What kind of titles do you like?
As some of you know, I've been toying with the title of The Long and Winding Road. Since the original-fiction version doesn't have the love interest as such a big Beatles fan, the title doesn't seem as relevant. At the same time, I don't know what the alternative could be. I tried just The Winding Road, but it didn't seem to fit, and I really have no other ideas.
I'm not good at with chapter titles, either. I do my best to come up with them for fanfiction.net, and I've carried some of them over to the repost on deviantArt, but I don't know about using them in actual stories. I don't feel like they're necessary, beyond a number. At fanfiction.net, it's nice to remember where you last read, which is difficult with only numbered chapters. In published books, though, there are bookmarks, either physical or digital. Given I'm not brilliant at chapter titles (I either steal them from song lyrics, a word from within the chapter, or just something that may or may not fit well), I don't want to try them unless I have reason to think they're necessary.
I feel like my title ideas are terribly unoriginal. Granted, the fewer the words used, the more often they're used—that's just a matter of statistics. I just want to feel like my titles jump out at people, somehow. How much does that sort of thing vary between readers?
Also, my titles tend to be extremely short, on top of generic. Run a Google search for "Brutal" and you're probably never going to find the fan fiction. The same goes for The Rules, even if it's a lot more popular. Are there any sorts of resources for title generation, or is it just something I have to practise until it works?
Forgive me if this sounds stupid, but why isn't Arthur going to be a big a Beatles fan in the original fiction version? I don't think people would automatically associate him with England because of it, if that's what you're worried about. I only say this becuase I really, really like the title "The Long and Winding Road!"
ReplyDeleteAs for another title, hmm ... I found an absolutely terrible title generator that just came up with absurd things like "[Character name] and the Exploding Banana!" so that wasn't much help. If you've got a bunch of words and you'd like to play around with them but aren't quite sure how they'd fit together, there's this generator: http://www.fictionalley.org/primer/title.html I experimented with it, and some of the titles were pretty good. There's this one as well, with links to romance title generators and sci-fi/fantasy generators: http://www.kitt.net/php/title.php I found lots of the titles to be pretty silly, but who knows, you might find some good ones.
Aw, I've always liked your titles for FanFiction chapters. They seemed sorta poetic to me, like they always had something to do with the context of that chapter, but sometimes had to look more closely to figure out what it was. (Also, I really like your reasoning for why chapter titles are more important in FanFiction than in hard-copy books. I could never quite put my finger on why, but that's exactly it. Not that I name my titles, but anyway...) Although I do think you're right, that chapter books don't generally need titles, especially if they're for an older audience.
P.S. Maybe "Along the Winding Road?"
You don't think it would be too stereotypical? I'll consider keeping that, then...
DeleteCool! I'll check them out.
What, for a British person to like the Beatles? I guess, maybe, now that you mention it. It doesn't seem like a really big deal, though; I think you could probably leave it as it is.
DeleteOkay. :)
It's not so much that that's stereotypical, it's just that, plus he's obsessed with tea, plus he's obsessed with Shakespeare and such, plus he has a posh accent, etc., etc.
DeleteOkay, I guess I can see what you mean...
DeleteHave him be a big fan of another band and name it after one of their songs? Or make him not British?
I originally changed his obsession to a fictional punk band called Psychotic Limeys, but I don't want to make up the songs for that, too. I might check out some of my other music and see if anything strikes me. "The Long and Winding Road" just fits so well, though...
DeleteHaha, no. Posh accent or bust.