Coming up with Titles

Well, for me, I get title inspiration from the weirdest places. I have a fic (not posted here) with a title inspired by a TV commercial for ... Clorox wipes, I think. Or maybe hand sanitizer. But I didn't know it until I'd already started the fic, because it just summed up what I was getting at. *shrug*

 

i get really frustrated with titles myself but usually i have a poem before i have a fic(now try to explain that one!!) and i title the poem and the sotry the same thing. i usually end up with something having to do with fire tho...
funny how that turns out.
-mia-

 

Hey I posted a story "Star Wars Fires of Vengeance" check it out!

 

With my titles, I tend to keep them short, meaning that I don't like to give away too much from the title, but try to invoke interest (we have to do that, otherwise no-one would read them!)

I tend to pick up a word, or two (Have never gone beyond three words in a title) that sound dramatic, or can be used for imagery with in the story, or even an action that is the story.

For Example, my in-progress fic, Shattered Glass, blong to the imagary camp. After the events of RotS, I imagine that the Naberrie's world would have Shattered like a dropped bit of Glass.

Or my latest vingette, Run, the title from that came from what the character was doing through the fic, running. (not just in the physical sense either)

See? It's not too bad. And yes, we all think of bad titles at times.

~Misha

 

I believe a title should reflect the plot or the centre piece of a story.
I also believe giving every chapter a title is important, because when an author does not name his chapters and uses just chapter 1, 2, 3 etc. i lose interest very quickly.
My stories centre about the Knights of the old Republic games because the stories are tremendous, and the characters rich and versatile.

For my first fic i chose The Battle of Malachor and unlike others writing about the era, wrote about both characters in stead of just one.
At that battle Revan and Malak's fall was complete and from that battle came the Jedi Civil War (game one). After this battle the character of the second game was exiled by the Jedi Order. So everything can be traced back to that one battle, and therefore made sense as a title.

 

Titles are Secondary to me.
I mean, sure they play a roll but it's the story that counts.
I usually title my fics based on what the over all story is about.
The most difficult title to think up was actually " A Grievous Crime." I wanted something that was kind of a pun. Since it's about GG. That believe it or not, took a long time to think of.

 

I also believe giving every chapter a title is important, because when an author does not name his chapters and uses just chapter 1, 2, 3 etc. i lose interest very quickly.

I couldn't agree more.

~Misha

 

Hmm... I don't normally title my chapters. (After seeing this thread, though, I went back and put titles in for the chapters of one of my fics. The other one is only 10 chapters long so I'm leaving it alone.) Is it really that important? I'd never thought about it much, really - I look more to thread titles at TFN, and summaries at FFN and AFF, to see if I want to read.

 

Ummm, I don't agree. I don't feel that authors should be made to feel bad and that their work isn't worthy of reading just because they don't title their chapters. Lots of famous professional authors never title their chapters.

What is written in the story is certainly the most important part. I never pay any attention to the chapter title. I'm too busy reading the post.

Could you give a reason why chapter titles are important enough that you lose interest if they aren't there?

 

I also voice my dissent with the whole title thing. Yes, titles are fun. I enjoy them from time to time. Especially fun ones like, "Part the First: In Which a Hippified Jedi Joins the Exile." But I started that as something of a joke. I kinda want to put them back in, 'cause they're fun, but I can't always be bothered to come up with a quirky title for a chapter. After all, the content is much more important than the title. At least, that's the impression I always had.

 

Heh? when I start thinking of titles, I just write it down in a text file and save it. I've got maybe thirty names that are curently ficless, but whenever I need 'em, they're there. I also occasionally have a good idea for a title while writing the first post or discussing it with another person.

KT

 

Then why use chapters if it's only about the content. Don't get me wrong, each his own approach.
But i lose interest if people do not name their chapters. For me it creates a certain tension, and expectation, especially playful ones.

