luxken27: (Effortless Grace)
LuxKen27 ([personal profile] luxken27) wrote2010-02-20 08:52 pm
Entry tags:

The Art of Choosing a Title

(post title totally swiped from the MeFi thread)

Because I've had recent interesting discussions on the matter, here's an article about how to choose a title for your story/novel/series. Even if you don't agree with the rules, it makes for good fodder for the brain. I tend to go for the opaque, myself...maybe that's another one of my problems, LOL.

[identity profile] knittingknots.livejournal.com 2010-02-21 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
Titles. Now, you got to admit, with over 380 pieces on FF.net, and even more than that on dA, I've had a lot of practice with titling. I used to hate it, but now, I am pretty happy with most of my titles. After the End, Yesterday's Tomorrows, The Evil in Men's Hearts all pleased me as titles. The one important story (for my post manga sequence) I don't like is Future Legend. But I couldn't and still can't think of a more appropriate title for it, so I ran with it.

I'm at the point in numbers that I often have to look carefully to make sure I'm not trying to duplicate a previously used one, though, and that sometimes means I don't really title a work what I want to call it.

One of my favorite titles for a short piece is Accidently, One Summer Afternoon. There's something neat and evocative about it. I title my photographs over at dA, and my favorite title of any pic is probably "Fist of the Firegod," a photo of a pyrocumulus cloud over a wild fire, because it looked vaguely fist shaped to me...It would probably make a good title for a fantasy novel. LOL.

I have no theory or strategy...I look at the work, and slap a title that seems fitting on it. Am I good at it? Heck if I know, but I'm not worried about it for fanfic.
Edited 2010-02-21 03:19 (UTC)

[identity profile] knittingknots.livejournal.com 2010-02-21 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
Now I have my own unique strategy at doing the summaries at ff.net. I make a statement, then one or two leading questions based on the content:

for example: InuYasha wants Kagome to join him in doing something she used to like. Why is she reluctant? And what does he remind her about?

One afternoon, bandits try to kidnap Kagome while she is collecting herbs. Something strange happens to her while InuYasha searches frantically for her. Who is this person who comes to her while she's unconscious?

One afternoon, Rin stumbles across something she wasn't meant to see. Why doesn't she leave? And who else was watching InuYasha and Kagome?



Comm summaries are a bit different, but I'm not very deep there:

Interesting how the same word can mean different things considering who's it's directed at.

Rin stumbles onto something she wasn't supposed to see...but is she the only voyeur?



Simple, but still mostly teasers. That's my system. I would summarize things differently if I needed a true summary, like for the last piece:

Rin accidently stumbles across InuYasha and Kagome who do not realize they are being watched while they share an intimate moment. Rin, panicked, runs off, but someone else who is watching does not pull away so quickly. (I wouldn't say more than that because I don't want my summary to spoil it.)

But I do prefer doing the teasers.

[identity profile] knittingknots.livejournal.com 2010-02-21 04:20 am (UTC)(link)

What people want to know, I suspect, is: Who is the lead couple, if there is one, is it AU or Canon in setting, and to know a smidgeon about to expect: happy or sad, sexual situations, serious or funny.

The summary isn't a true summary; it's a place where you submit an invitation to have people come and look at your content...Rather than beat my head in, I went with something easy in the early days of my post manga stuff, and when I got positive feedback on it, I just kept it up for continuity. I do all these things on the fast fly without a lot of deep thought, so that's how I came to do it this way. It's easy for me, it signals the pertinent info, and I hope it teases people into looking. I just don't like to sweat blood over it and am lazy, so went with an easy solution.

But each of us have to figure out something that's comfy.