Story Titles

[browngirl]

I can't believe I never asked this before.

So, how do you title your stories?

amanuensis1 wrote a fascinating entry here about the process. For myself, I usually come up with the title when I do the story idea, are occasionally the title *is* the story idea When I don't, I usually go for titles that play on a theme for the story, but those rarely satisfy me as well as the more organic titles I arrive at with the idea.

Some examples:

"The Chief's Day" is an example of a story where the title is the story idea. I was thinking about an "ordinary day" challenge from ringprov, and came up with that.

"Dream Blossoms" is an example of a title that came with the plotbunny. I was riffing off of hobbit naming customs; if the reader realizes that, that fact plus the pairing will tell them what the story is about.

"While We Raise Our Hearts in Love" is a title I had to work to find, and it's longer and clunkier than the other titles above, isn't it?

Comments

[sister-wolf.livejournal.com]

Titles, for me, are generally the *last* thing to come. Ongoing story files are often titled uninspiring things like "roykon" or "tim catboy." Of course, occasionally the story file name becomes the actual story name, just because I can't think of anything that fits the story better-- "Monkeyboy" is a good example of that.

I use song lyrics for story titles, probably more than I should. But I try not to use the actual song name, so that it's hopefully a bit less noticeable. "The Way It Goes" is a phrase from "I Know," a gorgeous song by Fiona Apple about longing and patience for a lover who won't commit. "Shadows, Changing" is from Poe's "Haunted"-- the actual phrase is I'm lost/ And the shadows keep on changing.

"Forty Thieves" is the name of a solitaire card game, and also brings thoughts of the Arabian Nights-- an appropriate title for a fic that involves endless games of solitaire in a prison cell in the desert.

"The Hollow Man" is a play on words-- T.S. Elliot's poem The Hollow Men, with its feelings of desolation and despair, and the fact that "hollow" sounds exactly like "hallow" in some dialects (Red Hood, in that story, is a hallow-- a body without a soul). Really, that's about as complex as my story naming gets. *g*

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I reemember that image! Ooooh.

You use song lyrics the way thete1 one does, which is a way I really admire. I never seem to find those precise lovely phrases that work so very well.

I liked the riffs in the title "The Hollow Man" (not least, you redeemed my having read that depressing incredibly long poem) I alo liked and was creeped out by the story, and I need to go back and reread it and tell you so properly.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

My titles are either very plain description or a kind of a play of words on the idea in the story, usually. I know the title half the time in the latter case, because it's branded on the plotbunny's forehead when it arrives...

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

"Branded on the plotbunny's forehead" is SO true. The phrase and the image often appear together, don't they?

[elgato-gamgins.livejournal.com]

I usually think of the title first or I pick something in the story and name it after that.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*nod* Makes sense. Thank you for telling me. :)

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

I can never answer this question to my satisfaction because most of the time I don't really know how I come up with the titles. And quite often I change them. When I do the first save, I hope that a title will occur to me. Sometimes it does and it sticks, but a lot of the time either nothing occurs to me or something occurs but then I change it later. I have a lot of fics that are titled with something that is not the actual title! Very untidy of me :-)

I think in general most of my titles are straightforward. Sometimes I'll manage something a little metaphorical but still straightforward (for example, Many Branches seems pretty basic to me but can mean a variety of things).

Occasionally the title will end up being a phrase that is used in the story. I don't like that; always feel like I didn't try hard enough for a title but not being a total perfectionist I move on.

Quite often, about five minutes after I decide I'll never settle on a title I like, one will occur to me :-)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*grins at you* I wish I had a long sensible comment to reply to this with, but I'm just, well, delighted at being allowed to see this bit of your creative process. *beam*

[danachan.livejournal.com]

I think it all depends. Sometimes I go into the story with a title in mind. But there are times when I don't, when I end up not knowing what I should call the thing. I think the majority of my fics are the former -- and there are times when I have a perfect title idea, and the fic just seems to blossom up around it.

But, really, it all depends.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*nod* After all, it is creativity, not something nailed down.

