![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI hope writing is going well for all of you! I've managed about a hundred words and hope for more by the end of the day.
As for today:
Did you write?
Edit?
Research?
Plan?
Send to beta?
Take a break?
Deal with other life things?
How do you feel about your writing today?
Today's discussion topic is titles. I don't think I've ever run into a writer who didn't struggle with titles, at least some of the time. How do you find your titles? Do you come up with a title early in the writing process or is it the last thing you do? Do you check to make sure other people haven't used the title dozens of times before or do you not care?
When I'm trying to come up with a title, I often start with a dictionary, a paper one so that I can page through at random. The dictionary suggests things that I'd never have thought of. I make a list of possibilities and sometimes run those through a thesaurus (online) to see what else suggests itself. I also have a document with song fragments that I heard and thought might make good titles. I tend not to use those so much because they tend to be long. The title is usually the last thing I come up with. My working titles tend to be simple-- a character's name or something like 'Yuletide 2012' or a descriptive word. My big WIP has working chapter titles of wks[chapter number]. I do sometimes check to see how often a particular title has been used. I don't always remember to do it, but I intend to do it more often now. I gave up on a potential title for my Yuletide fic because there were a couple dozen other fics on AO3 that used that exact title.
As for today:
Did you write?
Edit?
Research?
Plan?
Send to beta?
Take a break?
Deal with other life things?
How do you feel about your writing today?
Today's discussion topic is titles. I don't think I've ever run into a writer who didn't struggle with titles, at least some of the time. How do you find your titles? Do you come up with a title early in the writing process or is it the last thing you do? Do you check to make sure other people haven't used the title dozens of times before or do you not care?
When I'm trying to come up with a title, I often start with a dictionary, a paper one so that I can page through at random. The dictionary suggests things that I'd never have thought of. I make a list of possibilities and sometimes run those through a thesaurus (online) to see what else suggests itself. I also have a document with song fragments that I heard and thought might make good titles. I tend not to use those so much because they tend to be long. The title is usually the last thing I come up with. My working titles tend to be simple-- a character's name or something like 'Yuletide 2012' or a descriptive word. My big WIP has working chapter titles of wks[chapter number]. I do sometimes check to see how often a particular title has been used. I don't always remember to do it, but I intend to do it more often now. I gave up on a potential title for my Yuletide fic because there were a couple dozen other fics on AO3 that used that exact title.
Tags:
