Titles

[Graeme]

For me, as a writer, you'd be doing your story a great injustice by not choosing a title that would represent your story. Relying on word of mouth alone is lazy, and this is because for me, a title IS a part of the story. It's like that first line that starts the story or that last line that finally settles the conflicts (or most of them) in the story. Screw those up and you'll have readers scratching their heads. Of course, ultimately it's up to the author how he writes his titles, and whatever his reasons are, I'm going to trust his judgment. After all, a story is an author's baby, and I'm sure no parent would ever name their baby Tutti Frutti.

I would question your judgement on parents naming babies, but that's not really applicable to this thread

 

The importance of a title depends on a couple of factors:

 

* The author

Let's be honest. If J.K.Rowlings or Tom Clancy published a novel, people would read it regardless of the title. Getting the title 'just right' is less important for an established author because their name on the story will bring in readers just by itself.

 

For new authors, on the other hand, the title is one way they can attract a potential reader's attention, and so, as Rad said, it is important.

 

* The context

When a story exists in a large pool of other stories, such as at Nifty, or on a large bookshelf in a shop, then a title that stands out from the crowd will attract attention, and hence readers. The title is important in this context.

 

On the other hand, if the story is going to placed on the stand at the front of a bookshop, or is on a moderated story site, such as the hosted authors here at GA, then the title isn't as important. The position where the story is placed is enough to attract attention.

 

I'm sure there are other factors as well, but these indicate that while choosing a title can be important for a new author, it becomes less so the longer you've been writing

[GaryK]

Here's something Josh mentioned to me when we were chatting about this thread the other day:

 

[...] titles are something I feel strongly about [...]. (I believe they set the tone for the whole book and several of my books grew from the title alone. I never start a book without having a title first.) [...]

 

FWIW,

~gary.

[Former Member]

The othernight i was reading this article on Stephanie Myers and her twilight series and how she came up with the title. i thought it was really cool she was saying how to make a list of words that have atmosphere. and Twilight was something that stuck out to her and her editor. Then with the sequal was New Moon. She originally planned on calling book 1 Forks since thats the town Bella & Edward live in.

 

I played around with this idea of picking words that have atmosphere since i am currently writing a short story. Since i deleted my last big project as a joke to myself im calling my new project Restart!(Redemption). To Redeem myself see if i can do something really awesome. i came up with a few really cool titles. THEN! i found out some where already actual book titles when i was typing them in on Chapters.Indigo in the search column for the hell of it.

 

Since there is some death and alot of tears i was going to call it Secrets Of Mourning. THEN! i saw that V.C Andrews has a book called Secrets Of Morning. There was a couple more titles that i had that famous authors had as actual books which made me laugh. Maybe its a sign?

[PlugInMatty]

Personally, I think the title is absolutely everything. If I'm looking at a list of stories on a shelf or on a site like Nifty, I'm going to be naturally drawn to the most interesting title. Obviously, if the story is crap, I'm not going to finish reading it, but getting the reader to click on your link is 90% of the battle IMO.

 

Anyway, I'm glad to see other people have their titles set in advance. Despite having only 13,000 words written, my current piece is titled When Luck Fails.

Dunno how that's gonna work as a title, but I bet at least one of you wants to know what it's about now

[DomLuka]

I

[J_Ross]

Lol, I was just having a conversation about this. I had someone write me, asking me how to pick a title. I really have no idea and I hope the guy didn't take a single word of what I said seriously. I never pick a title before I've written something. Probably because, until I do, I have no idea what the story is going to be about yet. Often times, I chose a title later after I'm a good deal into the story and even then, the title I've chosen has nothing to do with the story itself.

 

My most recent title 'In Due Time' (which is actually working out, to my surprise) was chosen because I wrote the first half of the chapter years ago, and finally got around to writing it now. It's been rotting away on my HD for quite awhile now. Anyway, I put the title at the top of the document as a little joke to myself and ended up keeping it on accident. I'm so glad it actually works with the story.

