Story titles~

So, do you come up with your own? Or do you find inspiration in using certain things such as songs for example? Discuss~

For me, I end up using song titles because I'm bad at titles. However, my recent story uses a title I came up with on my own. It's called 'Caught up With You" for example. I thought it fit my story because the MC gets 'caught up' with my Borderline Personality Disordered love interest. At first, she doesn't know what he has. He doesn't trust girls because he's had his heart broken multiple times due to his condition. Basically, the MC is the only one who's willing to understand and help him. <3 I based my MC of Emily Osment, and my love interest of Tsuzuku from Mejibray (who actually has BPD in real life).

Story discussion aside, how do you create/come up with your story titles? Do you come up with your own or use song titles for example?

I already mentioned how I deal with titles back in the fanfic's DCC a few weeks back, so I'll copy/paste here.

Bay Alexison said:

As for titles, I tend to go if it relates to the story. Sometimes I would think of one right away, sometimes I would just think of a tentative title until a few chapters later there's one that I like. When it comes to my much shorter works I would go for song lyrics if it fits the story well.

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I tend to stick with very short titles. I always come up with my own, and they have to relate to the deeper meaning of the story, while still giving reference to the story itself. It can be really hard sometimes, so I try not to think about it too much until I have at least some of the story done.

I tend to get inspiration from other sources for my titles. The one I like the most are the titles for my current project, which all came from John F. Kennedy's presidential speech. I just heard parts of it one day in college, and wrote down a few phrases to find it again. There were other phrases that were perfect for the themes of the stories.

So I continued the trend for other fics. I just looked through various presidential speeches to see if any lines perked my interest, and I wrote them down to remember them.

At times they come to me easily, and others I only decide on something after writing the whole story out. I don't have that much of a method; either the idea for a title comes to my mind, or I end up trying to find something that will fit the theme of the story or be at least vaguely relevant. The same goes for chapter titles but I don't put as much stock into those.

(This is from the guy who started fanfiction with the great idea of 'I'll do a parody of Pokemon Colosseum, and call it... 'The Retelling of Pokemon Colosseum'!'. =p)

'Fairy Tale', the story I last complete, was called that the moment I started the word document for it. Meanwhile, the story I'm working on rn is called 'Seasons' (file is called 'Seasons7.doc' as I keep various versions of the story), despite the fact that the idea I had of having the story be across seasons changed a long time ago. I have only recently spent some time on a title and I think I have one I'm content with (which does include the word Season).

I forgot to mention... that for me, it does depend on the story. Most times, I just use song titles. Others I do use titles inspired by songs. I have a story called "I'm Not a Child, Not Yet an Adult" that was inspired by Britney's song "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman". It's basically the same concept as the song because it's about a young girl turning eighteen and having to deal with responsibilities of an adult, even though she still feels very child-like.

I am capable of coming up with titles... but I think if my plot is still sort of well... a baby plot, it becomes harder. I'm the type of person who rushes into stories headstrong without taking the time to plan them out too. :x So, the title usually ends up coming from a song that I think fits the story. It's usually the lazy way out for me, I guess.

I like to name my stories (and roleplays!) something eye catching and memorable. Except for recently when I went with "Digimon Revolution" for a title lol. Digimon was eye catching enough I think.

One of the best story titles ever imo was "A smell of petroleum pervades throughout". You remember that one, right? :) Cutlerine's. Of course, that's a famous quote by someone who drugged himself to try and discover the meaning of life or something like that. But it's a really remarkable sentence to use for a title. Stuff like that, I like.

Titles like Twilight saga: New Moon really don't entice me at all. Ugh.

If my brain refuses to cooperate I usually turn to song titles as I listen to music while I write.

shatteredxfrost said:

If my brain refuses to cooperate I usually turn to song titles as I listen to music while I write.

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That's what I do. Though, my music is also Japanese. It's not easy to find a title that fits. I usually look to things I don't listen to anymore or still somewhat like. It just depends on the style or theme of the story and what songs I think relate to it.

I'm the absolute worst at titles. My Google Docs is actually full of 'Untitled document' files because of it. However, when I can think of them, I usually just use song lyrics. For now I've been using a lot of lyrics from songs in Metal Gear, actually.

Story titles are always a struggle for me and I'm rarely completely happy with them. Chapter titles come to me more easily for some reason.
For song-fics I also usually just take the title of the song or some of the lyrics, but I'm not all that satisfied with that either. I try to find titles that can have more than one meaning over the course of the story or that has some other connection to the story. Once, I used a fitting quote that could be seen as a pun to the plot. But most of the time I make them up on my own. While they are usually short, I avoid just sticking two "mysterious"-sounding nouns together like "Hope's Destiny" or something like that. On the one hand because it sounds too cliché and on the other hand because it usually wouldn't say anything about the story.

Chapter titles are a problem for me too. I usually just number my chapters like "One" then the second would be "two" and so on. I stopped doing it and tried to think of what the chapter is about and go from there. It does help me some though.

Most of the stories I write could relate well to songs I've heard as well. I have one story called Bleeding Love because it has a lot of relation to Leona's song of the same title. I should get on to writing that story btw...

Story titles are always such a problem for me, omg. I feel like I come up with some of the stupidest things in the world. @_@ I usually try to fit the title to the story though, even if the title sounds really stupid. Sometimes, I'll come up with a really cool title beforehand though, so I'll go with that instead of something else. I've never used song titles for my story titles, I guess because I've never really felt like they'd fit. n_n

I hate titles so much, honestly. Like, I have such a huge hatred for them it's kind of funny, lol. It just baffles me and stumps me to no end to try and come up with a title for something that I slave over to develop, and I have to basically sum it up into one enticing word that's going to pique the interest of the target audience, something that it'll always be referred to as.

Anyway, I try to come up with my own titles, and they usually suck. I wish I could just name stories the way that visual artists name their Photoshop or PaintTool SAI files and just use like "difhsgihs.doc" or something.

I generally use one negatively-connotative word for the title that can still relate back to the story. I don't know, I think people are more likely to click if a story is called 'Retribution' or 'Revolution' et cetera? Sometimes, it'll have an average connotation and just sound/look kind of cool, i.e. 'LEGEND', to attract eyes, or I'll rarely put something funny in an occasional moment of amusement.

Titles are pretty easy for me. Usually when I started, I just simply leave the title be and just label the plot bunny as 'working title', and as I am building the outline of the story, something would come up. I usually prefer my title to be short and precise, and subtly alluding to an aspect of the story, but when I write something particularly - angsty, I can be rather verbose.

I always use a line in song lyrics or a poem for chapter title, however.