The Art of Choosing a Title

[luxken27]

(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.

Comments

[luxken27]

I don't like the question method, myself. I've used it in the past, but I guess I prefer a bit more declaration in my summaries, LOL. For the last oneshot I posted up, I just pulled some lines from the middle of the fic itself, but it seemed to work beautifully IMO =) I'm not usually so lucky.

I guess I just find summarizing a bit trite, especially if you only have 256 characters. I've been trying to think of a way to summarize the Fleeting serial, a static summary to use after its finished since, at the moment, I'm updating with the installment summaries, and I've just drawn a blank. There's too much going on to find a decent way to limit it so much...so, hmm. We'll see.

[knittingknots.livejournal.com]

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.

[luxken27]

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...

Well, exactly, and the hard part is coming up with something that does that, at least for me. Summaries are the first things people read of your fic, so its the first (or second, after the title) impression.

I have so-so luck, I'd suspect, unless I just hit on something genius out of left field *shrug* I'm hoping something snappy will come to me by the time I finish Fleeting, but if not, don't be surprised to see me open a "help me summarize this fic in 256 characters or less!" thread, LOL :P