A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... or something...

[kellifer]

So, while my muse refuses to belch up so much as a paragraph at the moment, I thought I would do a thinky writing post... because I never really do...

The hardest thing I find about writing isn't the writing itself, getting ideas or finishing something off. It's what to call the damn thing. I really want to know how everyone else does it? The very last thing I do about 99% of the time is title the story I'm writing. You don't know how many fics I have on my hard drive which are called a variation of in progress or Untitle. It gets confusing when I have a bunch of these and have to actually open the files to see what they are.

I should just start calling things The one With The Doll or That Story About Jack And The Pants...

It's a very *rare* occasion that I start with a title. I can only think of one off the top of my head. It was the SPN/Daemon fic A Heartbeat At My Feet , mostly because I'd been thinking about an HDM fusion and read this poem about a dog being their master's constant heartbeat at their feet and it just clicked.

I'm not good at the organic title. Sometimes it will just come... but most of the time I'm flailing around. I cheat, *alot*. I look up www.thesaurus.com or Latin words because then it sounds good... heh (Hegira or Abscido). Either that or mythology. Just look at Lethe. That was me googling around. Removed was a visit to thesaurus.com. It sounds like a simple title but I was really stuck there for a while.

Sometimes, I'll come up with something whacky just to tide me over. It's never going to be the title of the story but it makes me smile. Simultaneity (another trip to thesaurus.com thank you very much!) started out life called Blame It On The Morlocks.

Some are easy. The wing!fics I just incorporate flight, feather or something to do with flight or feathers into the title. The first Doll fic was a play on a Supernatural episode title. That kind of evolved into a play on movie titles after that. Try it. Just insert Doll into your favourite movie title. See? Works most of the time.

I like Five Times fics, because you can just title them with a descriptive. Five Times Dean Was Truly Afraid or Five Ways They Tell Someone are pretty self-explanatory. No muss. No fuss.

Then you get the titles gleaned from song titles or lyrics. She's Taller Than Most, a lyric from KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See, pinged perfect for an SGA story where John finds himself a woman. Mainly because transformed he's still pretty much John and so taller than the average woman. Funnily enough, Kaboom came from a Marilyn Manson song... one of those rare instances where the title came before the story.

There's those times where I'm trying to be witty... and most probably failing laughably. Minor In Action is an example of that...

Then there's those titles that come from a long-nearly forgotten memory. Corner Of The Eye, title and story idea came from a book I read *years* ago and have no idea what it was called or who it was by or much about it, other than there were these kids playing these video games and the longer they played, the more they saw stuff starting to encroach on their vision. They were getting these weird black washes right on the edge, and if they could turn their heads quick enough they'd actually see what it was that was starting to edge in but they couldn't. They were starting to see a reality bleed or something... I'm not really sure on the specifics but I was just idly mulling it over one day for no reason and there it was...

Finally, when I'm *really* desperate, I go the loooooong title. How Being On SG-1 Isn't All Space Babes And High Adventure. Phew! Almost as long as the story! Or Build Your Walls, I'll Tear Them Down, Brick By Brick. If you've got to have three commas in a title, you've gone TOO FAR! I seem to be most guilty of the looooong title in the SG-1 realm.

Well, and after all this, what's my favourite title I hear you not ask? (Not story, title)...

Probably... Waiting For Him. It sums up the story pretty well, it wasn't a pain in the ass to come up with and it's simple.

Here's my questions to you...

-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?

-> What about a title of something of mine? Has something made you go bzuh? What does that have to do with the story???

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise? For me, it's definitely The Stand. Again, simple, to the point and sums up the book perfectly.

Comments

[lark_ascends]

-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?

If there's a line that works from the story, I use that. Occasionally something will just jump out as being right. Otherwise, the main thing I do is look up quotes. So, with my last couple of fics being about Dean in hell and the consequences, I asked google for quotes relating to hell, and then found something that fitted.

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?

I have a particular fondness for "Murder will speak", "Laundry from Hell", "When parachutes are anvils", "The deconstruction of porn" - that title rules as far as I'm concerned -, and "Hello, brother (or "Jar Jar Binks I am")" - mainly because I found the alternative title hilarious, but I don't think anyone else got it.

I really don't remember titles, so I can't really answer the rest...

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're going to like this answer, but I work the other way around. I have titles for things I've never written. My pet title for something that has yet to make it outside my head is "Second Fiddles and Other Lesser Beings" which will someday be a SGA/BtVS cross centering on Faith and Zelenka - though not paired.