I should go look over your titles again and see what themes I can discern. And wallow in the loveliness of your prose. :D

[danachan.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing my prose does, it's wallow. (heh)

I know I've also uses lyrics and quotes from, say, poetry in my titles. I often go and poke other people to try and get them to do the work for me. This happened with both the fics I last posted for you, and the one before -- hyel, for all your fic title needs. Well, she titled one of them ones for you directly, and I came up with "Merry's Message" but only after poking her. So it mostly fits. But really, I try and put a little effort into it, whatever the title ends up being -- I don't really like using the simple sort, when a little extra thought can make the title that much more fantastic. Especially since they're so hard to come up with, heh.

But yes, creativity isn't something that always comes to us in the same exact pattern -- it's not nailed down, and it's a mysterious force.

♥

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing my prose does, it's wallow. (heh)

Oh Stop That. *squeezes you till my love for you soaks into you*

[danachan.livejournal.com]

All this love. Now I know why I was able to make it through my day.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

I hate titling stories. If it comes during the process of writing, I snag it immediately and write it down. If I get to my first save point and I have no title -- as per my normal -- I title it something strange, or something generic-but-descriptive. Then I go back, when I am done, and stare at the not-title, and try to figure out something more palatable to call the accursed thing.

Various examples of before-and-after titles --
Ground glass (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/86595.html) lived on my hard drive as "Just Wrong." I was hoping that the title conveyed the feeling of grating, scraping awfulness inherent to writing (heaven help me) supercest.

Shortpants (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/101476.html) was originally -- and, as JamJar has observed, much more amusingly -- "Holy Doppleganger, Batman!" Had I leeway to repost it, I might rename it. Or not, because however apropos the working title is, it's also very young.

* * * * *

I try to avoid quotations, unless they have something important to do with the story, such as I thought she liked me (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/102251.html), to which hardly anyone responded at all. I suppose not everyone caught the reference to Batgirl: Year One and Dick in the Batgirl suit.

There are also quotations that no one knows are quotations, such as Thigmotropism (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/112119.html), which -- yes, it's only one word, but in my brain, it invokes the nonstandard but highly Timmish second verse of "Tell me why":

Nuclear fusion makes the stars to shine
Thigmotropism makes the ivy twine
Photorefraction makes the sky so blue
Hormonal secretions are why I love you.

* * * * *

And then there are the stories where the title is all too easy. Take Our Kids To Work Day (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/101133.html) couldn't, actually, have been anything else.

Holy Cats

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

As a result of this discussion I found a story of yours I must have missed!

*does happy fanfic dance*

(a more intelligent reply is forthcoming)

Now with closed italics!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. *gazes in fascinatuion at your creative process*

On "Ground Glass": I was hoping that the title conveyed the feeling of grating, scraping awfulness and it really does. It's a shivery title for a shivery fic.

"Shortpants" was originally -- and, as JamJar has observed, much more amusingly -- "Holy Doppleganger, Batman!" Bee hee! I think, though, that "Shortpants" works a little better, due to whose POV the story's told from.

"I thought she liked me" --- I shall have to go read this ASAP. I know what you're referring to, WRT Batgirl: Year One, my favorite Year One I've read so far. So I take it the story involves a crossdressed Robin? I am looking forward to *this*.

"Thigmotropism" --- oh, so perfect. I think I'm going to fragment in giggles. And yes, "Take Our Kids To Work Day" could oly have been named that.

[petronelle.livejournal.com]

My creative process is very catch-as-catch-can when it comes to titles.

I'm not sure about Shortpants, still. And "Holy Doppleganger, Batman!" just -- yes, that's just wrong. Just plain wrong.

On further navel-gazing -- Gonna forget that just happened (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/95738.html) is another Dixon quote. Dixon: quotable! for all your slash pairing needs! Er.

Will you be me when I'm gone? (http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronelle/107740.html) -- oh petra, what a clunky title. Though I think I stole it from Sandman: The Kindly Ones, I never did bother to check, so it may be misremembered.

