ParanetOnline
McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Dom on August 26, 2007, 08:04:10 AM
-
I don't think this one has been asked here before. How do you guys make up titles for your works? Do they come first, or last, or does it depend on the story, or are you going to leave it up to your editor (if you eventually get the thing finished, out there, and nibbled upon) because they'll just change them anyway? (a la Jim's Semiautomagic => Storm Front or Jacqueline Carey's Elegy for Darkness => Godslayer and Banewreaker) (Semiautomagic and Elegy for Darkness I think both rock as titles, so I'm unsure why the editors in question changed them!) Do you follow a set procedure for making them up?
Me, I like titles, but they come very haphazardly. Some stories I make have titles early on, some take some dedicated brainstorming. One thing I do try to do however is make the feel of the title fit the story--ie, urban fantasy needs urban-fantasy-like titles. Epic fantasy needs to be a bit more epic. :D
Here's a few of my titles...
Daughter of Lilith, Son of Eve - This is a riff on C. S. Lewis's "Son of Adam, Daughter of Eve" phrase in his Narnia series. The story basically has two major characters that are half demon, one that's more humane than the other (Son of Eve). Lilith, in mythology, is Adam's first wife, the one who would not obey his commands and was punished by being turned into the mother of demons, a large number of which are slaughtered by angels over a certain amount of time.
A Mother's Sins, Sin & Hex, Hexagramicon, and Baphomet's Icon are four titles in a dark urban fantasy series I'm working on. They all sort of came at once, after more than a year of wrestling with an unflattering working title for the first story. The first one refers to the fact that the main character's situations are mostly the direct result of his mother's prior actions. And the second two refer to a hex that plays a major role in those two books. Fourth is there just because I think Baphomet is cool. I had a fifth silly one of Baph Water but...it's silly. So. Not really a title.
The Dragon King's Wife sounds sophisticated, like my Dragon King, less like an urban fantasy, and is directly about who the book is about--his wife! (This story is actually science-fantasy coming from the fantasy side of things)
The Dragon King's Daughter follows the same layout.
I have several other stories that just haven't dredged up appropriate titles yet...one of those stories is 12 years old! The Dragon King's Wife came pretty much with the start of the story itself. Daughter of Lilith, Son of Eve took a couple of years. So I don't really have a set anything when it comes to titles.
How do you guys work it?
-
Last. I find it is one of the hardest thind to write.
-
Titles are the bane of my existence. Both of my current works have "working titles" but I hope that someone cooler than I can come up with a title for publishing, when/if the day comes.
Though, I did think up a REALLY great title the other day. Now I just need a story to go with it. ;)
-
I am TERRIBLE with titles. Just awful. LOL
-
I do think titles can have a lot of power when it comes to attracting (or dissuading) readers. I don't think I would have read Semiautomagic. The title makes me think of guns; not a subject I would choose to read about.
-
I never really concern myself with the title. I just start writing, and eventually a cool title just comes to me.
The one I'm writing right now is called "Between Shadow and Dream" but I'm not 100% satisfied with it. Once it's done I'm gonna change it I think.
My fantasy trilogy already has a title, though I haven't written it yet: Rise of the Shadow. I don't have titles for all the books yet, but one of them is called "The Isle of Tears."
I love titles, and I can usually come up with some pretty fitting ones when I don't force it.
-
I'm great at coming up with titles, EXCEPT for whatever I'm currently trying to write. ;D I used to have notebooks filled with titles, but could never think of any stories to fit them.
-
I'm great at coming up with titles, EXCEPT for whatever I'm currently trying to write. ;D I used to have notebooks filled with titles, but could never think of any stories to fit them.
A best friend of mine works title first. Awesome titles, and then the stories are always really awesome. Now if he would just get around to writing them...
ahem...he's a member of the boards here, but is rarely on.
-
I don't stress over titles too much, though I do try to nail them down somewhat when I get to making up queries for agents, just so they're interesting and put across the type of story it is.
My latest two titles and works are:
Dyssomnia
and
Paramnesia
Unrelated stories, but they give a flavor for what happens. For me, a title, like a character's name, is almost always fluid. It can change if something better comes along and fits well.
-
A good title will get you picked up from the slush pile. "The Winds of Limbo Roar" got me noticed at the story read, then bought.