Looking back through my stuff, a lot of song snippets, some poetry and lit references, and some that sounded right ("Fortune's Fool" springs to mind). I have gone on title hunts sometimes. Mostly for very short fic since I write a lot of drabbles and title absolutely everything...

I'm not sure about favorite titles...not something I've thought about before.

[sinnerforhire.livejournal.com]

-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?

If I don't have a title before I start, I'm going to have a terrible title. I'm on a song lyric kick lately. I used a Third Eye Blind lyric for the latest story I posted and a Hanson lyric for one of the stories I'm working on.

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?

"I Hate You Can't Leave Me
(Shattered Glass movie fic/RPS, which I think I am the only person on the planet to ever write). It's a play on a well-known book about borderline personality disorder, which I'm convinced the main character has.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?

"hot ice and wondrous strange snow" by musesfool. She says it's from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and I have to take her word for it because I am the only English lit major in the world who got out of ever reading Shakespeare.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise? For me, it's definitely The Stand. Again, simple, to the point and sums up the book perfectly.

"Bimbos of the Death Sun." It doesn't get better than that.

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Mostly they pop into my head.

My favorites are "The Slow Braille of Touch" which is a line from a poem, which I found thanks to a friend, and "Lassie Takes Timmy To the Shrink," which was just a joke that sat there, panting, for me to find it.

I'm going to have to muse upon the others and get back to you, as I realized I began this comment before I had my facts together. ::gives you scholarly nod:: I do have to say, however, that just the title "Pet Cemetary" gives me the creeps, still.

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

"Chicks in Chainmail," is pretty good, but I just remembered mine: "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse."

[zats-clear.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna dive in here because even tho I have only written a half dozen-ish stories, I still come up with a title every time I post a screencap/caption.

-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?

With caption titles, yes, thesaurus.com is soooo my friend. So is dictionary.com. And urbandictionary. And Wikipedia. Things pop right into my head, but sometimes one word is off and that will send me on a several minute tailspin to get it right. I give myself no more than 5 minutes from start to finish to find the pic, caption, title, tweak/format/wordplay, and POST.

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?

Stories? I like Played (-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?-> What about a title of something of mine? Has something made you go bzuh? What does that have to do with the story???-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise? For me, it's definitely The Stand. Again, simple, to the point and sums up the book perfectly.), because the whole story wrapped around a gamble of galactic proportions and Daniel being duped, so in my multiple meanings trend (captions/titles all about how many meanings I can stuff into them), it worked for me

-> What about a title of something of mine? Has something made you go bzuh? What does that have to do with the story???

bzuh? If that is a good thing, then the title would be Missing in the Silence, because it was pretty much a fic summary in an of itself. Babette's Plague was another fantastic title. Perfectly elegant, perfectly Jack (I'll misquote here but "I thought I save us both the time and call it what you will anyway")

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?

eeesh! too many to pick from! But one favorite title is Hunt and Peck (http://brainofck.livejournal.com/198447.html) because of the layered meaning. I tend to be drawn to titles that say more than the surface would imply. Ooooh, and Ain't No Sunshine (http://sidlj.livejournal.com/91768.html) because the title takes a nickname and turns it on its head.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise? For me, it's definitely The Stand. Again, simple, to the point and sums up the book perfectly.

unfortunately, I can't answer that one! I know there are books out there that I loved the title of, but my mind is a big blank slate right now LOL

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

Because I can never seem to contain myself to the comment limit...

here is my wordy answer...

:D

[miera-c.livejournal.com]

*cries*

I hate titles. Why are they so hard?

[sinnerforhire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty good. Mmmm, chocolate bunnies...

[tabaqui]

Titles are a bit of a puzzler, sometimes. I tend not to 'formally' title until i'm posting the first bit, then i have to sit and think of a title so i can post.

I use the setting or 'theme' of the story to find my titles, as a rule. For instance 'Under the Mountain' was set in Seattle, and Mt. Rainier looms over the city, so... 'Thou Born to Match the Gale, (thou art all wings)' is from a poem, and as the poem is about a war bird, and the character is a war veteran, and the boys are fighting a war...it all fit. Plus, i liked the archaic tone, as the main 'villain' was a Civil War hold-over, so it fit him...

Often i put a bit of poetry at the start of a story, so the title comes from there - Treadmill - or from a song. 'Tumble, Turn, Overflow' comes from a Randy Newman song about the city the story was set in. So, titling is fun!

My favorite title? Um...i think 'As If We Should Forget We Have No Hands'. Heh. Shakespeare!

I think my favorite not-mine title is 'The Knuckles of Skinnybone Tree'. I mean - that's awesome!