My favorite of all the titles of my stuff is still "How to Marry a Millionaire," and we may steal that title from the first story and apply it to the whole series. And Jamjar came up with that one.
Er, yes. The title of "I thought she liked me" -- yes. I did that entirely on purpose.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Actually, I *love* "Will you be me when I'm gone?" as a title. It's wistful and evocative and full of so much stuff for just seven words.

Go fig. :)

[ilthit.livejournal.com]

I always come up with the title afterwards. I re-read the story, or at least glance through it, or if it's too long for that (rare) just go through it in my head, pick up on the theme and take the title from that. There are very few exceptions.

It's kind of fun, making up titles.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*nod* That's intriguing, and totally different from how I do it; if I reach the end of my first draft without a title I'm very frustrated.

This look at my friends' creative processes is so nifty!

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

In different ways....

But mostly it's rather mysterious. The image and words will come to me and it might have nothing at all to do with the story yet. Like with Lantern Gift. I fully had the strong feeling I needed to name it that, and there wasn't a lantern in sight yet. Sometimes I do it carelessly and obviously, on a literal level, like Trapped in Bree. But mostly it just comes to me in an image and then it feels right. Or it might feel awkward at first, but it soon becomes a part of the story and its energy and I'm loathe to change it. Like Too Long to Wait. It's the dorkiest title ever, but I would never change it now. :-D

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*nod* As I said to Dana, it is creativity, and there are sometiimes bits of myystery in creativity.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Like with Lantern Gift. I fully had the strong feeling I needed to name it that, and there wasn't a lantern in sight yet

That's very cool. I think that's my favorite kind of title -- one that appears mysteriously and feels very right though you're not sure why. And in this particular story the lantern gift was such an important thread throughout the whole thing.

I think the best titles (at least best to me from my POV as a writer) are the ones that appear like a bit of imagery :-)

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love the titles that come with imagery...especially imagery that could be interpreted on several different levels in the story! ;-)

[dreamflower]

Like others, titles sometimes come to me with the story; "A New Reckoning" was like that--I had always loved that phrase that JRRT used to describe the new date for the New Year after Frodo destroyed the Ring. "Neither Have I Wings to Fly" was another title that I had actually before the story--that phrase is from the song "The Water is Wide" just had Grey Havens *branded* on it.

Some of my titles are fun. "Pippin's Pack of Pickled Pipers" is one, and "It Takes a Took" is another that just tickled me.

Other titles are merely descriptive: "The Brandy Hall Incident" "A Conspiracy of Hobbits","A Conversation in Rivendell", etc.

When it comes to drabbles and very short pieces, sometimes the title is part of the "punch line": my drabble about Galadriel's tempting of the hobbits, "Test Results" is one like that, and so is "Heart's Desire" and "Third Thoughts"

Sometimes I'm reduced to asking someone else for a title; our friend with the stickses has named not a few of my stories.

I do think that the titles that come to me without a lot of thought are better than the ones I have to work at.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

"Pippin's Peck of Pickled Peppers" <--*giggle*

Thank you for sharing your creativity with e! And I know what you mean about the titles that are worked for vs the ones that just arrive.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you posted this, Ruby, and the link to that essay. I had assumed that I was the only one to struggle with titles. Like others who've commented here, I often have working titles for my stories, but they're usually something like "Billy's POV in LA" or "JRD POV." (I have no idea why I'm so fascinated with POV, btw, but I surely, surely am.) But occasionally the title comes first, like Billy's Girlfriend. Although that's a bad example -- that's one of the few stories that wrote itself. This will sound ridiculous, but it was as though I was just the typist for that story.

You've given me something to think about. Thank you!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

On the Internet yuu're never the only one. *big smile* And I know just what you mean about having a story flow right through you. Some of my best stories come to me that way, and every time it happens I love it.

You're welcome, and thank you for answering my question!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Relly? Gee. I'm torn between saying "I like your titles!" and wanting to offer to title things for you. Gosh.

At any rate, thank you for telling me. :)