Young Writers Society

How do you find a title? Share your thoughts here and put up some random titles that people could take inspiration from.

I was listening to a radio show the other day where someone commented that 6ft. is no longer considered tall. So I came up with 7ft. is the New Tall as a possible name for a quirky comedy-drama novel. Although I don't do comedy-drama...

Mostly, my inspiration for titles comes from songs or from the context of the story. When I'm finding a title, I want it to sound like something I would pick up off the bookstore shelf out of curiosity.

Wish I had some ideas to share, but titles should come from you. You'll know when you find the right words to immortalize your work of literature.

Mostly, I give it a working title first that summarizes the concept of my story. If I was writing about a deaf woman who is being stalked, I would write: "Hunted Deaf" But when I type the last word, I look at the twists and turns and basically I try to find a good phrase that matches the genre. Or I could combine a couple of words that describe the story and that could be the title.

Hope this helps!

DW

What I've done for short stories is look for lines in the work itself that describe it as a whole. Usually I can find a tiny something-or-rather that sums up the story, right there under my nose.

Coming up with a title is sort of a pet hate and I've always had trouble. It's way hard to come up with something simple and catchy.

Sometimes after writing for a bit a good title will just come to me, but if it doesn't I'll usually play a round with a few ideas, and if I still can't find something good I'll ask someone who's read it for an idea.

My working title is, more often than not, the name of my main character. That's usually what I save a story under if it hasn't got a title.

I usually wait until I'm finished with the piece before I give it a title. Once I'm done, I know exactly what's happened in the story, I know te main themes, and the message I'm conveying is clear. That's when the title usually comes in - though there are times when I'm lost ofr words anyway

Its a weird thing, but I always have to have a title for my story. I think the easiest title I've ever come up with is Trouble...simple but effective

When I first started writing my latest story called "Tangled Up In Blue", I wanted to do a straight up adaptation of the Real Live version of that Bob Dylan song. It eventually evolved into my own story, which had little to do with the song. I kept the title, though.

Finding a title is pretty easy; I usually just use a good line from the story. After I've found a good title I'll Google it to make sure it is not already used for some well-known novel. Once that's done I'll search on fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com to make sure that that exact title or something similar is not over-used. I really don't like clichés and I try to steer clear of them with my stories - including the title.

One thing I will say: do not spend too much time on a title if you haven't finished. If you make your main focus your title and obsess over it then you are never going to finish your writing. Wait until your piece is all done and dusted before you worry about what you're going to call it.

I agree with everything you guys said.

A lot of the time I'll have ideas for names of stories or poems or lyrics that I haven't got a piece to go with. Here are all the unused titles on a post it on my desktop: (feel free to use)

Further From Forever
Catch you
Are you dead yet?
Zombie Boy
Never to Crash
Now For The Killing
Twinkle Teeth

One thing I really get story titles from: lyrics. Either the title of a song or from the lyrics themselves.

Mostly, though, I get it from the actual idea of the story. I get titles before I get stories, sometimes. Most of the time. I think of a concept - instant title - and flesh it out as a story later.