arishia

I'm having trouble coming up with titles for things I write. What makes a good title? Should it be a word or words taken directly from the text (in the case of a song or poem). How do I come up with good, interesting titles for songs, poems, and stories?? Thanks for the help!

__________________
"The things I want to express are so beautiful and pure." - M.C. Escher

galt

I'm no expert, but just some tips from titles I've encountered: I've heard that you should keep titles under seven syllables long; also, I would not make it only one or two words long, because then it is easy to forget; make sure the title has to do with the writing (sounds obvious, I know, but I remember when I was a kid I read a book that had a title completely unrelated to the story and it really annoyed me so I still remember it to this day). Try to make it interesting and different. Good luck!

lisajane

It'll come to you as you write, I find. Think of a song and find lyrics you really like in that you could twist in a fitting title. Think of a few words that you think would be a great title and write your story/poem around that.

__________________
'Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap. And he, a little charleychaplin man, who may or may not catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence.' - Laurence Felinghetti, 'The Acrobat'

Monkey King

I work at a paper and the hardest job is coming up with headlines that are clever, hook the reader and fit into the space we've laid out.

I think the more important thing to do with a title is grap people's attention, even if it takes a few more words. Try something focuses on the most interesting or bizarre aspect the story or song or whatever.

If I have the time to create a good title, I usually just give it a crappy place holder title and wait until it comes to me in the shower.

__________________
Cut me some slack. I just found out that only I can prevent forest fires and that's a lot of pressure.

Lord Raiden

My answer to this is simple. I look at the story, find the most outstanding element in the story, then make the title based on that. For example, "Lion in the WInd" was titled the way it was because it dealt with lions and since I had already planned 4 books at the start of my project I decided to give the title a unique spin. The second half of the name is based after one of the 4 classical elements. IE wind, fire, water, and earth. The sequal quadrology will have more contemporary elements, such as stars, sky, life, and one more I haven't picked yet.

Griffin's Pride was done as a title because of the 8 Griffins in the book which made up a lion style pride, and since the main griffin is very lion like, it fit well.

That's my way of doing titles. You're welcome to come up with anything you want, but it's best to use a more contemporary way to do titles. It just keeps things simpler.

__________________
My personal writing section
My Linux teaching and tech site, Raiden's Realm

Gehrig

I stink at titles as well. I try and be too clever, and usually fall flat. Some good adice on this thread though which I appreciate and will use. Thanks all.

__________________
"If I see an ending, I can work backward."
- Arthur Miller

Hand

If you ignore the problem, you'll get the solution.

__________________
Once upon a time in the future ....

Hodge

Titles suck. Sometimes I just pull a semi-important line from a character's dialogue. Other times a fitting name just comes to me after having dealt with my working title for months.

Sometimes a silly sounding name that has very little to do with the story works as well.

Like, I'm writing a short story about a hippie—the last hippie on Earth—and it's called "A Yard Stick for Lunatics." Kudos if you know where that's from.

__________________
Science

Xion Night

Could be an important item in the story...?
Or a character?
An Event?
Place?
Tiny little insignificant phrase that when people finish reading your book they'll be like, "What the heck did that have to do with title!?"
Or even a small quote from your story that really doesn't have much to do with anything.

__________________
Hello

Hodge

It could even be a quote from another literary work. One of my titles is Porphyrogene, which is a very obscure reference to an Edgar Allen Poe poem contained within one of his short stories.

Mostly I just like the name. Porphyrogene. It's fun to say, too. Porphyrogene. Although I just found out that porphyria is the disease that inspired the vampire myth, so it doesn't fit my story at all anymore.

__________________
Science

salvothasock

there are many faces a title can have
it can be an inside joke, or it can help you remember the whole story- it will simply sum up what you've written.
i used to make films when i was a kid, so i thought a lot about this growing up, i had my fav directors/films/and titles
i thought about what i liked about their titles, and sooner or later i wrote down a list and looked it over, 'cause i try to be cool, if i'm not cool enough than my projects won't be cool
hehe

__________________
purple junk diluted iguana infested snarkleberries hungry traveller