Titles

March 30th 2006 at 4:34 pm

Dave Kirtley and I were working on how to title stories back at Alpha, the workshop for younger writers, this summer. I’m not so good with titles, so I found I probably got more out of the conversation than Dave as we prepared for our lecture the next day.

As we chatted I kept notes, and I just found them again, and here are some approaches below the cut.

You’re more than welcome to chip on classes of titles of your own that you’ve noticed, or heck, add to the list. It was fun for me to see ways of doing this, and helped me out a bit.

Some ways in which titles are made up by writers:

-Catchy phrases from famous/not so famous poems or bible verses:
-Mortal Engines
-Alas Babylon

-Other famous literary titles with a new twist:
-Mortal Engines

-A description of what people in the story are doing:
-Towing Jehovah
-Rendezvous with Rama
-The 9 Billion Names of God

-A reference to the theme of the story:
-A Talent For War
-Stand on Zanzibar

-Name of character and/or single name of what they’re doing:
-The Ship Who Sang
-Ender’s Game
-American Gods

-A description of the place/thing in the story:
*settings*
-Islands in The Net
-The Anubis Gates
-A Fire Upon The Deep
-The Demons at Rainbow Bridge
-Chasm City
-The Fountains of Paradise
-Against the fall of night
-Across a sea of suns
-Elantris
-Songs From a Distant Earth
-Dune
*things*
-The TimeShips

-A description or reference of some facet of the story
-Hardwired (technology)
-Software
-Redemption Ark (a mix of place and facet)

-An interesting made up name that rings
-Neuromancer
-Elantris

-A cool phrase from the story:
-Repent Harlequin, Said The TickTock Man
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