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Novel Titles



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Sun Oct 01, 2017 3:48 pm
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Mageheart says...



I've been working on a novel since November of last year, but I still haven't settled on a title that fits the story. (My previous ones were Broken Magic and Shattered Souls.) Do any of the other novel writers on this site have suggestions about coming up with a title that suits the book?

Thank you in advance for any help that you can give!
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Sun Oct 01, 2017 4:50 pm
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Steggy says...



Usually, when I come up with titles, I usually think about what the main theme of my novel is going to be about and add it to the title. There are times where this doesn't work and I end up just placing "Placeholder" and continuing on with my story.

Some things you should consider when it comes to making up a new title are:

What is your novel about? - With this, it is pretty self-explanatory. You could start off with writing a short summary of your novel and from there, picking out pieces of info that could help you. If there are any themes throughout, you could write those down as well.

Where is the setting? - The setting can you help truly with figuring out the title. If it is in the Arctic, you could have the word cold or ice with your title. If there is something magical within the setting, you could have magic in all caps for your title.

Spoilers - I ended up doing this a lot with most of my titles when I first started writing because you then have to think ahead to how you are going to get rid of the spoliery title and it is just a mess. Avoid doing that.

Research titles from other novels - I think this one is second best help for figuring out this sort of thing. There are some titles that are short and sweet and to the point, while others are longer but are able to get into the person's head because of the book itself.

Make a list - As I mentioned before with what your novel is about the setting, make a list of potential title names and decide upon one. If you can't decide upon one, make up another five and continue. This is probably the best for the last type of thing.

Hopefully, this helped you and I'm excited to see what you come up with!
You are like a blacksmith's hammer, you always forge people's happiness until the coal heating up the forge turns to ash. Then you just refuel it and start over. -Persistence (2015)

You have so much potential and love bursting in you. -Omnom
  





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Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:44 am
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BookplanPro says...



If you're stuck for ideas, this trick has helped me out of many a creative block:

Write down 10 ideas, no matter how silly. Anything goes.

The trick is that you feel a lot less pressure to come up with 10 bad ideas than 1 great one. And usually just coming up with something silly gets your creative thinking going. Give it a try, works for me every time!
I wrote a writing app! Bookplan Pro
  





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Wed Oct 04, 2017 11:19 pm
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Kale says...



I usually either start out with a title, or come up with one at the very end. There is no in-between. Princessence is a case of the former, while Princess Emmaline (which I am still in the process of screaming at, so that is just a working title) is an example of the latter. My titles do tend to be tied to themes though, and more specifically a play on words involving the main theme, or else a concrete example/phrase encapsulating the main theme.

In any case, for the difficult titles, I make long lists until I can't list anything more title-wise, pick out my favorites, and then sleep on it. Usually, the final result is a combination of several or else a variation in a different direction as revealed to me by the magic of a decent night's sleep.
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
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Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:34 am
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Rosendorn says...



My go-to article.

My titles, breaking with the general processes above, are more often than not character, powers, or event based. Cat Steps came because the MC is nicknamed Cat and she's treading along. I have a story called Marked because that's what the MC ends up as. One story goes by ether Divide by Zero— a character's ability— or Fate's Shotglass, reflecting the MC's role as a controlled-chaos-bringer/ bartender.

For me I try to figure out the character's general progression and placement in the world. Some of this has something to do with theme— if Marked has a sequel (I haven't decided yet), it'd be called Twain, based on a magic quirk.

Basically, I try to find the core key component of a story and boil it down symbolically. I prefer to have a certain tangible component to the titles, where it's something that has a foot in reality. Many of my favourite books follow this same pattern, and a title that has some physical concept is just stickier for me.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








Patience is the strength of the weak, impatience is the weakness of the strong.
— Immanuel Kant, Philosopher