And my favorite book title *ever* is 'The Word for World is Forest', even though i loathe the book. Heh.

[elusive-life-77.livejournal.com]

**The slow braille of touch** Wow, that is the most sensual phrase I may have ever heard...er saw...I mean read...whatever.

[elusive-life-77.livejournal.com]

How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?

I didn’t know Thesaurus.com existed until now but you can bet your bottom dollar (what the hell does that mean anyway?) that I will add it to my resources now!

For me titles sometimes come easy, courtesy of the muse, fully formed and ready to go. Other times I have to get thinky about it. For my novel that I have been working on forever I have a working title (Mapworld) and a ‘if I am ever so fortunate to get the damn thing done and published title (Of Sand and Tears)

I have several WIPs titled things like ‘snippet from Tracy’ or ‘Random Blurb’ or even just ‘Idea’. My personal fav is always ‘What if’.

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?

SPN= Blame it on Methane Non SPN= Magic Bane

-> What about a title of something of mine? Has something made you go bzuh? What does that have to do with the story???

Hrm. Usually I just see that you’ve posted something SPN related, squeal with glee and dive in. ‘Velcro Monkey’ gave me pause though. My first thought was ‘Oh lord, what kind of crack is this going to be?’ But it was actually really sweet in a totally brotherly kind of way.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?

Jeez, these are tough questions! The first thing that comes to mind is ‘When Darkness Falls’ by Kasten (its at http://samdean.archive.nu/viewstory.php?sid=676 It’s an incredible story btw check it out if you get the chance)

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise? For me, it's definitely The Stand. Again, simple, to the point and sums up the book perfectly.

Ok this one is an easy answer for me: The Thief of Always by Clive Barker

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

I like it, too. It kind of sums up a certain theme that runs through all my McKay/Sheppard stories. A more elegant way of describing how they blindly fumble toward one another; one blind to what he's feeling inside and the other blind to the usual social cues, but when they finally touch, they seem to be able to get one another just fine.

And the quote is from Anne Sexton's poem "The Farmer's Wife."

[theladyscribe]

-> How do you come up with titles. Do they just pop into your head, do you use other resources? Do you hit thesaurus.com as much as me?
I've never used thesaurus.com, but I rely on books and songs A LOT. Most of my titles are from a) songs, b) lines in books, or c) lines of poetry. Occasionally (like with my Desolation Angels series), a title will pop into my head and just *stay* there until I use it. And sometimes the title comes first - this happened with a WIP that I've nearly finished (From Small Things), which is actually heavily based on the first verse of the song that it's titled after.

-> What's your favourite title of a story you've written?
This is a hard one for me, because I like a lot of my titles. Hoover immediately came to mind, but it's just one of many. My favorites are mostly ones that I've stolen from other places - usually they're lines of songs that evoke the feeling of the story that I've written.

-> What about a title of something of mine? Has something made you go bzuh? What does that have to do with the story???
My favorites are your wing!fics. The titles are just enigmatic enough to catch my eye, but once I read the story, it clicks.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours fandom wise?
Oh geez. Probably all of big_pink's stories - Red, Dazzleland, and The New Deal, especially. They're simple, short, and eye-catching. I also really like the long titles, though - musesfool's Them downtown boys sure talk gritty is one that immediately springs to mind.

-> What's a favourite title of something you've read that isn't yours non-fandom wise?
This one's even harder, because I read so widely, but I really love All Quiet On the Western Front. It just... If you know the story, then you know how ironic and utterly *sad* the title is, because it's so wrong. And yet, it completely fits the story at the same time.

[beatrice_otter]

I keep a file of cool quotes, and a file of poems I like. If I can't figure out a cool title organically from the story (my first step is usually to go through the story itself and see if there's a good line that'll do, then I go for theme), then I'll go through my quotes file and my poetry file looking for something that fits.

[libra-traveller.livejournal.com]

Most of the time my titles come about by just playing with words. I also have titles for stories I have never written. Other times though my titles are lyrics from songs I'm listening too.

[pheebs1.livejournal.com]

ah ha ha I feel exactly the same! I contemplated doing a friends and going 'THE ONE WHERE DEAN XXXX' or just 'Fic no 1' etc! It is impossible. Sometimes as you say, I have the title, or there's a line in the story or a song lyric or *something* that feels relevant. I'm also aware that lots of people see fanfic links in the newsletter - so title/pairing/rating is all they have to go on, so I don't like it to be too obscure...

it's hard!!

[wild-force71.livejournal.com]

I can never think of titles...my in progress fics tend to be titled with their first line because that's the default save setting.