Consequently, "From Japan, With Love" didn't do well.
-
I like And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game, which is one of my father's favourite books, a very silly comic novel; title gets that across and is also plot relevant, the book being POV of the unfortunate nephew in question and about the island.
-
Consequently, "From Japan, With Love" didn't do well.
Would "Love Zombies From Tokyo" do better?
-
OMG neurovore, is your father single??? I can't believe that someone else remembers "And to my Nephew....." It's still on our local library's bookshelves because I went looking for it again. If he's single fix me up! We ATMNAILTIWIWOFAHIAPG fans have got to stick together! Only I think the What was W'ot in the English colloquel if I'm not mistaken but who looks that far into a book title with 19 words? It was also a riot to see on the old fashioned card catalog listing! It's got my all time romantic moment broken up ever! Nothing like a Russian warship running between you complete with Russian's and AKA's. Okay were there AKA's in the 60's???? anyway they had guns as I recall.
Any of the rest of you young kids----go find it, that and the Modesty Blaize books. They'll be in the out of print stack, if you are lucky, at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale. :D :D :D
Sad news, a collumnest (my G** A***** spelling) for the NY Post told me that she knew an editor that threw away any query or manuscript that didn't have a great title and read no further. Wow, that can probably move one through a slush pile fast huh? Wonder what great works ended up in her burn pile... Such is the life of an author, I suspect. Now really, I've procrastinated long enough. Back to the writing, Meg... See you all in a few days.
-
Would "Love Zombies From Tokyo" do better?
Depends on the editor's stance on necrophilia.
-
Depends on the editor's stance on necrophilia.
Would that be a dead subject?
-
I carry titles around. I've been carrying some around since childhood. It took me almost 20 years to find a piece of writing to call micropiece. I'm still looking for something to call The Laws Of Futility and Coyote Laid Low. My story Tessellation was originally called the rather clumsy Two Conversations, Up On Pond Creek. I had to change it because the story ended before the second conversation happened. :P
I named a friends novel. I also name cats and boats. My favorite of the latter was owned by a pal who equally loves fishing and logical debate. I named his boat (in a goofy story we were writing on a forum) Fishin' Ain't Fallacious and he liked it so well that he adoted it for his real boat.
-
I had so many unused titles hanging around that I finally created a filmography for a fictitious B-movie actor named Malcolm MacLeod. Some of my favorites include:
Cannibal Carnival
Ghoul Scouts
Don't Go Alone To Whitechapel
Blood Feast of the Zombie King (this one holds the Guinness record for bloodiest horror film ever)
Strip Club Party Massacre
Vampyromaniac!
The Texas Cheerleader Massacre
The Sensuous Strippers vs. The Flesh-Eating Monster
Vestal Vixens of Vesuvius (a sword-and-sandal spoof from 1971 with walloping dollops of psychedelia)
Not sure why I've posted this, I just felt like sharing with a group that would appreciate a bit of random weirdness....
-
Would "Love Zombies From Tokyo" do better?
If it wasn't about faking a Godzilla attack on a housing community that was being built so that project's insurance would scrap it and they'd be able to build a new themepark to compete with Disneyland...yes, that'd be perfect ;)
-
If it wasn't about faking a Godzilla attack on a housing community that was being built so that project's insurance would scrap it and they'd be able to build a new themepark to compete with Disneyland...yes, that'd be perfect ;)
Told from who's POV? is the MC trying to help or stop the fake 'zilla?
Ok, these aren't good, but here they are:
Scam-zilla
How to be a Zilla'noaire
-paul
-
It's a Chinatown rift, so it's a PI...although a rich one who does it because he's bored and wants to help. His brother's a mad scientist. His butler's a failed experiment...an ape body with a monitor for a head WHO TALKS LIKE THIS ON THE SCREEN. Giant mutant spiders roam the desert, and Area 51 is real. It's the atomic age of the 50's gone wild.
They're really characters who deserve a better story ;)
-
OMG neurovore, is your father single???
My parents are still together; this is not usually call for an "alas".
I can't believe that someone else remembers "And to my Nephew....." It's still on our local library's bookshelves because I went looking for it again. If he's single fix me up! We ATMNAILTIWIWOFAHIAPG fans have got to stick together!
