Open Thread: what makes for a good title?

[confusedkayt]

What a crazy week! I know a lot of folks were doing Remixes, which hopefully are in the rear-view mirror at this point. How's the writing gig going, folks

Comments

[nothorse]

I've turned in my remix on time and I even think it's decent. Wonder what my remixee will say.

I've written on titling here: Titles

[rahirah]

I'm terrible with titles. When I'm stuck for one, I usually go over to Barbtleby.com and search for keywords pertaining to the story's theme, hoping to stumble over a line of poetry that I can rip off.

But I think my favorite title for a story of mine is "Zombie Barbie Says You're It." I mean... how can you top Zombie Barbie?

[rebcake]

You cannot top Zombie Barbie. Except perhaps with Zombie Bartleby.

[lily_diablo]

You can't top that. :)

And love your icon.

[cindergal]

Titles are a big source of angst for me. I also favor lines from poetry or songs. Sometimes I like to use well known phrases as titles, if they pertain to the story (i.e. Collateral Damage is a post-Chosen story about the unexpected complications of using the amulet to defeat the Turok Han; Better Late Than Never is a time-travel story in which Spike and Buffy get stuck in 1970's London while everyone is waiting for them to return with a very important item to help defeat Glory)

But yeah, titles are hard. :-p

[eowyn_315]

Still haven't written anything. (Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here...)

I did a post on titles a while back, prompted by lily_lovely's discussion.

[quinara]

Writing's actually going pretty well! I managed to get something together that was relatively fun and light-hearted - the sort of thing I love to read but never seem to write and which made me remember what I love about the Spuffy. gillo is also doing me the great honour of taking a load of my stuff on holiday with her to beta.

Titles can be such a pain in the arse... I find they either come in a blink of inspiration (and can then be tweaked) or never really come at all. I try to steer myself away from single-word titles because a while ago it felt like they were becoming a crutch and not that good anyway.

As for what makes a good one, I'm with ruuger - titles should interact with the story in some way, maybe bring out the key theme a little bit or in any case give the reader a way into the events that are about to be described. Not that I usually manage that. Of mine I'm rather fond of I Thrice Presented Him a Kingly Crown, which even if people don't immediately recognise as Antony in Julius Caesar still (to me) smacks of oldness,

[quinara]

Sigh, I should become a paid user just so I can edit comments, because adding this clarification seems ridiculously up-myself, but when I say my latest fic is about microwavable food and not having time for dinner, I mean microwavable food as a sort of pseudo-luxury (as well as a poor man's eating out). It's all about stretching the metaphor in as many directions as possible, man. Though I will leave deconstructing it to a more suitable forum.

[ms_scarletibis]

Usually, after coming up with a general idea, the first thing I do is have the title. I don't know why...but a strong title has always been important to me.

As for favorite title from my own body of work, I'll go with "Work in Progress" because of the multitude of meanings behind it. I think that's important--the meaning behind the title.