The Neverending Quest For Good Titles

Yzabel / October 7, 2005

In today’s post, I’m going to admit a little secret: I seriously suck at finding titles. For someone who aspires to write fiction stories and keep her readers entertained, this is pretty… embarrassing.Giving good, interesting titles to my stories is something I’ve never been really talented at. Either I struggle with them for ages, or I just can’t find any (I still have no defined title for the series of books I’ve been planning for, er, 5 years now?). If I can base them on other titles, such as making a pun on a song’s or novel’s name, things are easier, but then, of course, I’m certainly not going to plagiarize existing titles for my stories, right? This would be even more pitiful than ending up with a boring title.Where to get inspiration for good titles? Is there some kind of secret? Is it nothing more than a matter of gathering key thèmes about a story and its events, and mixing everything until I find a combination of words that sounds good (which doesn’t work that well for me—I always find the result somewhat cheesy)? I’m seriously growing tired of giving temporary hackneyed titles to my stories. I haven’t even found one yet for my NaNovel, in spite of already having quite a defined idea of the story’s plot and development, and I need it in three weeks.Isn’t this a stupid situation? Please, tell me that I’m not the only one to be left facing such struggles with titles, that they’re not as easy to find as they seem to be to an external eye. I’m starting to think that I’m title-impaired. All I want is titles that sound good, neither too cliché nor too complex/occult/pedantic. It’s not asking too much, is it?Ah, the pain. Why do I feel like everyone else finds terrific titles, and I’m only left with the non-exciting ones and the feeling that “I should have thought of this one!”?…inspiration, titles, writing

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Comments

  • Eric Mutta

    Aaah titles, titles, titles. You struggle because you haven’t found the magical formula (yes, it exists!).You can use the “X Of Y” formula, where X is an object and Y is a person, place or idea. E.g:*Sword Of Justice*Tears Of The Broken*Shades Of IgnoranceYou can use unexpected combinations of things. E.g:*God Of Atheism*Traitor In The Temple*Peaceful WarsYou can use poetic combinations of things. E.g:*Whispers In The Rain*Destiny’s SongYou can use enigmatic sounding things. E.g:*Stranger In The Mirror*Shades Of Espionage*Manuscripts Of The BlindThere’s lots of ways to do it 🙂

  • Yzabel

    Haha, the “X of Y” doesn’t work that well for me, this is the very problem that makes me end with titles I often find cheesy. Perhaps I just need more practice in this—or to use non-keywords of the book, just to see where it leads me? (I also find it works better for fantasy-type stories, although this may just be me.)The “unexpected combination” way may be a good road to explore, in any case.

  • Eric Mutta

    Hmmm, you are quite right. Fantasy (and sci-fi) stories tend to favour the “X Of Y” formula. It’s what I’ve been using for some of the fantasy series in my corner (e.g “Reflections Of The Faceless One”).Another technique you can try out is the use of a single word to sum up your *entire* book! This one is very tricky because it always leaves you feeling like that word just doesn’t quite do it. Anyway, some examples (some are real life movies/books):*Lost*Serenity*Multiplicity*Equilibrium*Chaos*Congruency

  • Cavan

    Personally, I either find a title instantly or else it takes me forever and I never really come up with anything satisfactory.For my current projects, Glistening Edges and Right Angles jumped out at me just a thousand words into writing. Mass Romantic became my title after about a quarter page of planning. Meanwhile, the last short story I wrote was titled, for a long time, “Freedom, Virtually” which is such a bad title it made me want to cry. I ended up settling on “Between Eternites”, which still sounds a bit cheesy, but worked.If I can, I like to use a title that actually appears as description or dialogue somewhere in the book and I’m never really satisfied with a title that doesn’t work on both a literal and metaphorical level.

  • Jennifer

    I either have one when I concieve of the idea or I’ll still be searching for one after I finish the novel. I don’t know why or how this title naming works, but if someone figures it out let me know.Don’t feel bad…like I said if I don’t start with a title…well then it’s a long process there after trying to find one.

  • Yvonne

    You’re not alone, because I have problem coming up with titles too. And there’s the need to attract attention, besides making it seem nice. And after writing too much, ideas simply run dry. Oh well, what to do? How about taking the conclusion as title?

  • Yzabel

    Oy, I see this title business indeed seems to be a nightmare for more than one! It’s true that if the title precedes the story (it sometimes does for me, fortunately, else nothing I write would ever have titles), but if it hasn’t come from the start, it just seem to never do at all… Well, I’m keeping on looking. Someday, yes, someday, the titles will come!

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