 

The story I wrote before that, I wrote for a fest. The girl that I was writing for asked for a bunch of things I had no idea to how to go about writing and while the story turned out good (so I'm told) I hated writing every word of it. So, I titled it "Hate" and that worked too...

 

I've been lucky so far. Titles get to be so frustrating for me, so I usually just pull a random one out of nowhere and hope it works out...0_o

[Kanaye]

I usually dont pick a title until Im at least half way or completely done and then I have to wait a little whi cuse Il prob change it three times afore finially picking one.

 

A couple of times, I had a friend read it and she suggested a title I would have never thought of and therefor loved.

 

Only once did a title pop into my head and I wrote off that title.

[David McLeod]

Four words: pain in the be-hind.

 

The last chapterized story had a really dumb title. "Mike and Winston." I mean, what kind of title is that? Still, I really couldn't think of anything better. And I still can't. Right now I'm working on another story that I'm thinking of uploading, but I can't without some sort of title.

 

How do you title your stories? How important do you think a title is? Technically, it's only a couple words, but does it affect your perception of the work? I mean, would 'Gone with the Wind' be the same if it'd been titled 'Pansy's Romance' (Pansy was the original name of Scarlett O'Hara)? Are there some titles that you really admire for the brilliance of title-work alone? And are there titles that just suck?

 

Thanks for a great discussion topic. It generated some excellent thoughts. I've been titling stories by file names in MS Word. Usually that means name-name of the two primary characters, or name when there's only one protagonist. That's how I know the stories, and that's how I retrieve them to work on them. I guess you know how I'll be spending my weekend: creating titles. Fortunately, I learned a lot from all the posts on this forum. Thanks!

[KJames]

Dear Corvus, I'm liking you a lot because you're starting these kinds of discussion.

 

At the present, I have a total of 11 stories (1 novella and 10 shorts) and I know what you mean. Most of the time, making up titles takes up a lot of time for me. There are times too when I already know what title the story I'm writing would have.

 

My novella's title, Fixing a Broken Heart, was taken from the song, yes. If I think about it too much, I'd say it is soooo cheesy. I could probably come up with a better title, but I don't want to because it was that song that had me writing that story. (Before anyone thinks it's a romance story, it's not.)

 

I make up a title based on the whole story. I try - though I don't know whether I'm successful - to summarize the story into the title. Only one story I wrote did get that kind of compliment (When in the Light), but it's enough to make me happy.

 

There was also one story where a writer I admire a lot gave me a title and challenged me to write a story based on it. (I'm not going to say which one. )

 

For me, a title is VERY, VERY important because it is the only way a writer could talk a reader into reading his story. I read stories not because an author is popular but because of the story's title's ability to attract me. (Though Comicality is an exception to that rule ) I'm probably missing a lot of good stories, but that's the author's fault for making up a boring title.

 

I do wish I'd learn how to make those good titles. One of my favorites was "A Time to Kill" (by John Grisham). I read that story because of the title alone. I also consider Josh Aterovis (Bleeding Hearts, Reap the Whirlwind, All Lost Things, Truth of Yesterday, etc.) very good at making titles up, and yeah, the one in bold is my favorite title.

 

As a reader, I avoid stories with titles that are in the first person. No big deal really; those titles just strike me as wrong.

 

Anyway, I've rambled long enough.

 

 

Rad

 

Darn...now I'll have to peruse RtW to see what it's all about...

[Cynical Romantic]

As someone who frequently reads stories simply because they have catchy or interesting-sounding titles, I have to say I think titles are extremely important.

 

Sure, if I already know and love the author, I'll probably read whatever they publish, regardless of title. But for everyone else, sorting through all the clutter of the huge quantities of stories out there to read means that the title is going to be critical in making the click / don't click decision.

