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17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
I used to hate titles a lot more, but when I was in bandom they became easy, fun, and long. Labeling a story in fourteen words or less is a lot easier than being determined to do it in two. Relatedly, that's when I started using song lyrics a lot. At this point I come up with titles often before I even start actually writing the story--I have sixteen Things To Write Next on my list, and every one has a title already assigned that I wouldn't hesitate to use for actual posting.
True story: a few years ago I was in the Yuletide chat close to deadline, hanging around to see if anyone happened to need a beta or possibly just watching the drama. Someone hit the inevitable wall of being All! Ready! to Post! and then realizing she had no title. Another Yuletider replied: Come up with a keyword from the story and Google for Leonard Cohen lyrics with that word.
I laughed, but honestly--yeah, pretty much, except I don't know that I've ever used a Leonard Cohen lyric as a title. As a sample, I've posted eleven stories so far in Fic Year 2011 (including Yuletide 2010 stories). Of those eleven titles, four are song lyrics (The National, Cat Stevens twice, and Vienna Teng) and two are lines from the same poem (Henry Reed's "Naming of Parts"). For the sixteen on the list to be written next plus the two actual WIPs I have going, it's fourteen song lyrics (The Mountain Goats six times, Josh Ritter four times, Dessa twice, Van Morrison, and the Fratellis) plus a Latin phrase, an Eddie Izzard reference, and what may or may not be a line from Robert Frost.
So, yeah, I don't mind titles these days. If you have ever wondered about the meaning or origin of any of my story titles, feel free to ask!
I've only rarely chaptered or otherwise partitioned a story, and have never assigned titles to parts. (I thought about it with Get Loved, Make More, Try to Stay Alive--the three phases of the title actually kind of work as labels for the beginning, middle, and end of the story--but dividing the story into three turned out not to be very practical, so I dropped that idea.)
* Cinder-fuckin'-rella.
( All 30 questions under the cut. )
I used to hate titles a lot more, but when I was in bandom they became easy, fun, and long. Labeling a story in fourteen words or less is a lot easier than being determined to do it in two. Relatedly, that's when I started using song lyrics a lot. At this point I come up with titles often before I even start actually writing the story--I have sixteen Things To Write Next on my list, and every one has a title already assigned that I wouldn't hesitate to use for actual posting.
True story: a few years ago I was in the Yuletide chat close to deadline, hanging around to see if anyone happened to need a beta or possibly just watching the drama. Someone hit the inevitable wall of being All! Ready! to Post! and then realizing she had no title. Another Yuletider replied: Come up with a keyword from the story and Google for Leonard Cohen lyrics with that word.
I laughed, but honestly--yeah, pretty much, except I don't know that I've ever used a Leonard Cohen lyric as a title. As a sample, I've posted eleven stories so far in Fic Year 2011 (including Yuletide 2010 stories). Of those eleven titles, four are song lyrics (The National, Cat Stevens twice, and Vienna Teng) and two are lines from the same poem (Henry Reed's "Naming of Parts"). For the sixteen on the list to be written next plus the two actual WIPs I have going, it's fourteen song lyrics (The Mountain Goats six times, Josh Ritter four times, Dessa twice, Van Morrison, and the Fratellis) plus a Latin phrase, an Eddie Izzard reference, and what may or may not be a line from Robert Frost.
So, yeah, I don't mind titles these days. If you have ever wondered about the meaning or origin of any of my story titles, feel free to ask!
I've only rarely chaptered or otherwise partitioned a story, and have never assigned titles to parts. (I thought about it with Get Loved, Make More, Try to Stay Alive--the three phases of the title actually kind of work as labels for the beginning, middle, and end of the story--but dividing the story into three turned out not to be very practical, so I dropped that idea.)
* Cinder-fuckin'-rella.
( All 30 questions under the cut. )