What's a Good Story Title?

Exactly What You Think It Is is from a line in the story. It's also a sort of pun because I think the story is exactly what you'd expect from me after listening to V&V.

Through the Smoke is because Ryan is noticing things through/because of the marijuana.

Five Weeks pretty much refers to the amount of time it takes for Gerard and Darren to completely fall in love. Kind of a play on the whole "love at first sight" cliche. It's going to be a short fic that will have probably five chapters to represent the five weeks.

Trust is (or rather, will be) about how little Ryan trusts Brendon.

That God Awful Clicking isn't exactly a direct line used in the story, but it does refer to how awful and annoying Frank finds the clicking sound of a pen to be.

Sometimes, I believe story titles are the hardest part to writing a story. Even if you've finished writing it, it's all ready to go up onto Mibba, but then you just need that extra edge that gets you noticed through the reams of other good stories out there. I've only had one story where the title came to my head immediately, before I'd even started writing. That was The Suicide Diaries.

My favourite though is Forbidden Skin at the moment. I deliberately searched the stories section to make sure that the title was original. I was so glad to find that it was.

I picked Thirty Stories Up because that's what hotel level they're on. And then I wanted it to relate to the building but indirectly.

Bees Dance in Red Dresses.
Bee is what Brendon likes to be called when he's dressed up as a girl and red is his preferred color of dress. I thought it had a sort of happy vibe and I'm trying not to make this a super depressing fic even though it kind of is.

Isa and I chose Idioglossia Between Strangers because of a discussion we had while writing. We discussed how well Ryan and Gabriel understood each other, without knowing each other. I'm not sure who mentioned idioglossia, but then the phrase 'idioglossia between angels and poets' was thrown out. That was too long a title, so we changed to the one we have now and made 'angels and poets' the name of the series. All of the stories will have a similarly structured title.

And We'll Always Have Barcelona was originally going to be called 'One Good Reason' after a line in the story, but I never really liked that so I went with a title that really just grasps the whole sentiment of the piece instead of a specific moment. It actually comes from a thought that Brendon has after the story is finished.

On the Sixth Day was originally titled 'Do it Perfectly', but I thought it sounded somewhat forced. I picked the title I used because Brendon shows up on the sixth day and it was the story of what happened that day.

I picked Milk because the central focus of the story is a milk enema. I thought the simple, sort of ambiguous title didn't scream "enemafic", but it would make sense once people knew.

We're naming all the stories in the A&P series in a similar fashion. Idioglossia Between and then whatever we feel their relationship is at during that story.

The "Others" in Idioglossia Between Others is meant to be something like significant others, but not actual significant others. Isa's idea.

Screamed Notions and Whispered Confessions
I really like this title because of the last bit. The screamed notions are the songs that Brendon sings and the whispered confessions are what happen once the one-shot is completed, so you can kind of decide what you think Brendon confesses.

I chose Hero as a title for three reasons:

1. Haley means hero.
2. Hayden always thought his boyfriend was his hero.
3. It's also the title of a song by The Lollipop Bitches and the lyrics describe the way Haley feels. ("I don't wanna be your hero, I'm nothing but a zero, and that's the way I'll stay.")

I like song titles as story titles.

We Have Been Untangled comes from a line within the story, as well as a thematic summation. I think it's one of my favorite titles I've ever come up with.

I had a big fucking issue with naming It Hurt Less When You Were Gone because of the word 'hurt.' I wasn't sure whether or not it should be 'Hurt' or 'Hurts' but I decided I really liked the feel of it when I used it in plural form, and I liked the idea of 'it' being several things all at once.

In My Mouth is titled as such because, well, Ryan wants it in his mouth. I liked that it was extremely sexual without being openly vulgar.

Can we cuss in our title?

Marcus's Crap:

Can we cuss in our title?

Yes.

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I chose A Garden in a Cup because I wanted to allude to both prompts I was given for the story without using either of them in the title. Garden=daisies and cup=styrofoam.

I like Pipe Dreams because the pipe can refer to Ryan smoking marijuana and the dreams part is what comes after it, and also because what he wants is impossible so it fits the phrase.

I really had no idea what to name Brendon, You Asshole, so I just went with a line from the story that summed it up.

In the past two days I managed to go back almost 100 pages and I've noticed something that, as a book reviewer, reader and author, is a HUGE turn off.

Putting your summary (or the short summary) as your title is not the way to go.

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm not trying to be snobby but it's really, truly not the way to go. You're telling everyone what the whole entire story is about right then and there and it leaves very little to look forward too -- a title is supposed to be grabbing, to lead you to the summary and then into the story itself. If everything is in the title then what is their left to read? But that's not to say you shouldn't put everything in the summary either, you just really have to know where to break it up.

A title such as I am a Princess Screwing a Vampire King is a huge no. A lot of people might see nothing wrong with that, but from experience I can say that no many people are going to go for that book – why? Because the title gives everything way, the main characters: one is a princess, and one is a vampire king and clearly they are going to have a lot of sex.

Another thing I want to point out: just because you can, doesn't mean you should. You can put any and every single word you want in a title, mind that it's age appropriate for who you are writing for but some people and places don't always fly that way. I think the word "screw" is classless to have in a title, especially in reference to royalty.

So what can you do? You can work it into your summary, you can keep a similar title or you can change it completely, the title doesn't have to be relevant to what the characters are or to the fact that the King is a Vampire. You can include that the lead female is a princess in the summary, you can opt that fact out until you start the story – heck, you can do the same for the lead male! You don't even have to outright tell them, implying is always fun. The point is, use your words to describe to drag them into the story and force them to check it out because more than likely you'll miss out on readers but putting it all into the title.

So…now that I've dissected it, here comes my question. Why do people do it? Sticking to Mibba, there are two places to include summaries outside of the title yet there are authors that continuously put them in the titles…why? Why not just put the title and then the summary where it goes rather then spam it up with the pairing?