 

DomLuka's self-depreciating comments on his own titles struck me as amusing, only because I first discovered his writing (and, consequently, this site) by clicking on a link to "The Ordinary Us", which, at the time, struck me as a particularly good title. Without that, I doubt I would have gotten there, or here. Go figure.

 

It's an occupational hazard of mine to see everything through a marketing lens. But I think a title is like packaging. It needs to not only represent a story, but it needs to convey something to the audience who would find it interesting. For example, a story that is science fiction should somehow "speak" to science fiction fans, while at the same time being obvious enough to perhaps warn off those who aren't at all interested in science fiction. A romance story should have a romantic-sounding title; an adventure story should have an adventurous-sounding title.

 

The title shouldn't give away too much, but should invite and intrigue and entice readers who would be in the target market, so to speak, for the story. You want to identify who your readership and audience is, and find a way to appeal to them through the title. You don't want to over-promise and under-deliver, but you also want your title to sound smart, snappy and creative. It's all about "selling" your story, which, let's face it, is necessary if you ever want anyone other than you and your cat to read it.

[canundra]

I'm surprised no ones nominated me for WTE= worst titles ever, yet. My first story not only had a lame title to begin with, there was also a typo in it when I sent it in to Nifty. To this day I wonder if people clicked on it because it sounded dirty, or because curiosity got the better of them.

 

On one hand I don't agree that a bad title keeps people away from stories. While scrolling through Nifty I tend to click on a few things that don't sound right. For me it's the first couple paragraphs that are important. Either I'm caught or I'm not. But then on the other hand, I think it does help to have a title that is unique in it's own way. I have a bad habit of not marking links, and sometimes the only way to get back to a story I'm reading is to remember the tittle if I don't know an author's name. When it comes to actually buying books, sometimes the way a cover looks catches me before I even read the title, and again it's the back of the book that tells me whether or not I want to read it.

 

Meanwhile, I'll agree that the Twilight series has some great names on the books. I haven't decided if I'll pursue reading them yet, but something about passing "Breaking Dawn" on a cover at the store makes me look twice.

 

I will admit that the only reason I clicked on your story was because of the title. "The Log Way?" I thought. "Odd title."

 

When there are no summaries to be had (like on Nifty) a title is uber-important. Sure, a story may have a crap title and good writing, but I wouldn't know about the good writing since I won't be clicking every single title to read the first few words of the story.

 

As a general rule, I don't click on titles that I feel are too cliche. I understand that many of the gay-themed stories online deal with romance and whatnot, but what I do not understand is why many authors feel it's necessary to include titles that infer such a thing. Like, for example, (and I'll be using a Dom example. Sorry ) 'The Other Side of Me'. Had I not read other DomLuka stories before I came across this one, I would never have clicked on it.

 

I like quirky titles. 'In the Fish Bowl' is a good example of one.

[DomLuka]

LOL. That

[J_Ross]

*snickers* Lumberjacks? Lol. When I first read TLW, I remember wondering if it was part of a phrase I'd never heard before. I couldn't handle it and opened up a bunch fo search engines, trying to figure out what, exactly the 'Log' way was. Eck, I'm horrible. I was really convinced, for the longest time, that it was just too clever for me to understand. I think THAT was the reason I clicked the title - because I wanted to know what it meant. I actually didn't find out about the typo until ITFB *facepalm*

 

I don't usually read stories based on the titles alone. If it's at least halfway decent and not one of those 'Name and Name' titles, I'm likely to click and read at least the first couple paragraphs. I can usually tell by then whether or not I'll like the story.

[Cynical Romantic]

Agree with J.Ross. Which leads to the subject of a good intro paragraph. And a good intro paragraph doesn't contain any of the following: horribly bad spelling and grammar, a "hi, my name is", a description of the main character's physical attributes and equipment size, or an alarm clock going off. Despite what many so-called writers seem to think. Suivant, next.

 

But that's a whole other topic...