My inability to think up a title is somehow hindering my process.. any suggestions?

[Chie'N'Kadath]

I haven't a clue why, but on my latest story, the lack of a title has been hindering it's progress. Every time I write a new paragraph, I stop and think 'What should the title be?' and my mind will come up with something stupid. I don't need a title with deep meaning, but I like a title with at least mild relevance or at least to be catchy or interesting. So far the best one I've thought up so far is Blue Radishes with Herpes and that's only because it made me laugh. It has nothing to do with the style, idea, anything. I'd love some tips on how to think up a good title, from those who like to put thought in their title. If I can get some tips, I'd still prefer to think my own title, and if I want to think of one with relevence, I'll do that myself as I don't see a need to summarize an unfinished story here.

[Carraka]

I got away from that by giving my book a working title. It's not the most amazing title ever, and even though it grew on me, I'm still not going to hold on to it too much when the editors tell me that it's not a marketable title.

If you can't stand to give your book a title that isn't THE FINAL TITLE then I don't know how I can help you, because I'm not a great titler myself.

I know that Equus Cruorem came from the idea that I was inventing a new species, so I ought to attempt to give it a Latin name. Sometimes I'm tempted to re-title it Starsongs, but then I'd have to do some serious re-editing to make that title relevant (even though I could).

Protector - because the primary motivation for all the people that were killing each other was to protect something, be it themselves or their honor or their family or whatever.

Those are the only two complete works I've written, but I can give you the titles of other unfinished works if that helps.

[Starry]

I would suggest just putting in a placeholder name for now and go with it. If I can't come up with something immediately, I'l just use the name of the world or the main character (that's how I ended up with Estara). If you find something later on in the story that makes a really good title, then change it! Otherwise, you might decide that you really like your placeholder name as the final title after all.

[jordanisonfire]

Give me the plot, or at least the general idea of it, and I'll come up with one for you. ^^ If you don't want that, just think what it's about and give it a title that sounds cool that still has relevance to it. For example, my novel Immortal is about two immortals. I thought it sounded cool, don't know if anyone else does. :rolleyes:

[Chie'N'Kadath]

Erm, well here's a little snippet of what plot I have down so far. I'd still like to come out with my own title, but maybe you could still throw in some suggestions.

It's an avantgarde science fiction story that tells the tale of life on 'The Mask,' a huge space platform built around the Earth when scientists discovered that they could siphon oxygen into the space stations, and they felt that if they could move humans off of Earth, the Earth and it's natural resources would last longer. Because of a population problem inside of The Mask, we begin to build 'Masks' around terraformed worlds, but the beginning of the story (Entitled 'The Day the Universe Tilted,' I considered using that as the full name of the story, but the story deals more after that event, so that's why I'm keeping it to the prologue) throws out the known fact that the universe is limitless, and suggests the universe has a very strict weight limit, and that the metal and materials used to build the Masks throws off the universes balance, and tilts it. People on the unfinished platforms begin to literally fall out of them like rain, crashing onto the original 'mask' or just floating off into space. All the moons and stars begin to fall, the first one to affect the mask of course, is the Earth's moon, which crashes through both the mask and the Earth, dividing it into two fractions. As the sun slowly falls towards it, the radiation from it along with the radiation from the broken pipes and fragments of the Mask, cause people to adapt almost instantly to the cold, oxygen free mass of space. I'm still working out the rest of the plot, but that's the basic outline on how I've started the story.

[Zombified]

If you don't have the title in the first few days of your work, then you likely won't get one at all.

Or it will be really shitty.

[Imelda]

If you don't have the title in the first few days of your work, then you likely won't get one at all.

Or it will be really shitty.

That's crap. To be blunt. Check out Neil Gaiman's latest blog post: he leaves titling until the second draft. My first book had only a working title of 'Rachel' until I finished it, and while it niggled me and came late, it didn't make it rubbish--the fact that it is rubbish is besides the point. :p

A title doesn't embody a work, it's useful only for marketing purposes, really.

[Zombified]

That's crap. To be blunt. Check out Neil Gaiman's latest blog post: he leaves titling until the second draft. My first book had only a working title of 'Rachel' until I finished it, and while it niggled me and came late, it didn't make it rubbish--the fact that it is rubbish is besides the point. :p

A title doesn't embody a work, it's useful only for marketing purposes, really.

I respectfully disagree.
Then again, some stories do have titles that have nothing to do with the plot so your point is correct in some cases, but for the most part, a lot of the titles I have seen pertain to the plot.

[Chie'N'Kadath]

I don't think the title is the most important part, but I'd still like to have one, at least one better than Blue Radishes with Herpes. And if a title was for marketing only, I'm certain that title would probably scare people away.

[Christy]

I always kind of like the idea of the title being a particularly theme-related quote from the book (and therefore you would have to either think of a quote that you will use later, or wait until you finish the first draft). Like the other day I was reading a writing magazine with a titling article in it. One of the examples was that originally a novel was called 'In America' (about foreigners coming to America) but, really, that's not very imaginitive or eye catching, but a statement 'He stood in the middle of the supermarket clutching the chicken like it was the last chicken in all of America' and this idea, statement became the basis of the publishing title 'The Last Chicken in All of America'. This is where I got the idea for my own novella title 'Ghandi Didn't Live Out of a Holiday Trailer'.

The working title thing is always an option. You need to save it as something, right? I had a novel (well, still do) that I had to saved numerous times under different file names (because my computer is stupid) and it's been called everything from 'Topsy Turvy' to 'Relay'. Really whatever popped into my head at the time. But the title deserves some special consideration, of course, but it's not a big deal if you're 10,000 words into the first draft and don't have a set title yet.

[Crocolyle]

Titles mean nothing outside of making something more marketable. Steinbeck's working title for Of Mice and Men was Something that Happened. Fitzgerald never found a satisfactory title for The Great Gatsby and had several in mind, never really deciding on one. He actually tried to change the title at the last minute to Under the Red, White, and Blue but at that point it was too late...

Alternate titles included: Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires, Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-hatted Gatsby, and The High-Bouncing Lover.

Basically... just don't think about the title. Like condition yourself to simply not think about it and the problem is solved... until you do need to think about one. A lousy title doesn't necessarily mean a lousy book...

[Chie'N'Kadath]

I'm just going to ignore the title for now. I can continue on the story, it's just been bugging me.

[phobophile]

dont worry about a title untill you have actually finished your writing. that is when the best titles seem to come to mind.