Personally I thought The Great Dinosaur Robbery was better, and am peeved that it got made into a Disney family film rather than a more accurate version - preferably by Blake Edwards back when he was still any good.
Nothing like a Russian warship running between you complete with Russian's and AKA's. Okay were there AKA's in the 60's???? anyway they had guns as I recall.
The AK47, curiously enough, dates from 1947.
Sad news, a collumnest (my G** A***** spelling) for the NY Post told me that she knew an editor that threw away any query or manuscript that didn't have a great title and read no further.
There have been cases of subeditors at major publishing houses doing this; from all that I hear, they get fired rapidly.
-
The other titles I love pretty much uncritically are Theodore Sturgeon's "If All Men Were Brothers Would You Let One Marry Your Sister ?" and Kinky Friedman's The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover.
-
I was joking! I'm thrilled your parents are alive and happily married! :D :D
-
I was joking!
Thought so; that would appear to have been a failure-of-deadpan in my reply.
-
I tend to have a really hard time with titles, but I have yet to find a muse so I limp along on my own. I've been having a little better luck recently, with titles like these:
Don't Roll Your Eyes When You're Undercover (YA murder mystery)
Up, Down, and Strange (YA sci-fi)
Champagne Death Wishes (murder mystery)
I love titles. A title is what catches my eye when I'm browsing for books. Some of my favorites: Eating the Cheshire Cat, The Pleasure of My Company, The Disapparation of James, The Cheese Monkeys.
--Sarah
-
Upon review, I have three in progress stories, none of which has a decent title yet. The files are called Inadrin, Horse Lord and Magic Woman. Those titles suck. ;) I haven't actually thought about titles for them yet, except for the Inadrin story waaaaay back when I first had the idea for it, but none of those names stuck, obviously, because I named the file after the protagonist!
OK I take that back, Inadrin the story is MIA (I have the notes for it), the third story is Hellhound.
Darn it, now I have to find out where the story for Inadrin went! I'm worried it's on my old, dead laptop.... :'(
-
Upon review, I have three in progress stories, none of which has a decent title yet. The files are called Inadrin, Horse Lord and Magic Woman. Those titles suck. ;) I haven't actually thought about titles for them yet, except for the Inadrin story waaaaay back when I first had the idea for it, but none of those names stuck, obviously, because I named the file after the protagonist!
OK I take that back, Inadrin the story is MIA (I have the notes for it), the third story is Hellhound.
Darn it, now I have to find out where the story for Inadrin went! I'm worried it's on my old, dead laptop.... :'(
Oh man, I would read a book called "Horse Lord and Magic Woman". lol
-
Oh man, I would read a book called "Horse Lord and Magic Woman". lol
Whoops! Those are two seperate stories! LOL! Well, I suppose I could call the Horse Lord story by that combined title, but it might get put into the fantasy porn section by mistake.
Hmm. Upon thinking of one scene in that story... Maybe not a mistake. :D
-
"Horse Lord and Magic Woman" sounds native american, lol.
-
I'm currently plotting together a Zombie series, i've just recently came up with the titles for the first two books.
The Purge: nobody knows if it was an act of God or a terroist act, the dead begin to walk around and attack the living, trapped in a small town. A man and his son, along with a group of people have to fight their way out and tell the world what is happening before it's to late and the virus spreads.
The Purge 2: Echoes From a Once Living World. The virus has spread all over America and maybe the world, the group from the first novel attempt to find shelter and other surivors and try to rebuild humanity and try to keep their sanity in the process.
-
If it wasn't about faking a Godzilla attack on a housing community that was being built so that project's insurance would scrap it and they'd be able to build a new themepark to compete with Disneyland...yes, that'd be perfect ;)
Would Mothra be better?
-
The Purge1/2 sounds interesting, although it does seem to have a little bit unique aspect to it. The zombie thing has been done quit a bit but you may prove to bring something new. I'd like to read it when your done. To me what makes a good zombie movie/book is to show more than just the rampage of the zombies but a human side or comedy (Shaun of the Dead) the story. Most movies seem to pull it off kinda bad (Dawn of the dead, Resident evil 2[dunno if it counts], [1 was alright] and a couple others I can't think of). Although I haven't read any books may seem why.