 

I can see where you're coming from. A good story would already have that tension from material in previous chapters. I try to leave my readers (all three of them ) with a sense of "Uh-oh!" at the end of a chapter - usually short of a cliffhanger but enough to keep the story moving and make people wonder what's going to happen next. But adding titles would help a little.

 

I listen to music all the time, so I just pick out a song title I think I could incorporate into a fic to make it interesting.

~Ryoo

 

I haven't read through much of the posts here, but I noticed the title of the post and it drew me in.

I've always had a fantasy of being an editor. I think it would fun to read fics, whether long or short, and come up with titles. That's not to say it would be easy, but it would be fun.

 

Browsing the titles in the fanfic boards can be quite inspiring, as well.
I now have to come up with fics to go under the names: 'Time to sell the Roses' and 'Front Lies.'

 

About half of my fics' titles are derived from some line in the story - actually less than half. The rest I just derive from a line in one of the movies - making it fit *strains and grunts as he forces dialogue to fit fics*

 

up! thread! up! you're needed!

 

Thanks for unlocking this, oqidaun.


If there are any writers that love helping create good titles for fanfics, please come and help....I want to write a fanfic in the near future that will take the place of the JAT. The problem is, I just simply can't call it "The Jedi Academy" because my fanfic idea is unique, or at least I hope it is. The title is the problem and I need a title desperately. Basically, instead of putting the Academy on a planet and having to live there all the time, instead I want Luke to have a ship like the Chu'unthor that was mentioned / found in Courtship of Princess Leia. My temp title doesn't make sense (its "The Starship Academy") it sounds more like its for fighter pilots than Jedi.

So, shoot me some ideas......Thanks!

 

Quickly one that comes to mind is: "Between the Stars: The Sunrise of the Jedi"

The trilogy (i'm assuming as much) could be 'The Between the Stars Trilogy', while the individual episodes could be named like the one above.

If I think of any others, I'll be sure to drop them off here for you.

 

It probably won't be a trilog (I'll have a hard enough time writing it, let alone three stories ), its just set during the same time frame, minus the part about "Luke serving the reborn emperor". Basically, its set during the time frame instead of the JAT, but 'Dark Empire' did not happen.

I like the title - any more ideas?

 

I try to stay away from 1-word titles due to my bad experiences with TV shows whose episodes had 1 word titles. Other than that, I could learn quite a bit from you guys.

 

My titles are coming from a song like "May it be" or they express the main subject of the fic

"Plan B" and "Two Red beads" are nice examples from them.
Titles by me are often inspired by my fanart.

 

Sometimes a title will just jump out with the plot bunny. For example, the story I'm working on about how Owen and Beru met and fell in love, "Dropping In" was already in my head when I began writing it. Then again, it was probably because I wrote a scene as part of a vignette (Relish It With Good Observance) where Beru told Luke that how they met is Owen "dropped in on me one day", so it was only natural to name the story which that inspired "Dropping In".

Many times when I take various challenges where I'm given a quote from various sources, and the quote itself lends itself to the title as well as the plot. "Relish it With Good Observance" is a prime example, as the quote I was given was from Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It": "It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn." This gave me the idea to have three different little scenes where someone asks a character how they found their significant other. The first scene was with Padme and her sister; the second was with Luke, Uncle Owen, and Aunt Beru; the third was with Leia and Jaina. In each they were remembering fondly how they met, thus "Relish it With Good Observance" seemed to fit perfectly.

When I took the "Bob Dylan Quotations Roulette Challenge", the quote I was given was from Bob Dylan's song, Masters of War, which I used as the title for the story minus the "s".

Unfortunately, titles don't always just pop out at me like that though. It took me several hours after I wrote the first part to think of "Soul Shadows" for the darker story I'm still writing. My characters in this story are battling the darkness within them. While I was writing the first part of it, the working title was "Dark Shadows"... alas, Barnabas Collins did not (and will not) make an appearance.

I don't generally name 'chapters' in my short stories. "Soul Shadows" is the only one where I have different chapters that are named.. and those chapters take up several posts.

 

What about Praxeum?