ended up with wasn't at all the story I started with. "Vinculum" still doesn't feel entirely right, but I needed an old-fashioned (obsolete) word for marriage and union to fit the story -- preferably something the reader would have to look up, because it was important that nothing about the situation be easy.

Can I say that I love your title to the Graph story? I can never remember the entire thing, but I don't need to -- it fits so well and sets up the reader's expectations beautifully. :D

[sprat.livejournal.com]

Hey, I think you've given me the Bartleby trick before, but when I'm panicking, I always forget such helpful things. I love the research idea, too--you're bound to get something that fits the characters and/or setting, that way, at least.

I needed an old-fashioned (obsolete) word for marriage and union to fit the story -- preferably something the reader would have to look up, because it was important that nothing about the situation be easy.

Oooh, that's very cool. I love the puzzle of it, how nicely it sets up the mood of the story. Makes me want to play around with the title a little more in my next fic--I wonder how much difference it'd make, structurally, if I started with the name of the story and worked outward from there?

(Aw, thank you! That was actually the one and only title that came easily, for me, and popped into being well before the story was finished. I think it was even attached to the first draft I sent for beta. :)