Titles Meme

[saki101]

espresso_addict completed a great meme for writers created by roseveare. As espresso_addict said in her post, "it's always better to write about writing than to write..." I find that particularly true when the writing's going slowly!

Came part and parcel with the idea for the story: Third (see below), Blue Diamonds, Revisionist, Silk Road, Necropolis (that is a very popular title, I found), Icarus Clipped, C# Minor, Stone Mirror, Fading to Sand, Magnetic Midnight, Index of Coincidence, Night View from the Mind Palace, You Follow Me Down Other Roads, Uncalibrated Measurements, Aberdeen to Euston, Retro, White Satin, Silver Sequins, The Apothecaries’ Garden and Salisbury Plain.

Panic stations! The fic is ready to post/I have to post this tomorrow and I don't have a title: The Après-Ski Affair, Safer


I have to call it something and it might as well be that: Treasures, Power and Signs and Signals. They all encapsulated the theme, but didn't resonate for me.

LordKingBadTitle: Experiments, the title of a very long series. This is an extremely popular title for Sherlock stories.

Loaners (suggested by my beta reader/my mum/some guy I accosted on the street/the cat): This First Summer Month That Brings the Rose, suggested by my brilliant and reclusive beta when I was panicking because I needed to submit the story in a matter of minutes. "When in doubt quote Khayyam or Shakespeare," they advised, "and since the story involves roses, certainly the quatrain that begins with, Each Morn a thousand Roses brings you say, Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday..." "Yes, yes," I cried, "The next line it is!"

Title that makes me glee like an idiot: This First Summer Month That Brings the Rose. As above, when in doubt quote The Rubaiyat, but this one suited the story wonderfully, not just the quote, but the whole stanza it is from suited John's attitude. (This was also not my idea, see previous entry.); In This Fragile Cage of Bone was one that came with the story inspiration and is my favourite among those that are not quotations.

Punny: Overtures, which ended with a punch line. Even now it makes me smile; Homo Faber, I very much enjoy how it captured the theme and is alluded to in a key bit of dialogue; Untying the Knot, Closing the Back Door (for computer hackers, there); We're Sorry for Any Inconvenience (this one is more a running gag than a pun, but still) and If I Caught You.

One worders that don't suck: I have quite a few one-word titles and I liked most of them. Titles appear to be one of the few places where I tend towards pithiness! Third is one of my favourites. (This was also one of those titles that came with the idea for the section I used as an introduction to a longer story I was re-working and ended up being the title for the whole thing. It isn't finished, alas.); Dill, Kohl, Kintsugi, Watching, Zygomata, Reliquary, Carbonado and Moats; all were things within the story that symbolised the mood of the whole; Vortices; Evolution, Conversion, Unblemished, Ransom and Revisionist all caught a theme I was trying to work with in the story.

Best attempt to break AO3's character limit: There are Times When the Stars are Too Close.

Working title alternatives and 'You can't call it that's: Fifty Shillings, although I did call it that.

What does it meeeaaan?: You Follow Me Down Other Roads. I was asked where the quote was from, but it isn't a quote, just me, although I was sort of answering The Road Less Traveled.

Literary Allusions/Song titles: Through the Invisible, A Single Alif, This First Summer Month That Brings the Rose from Omar Khayyam; Nighttide, Rue Morgue, Sherlock's Meta: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Bells from Poe; Over Park, Over Pale from Shakespeare, Frail Blue from Joyce Kilmer and C# Minor from Beethoven's String Quartet in C# minor, no. 14, op. 131.

That was fun, although it took a while and I didn't include everything from the past six years! I clearly like one-word titles and am fond of titles with words with the prefix 'un' in them. There seems to have been less inspiration of late which is a bit worrisome, although one of my favourites is from less than a year ago, so there may yet be hope! :-D

Comments

[eilidhsd.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Exhilarating even.

And by one of those rare bursts of coincidence, we were all lucky enough to be able to enjoy Kohl in Short Story only days ago.

Have you ever thought that Kohl Two, or Kohl Contined, or even More Kohl, or Even More Kohl would make a fabulous title for a story?

Just a thought. No pressure. Not hinting. Much. Not at all.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-D

Interestingly, when I saw the mfu-shortstorie link recently, I re-read the two segments for the first time in years and felt a twinge of sympathy for their incomplete state.

Right now I'm working on a story involving kittens (yes, kittens) and hope to be done by the end of the month (famous last words). Then, I wonder if the muse might pay a visit...

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Reading this reminds me of lot of stories I'd like to read the ends of :D But I can't say anything because it's not like I don't have a few wips nagging at me.

I like this meme, I think I'll do it! But make eilidhsd stay away and not remind me that she's still waiting for BG...

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Oh, that might be hard to do, but I'll see if I can get those spinning lights working properly.

Do it! It was useful going through all the titles and thinking about the stories again.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I think if Experiments is the worst you can come up with, you must be good at titles! I too like In This Fragile Cage of Bone; there's something about the word 'bone' that makes for good titles. (Short, pithy, associated with life & death?) I love some of your more unusual single word titles. I didn't know kintsugi; lovely word for an interesting philosophy.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Kintsugi was elmey's prompt for an Easter Egg the spring before last. It was perfect and I snatched it up instantly.

Bone is a strong word. It even feels nice to say it. There's the one-syllable aspect, too.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It has good rhyming potential, too. Words from OE are often good ones.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Ah, is that it?

Such a mix English is!

[eilidhsd.livejournal.com]

BG? I thought it was EE that was awaited. But BG is ringing bells now too. Oh yes, that's right! You should not have mentioned that one. Double dose of howling outside your study window coming up!

[eilidhsd.livejournal.com]

I hope the muse does call round.

Given my poor memory, a lot of these seem unfamiliar. Are they in a library together somewhere?

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Fingers crossed!

They are indeed, all sorted into fandoms, subcategories and alphabetised in my handy Index (http://saki101.livejournal.com/13468.html) with direct links to the stories! ;-) (I hope you find some you missed!)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh!

[elmey.livejournal.com]

I shoulda known she'd catch me....