Titles

Today's WriYe question comes from KraziKrys, who asks: When do you title? Before you start? Somewhere in the middle? At the end? Never? Until your story gets a title, what do you call it? Where do you get your titles? Do they just come to you or do you have some magic words you say and your title appears?

I'll split the answers up.

When do you title? Before you start? Somewhere in the middle? At the end? Never?

Sometimes I'll start a story with a title and nothing else. A phrase or word might jump out at me and spark my imagination so that I know what I want to call the story before I have a fully formed story. My April Fools novel from last year, Down With The Ship, was like that. I got the title from a song and then decided to write a story roughly (very roughly!) based around the song. The title brought up lots of images so I didn't have to look too far for inspiration.

Sometimes something will leap out at me when I'm half way through a story, and usually I've got something as a title by half way through. It's only very rare that I don't have a title by the time I'm finished.

The only story I can think of that I didn't have a title for, and am still not happy with the title, is Alive. The title seems to be boring for a sci-fi story, but I still can't think of anything more interesting.

Until your story gets a title, what do you call it?

Looking through my WiPs, I have titles ranging from a freewrite called Oversee to something called He was still there, which is just the first line of the story. I have others named after the main character and some named after a challenge or prompt that sparked the idea.

Where do you get your titles? Do they just come to you or do you have some magic words you say and your title appears?

I get my titles all over the place! Writing prompts, phrases that jump out at me, some titles, themes, characters and sometimes something will just stick in my head and will refuse to budge.