Your Work's Titles

Not working name, what you know RIGHT NOW the title of your whatever will be. I ask because it took me way too long to vote up with one.

The title of my book trilogy will be 'A Record Of Melahawk Sea', with the subtitles 'Within The Tangled Mountain', 'Beneath The Eldritch Depths', and 'Above The Star-Scorched Sand'. What are yours? Also, comments! Comment on whatever you think, we need to know immediate reactions. Titles define works, and decide who reads them.

edited 23rd Oct '12 7:59:09 PM by Ninjaxenomorph

I really like all of your titles; they seem nicely evocative without being too overdone. I especially appreciate that all of the individual titles follow the same prepositional-phrase pattern—it lends a nice sense of consistency. In short, I'd read something with any of those titles attached to it!

My science fiction novel series in-progress has no overarching series title as of yet, unfortunately, but the individual books do all have titles. Thunder over Babylon is probably my favorite; the others follow the same pattern.

Well let's see...

• Endless Conflict: Well it should be obvious we're talking a military/war book.
• Towards The Valley of Flowers: (Pre-production kid's book.) Definite adventure story as you could tell from the title.
• Macrocosm: Title is the name of the place the Metroidvania game is set in.

Probable audiences I'm shooting for are Adult for the first one, middle to late elementary school for the second, and all ages for the third though given some of the stuff there if it got an ESRB rating it would probably be E-10 or T.

(And yes I'm well aware the possibility exists I made crappy title schemes.)

edited 23rd Oct '12 4:22:13 PM by MajorTom

Actually, I typed wrong, the third one was 'ABOVE The Star-Scorched Sand'. Anyway:

Thunder Over Babylons sounds like a respectable sci-fi novel. Very visceral, and it gets your attention.

Endless Conflict sounds a little cliche, really. If there isn't a video game called that. However, if that name is not copyrighted, it is an awesome name, and TAKE IT. Towards The Valley Of Flowers sounds like a sci-fi book from the 70s, actually, nothing wrong with that. Macrocosm is really good, just remember that there was a really bad game called Microcosm at one point.

Also, some web comics being made by a friend of mine. Debre Insonis, with a big backstory by her which I am only tangentially involved with. It takes its name from an in-universe language. Her other planned comic I am going to be credited as the co-author, and is sci-fi/dystopian/post-apoc, is Forged Men, so called because it deals a lot with humans tampering with genetics.

edited 23rd Oct '12 8:13:42 PM by Ninjaxenomorph

The ones on my mind right now:

• Manifestation Files: It's an urban fantasy with psychics and spirits "manifested" from human emotions. Of course, there's a love story.
• Road (to Mecha): This is my Na No Wri Mo. I'm not sure if it'll have the (to Mecha) part or not, in risk of sounding too cheesy.

"Manifestation Files" sounded a little too urban at first glance, but then I remembered that "manifestation" is usually attributed to a supernatural being. It makes sense.

"Road (to Mecha)" just made me wince a little. Making a reference to a religious practice for a pun is not a wise choice. Unless there is a serious pilgrimage in your novel, I'd change it.

• The Goddaughter Duet; movies
  • Via Lunae
  • Via Solaris
• Double Time; novels (may be changed to movies)
  • Beat Grid
  • Eon Vault
• Methods of Myth; short stories
  • Fighting Inertia
  • Greater than Gold
  • Some Stars are Already Dead
• Wild Red Bird; novel
• The Meliad; novel
• Jacob's Humans; novel

edited 23rd Oct '12 9:44:29 PM by Leradny

• New Dawn: Mostly sticking to an Urban Fantasy / Hidden High Fantasy idea with some hints of scifi present. There's also some military themes present, as well as some horror. Blame Nebiros for the horror. There is some very dark humor, other times, far lighter anime style humor.
• New Dawn II: Politics are added, some investigative thriller too, given that most of the book is about trying to find out who, exactly, leads the Nebulous Evil Organization. There's more black comedy, a bigger cast, and a Big Bad of a distinctly different flavor than the last one.
• New Dawn X: There are now hints of an apocalyptic view going on, as people of all stripes fight for control of a wish granting floating...thing...with Alien Geometries. There are also much more personal struggles, and surging combinations between problems in the world behind the masquerade and in front of it. The Arcs of Katherine, Caine, and Hector really get going.
• New Dawn Revolution: And It Just Got Worse. The Masquerade's gone, several characters are dead, Sanfield's been set up by a manipulative individual as the site of a magical infection, prompting four PMC's to go Blackwater and seal the whole place up and try to wipe it off the map. Many more war like themes present, and there is a large focus on survival, and living in a magical world. The bloodshed from the magic side is really spilling over. In this dark phase, though, there's a glimmer of hope in Matthew. And this time, he brought some friends. Nobody can really say who the Big Bad is until about halfway through.
• New Dawn Neo=Age: The world has changed. While the amount of bloodshed has decreased over a year, the destruction of the Masquerade has caused many, sweeping changes. Matthew and the 317th continue on, though. Who the Big Bad is this time is...arguable. This book is slightly lighter in tone, and features more humorous scenes.

There will be more. Many more.

Well, if you want someone to think your work is the next Twilight, be my guest.

In The Service/A Numbered Existence and Monsters can be considered one story, technically, though the first two are ongoing. Titles relate to content. I mentally lump them together as part of the first-named.

Life After Hayate is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin for the setting, only with added shenanigans on occasion since actually owning a pair of attractive women manifested out of the all-powerful artifact (in addition to the guy and the young girl) is a terrible thing to happen to a seventeen-year-old male who realizes just how bad he could fuck up in a hormonal outburst.

SAMAS and IAR were both named after a particular in-universe line of equipment, and were intended as a nuts-and-bolts-how-do-we-really-drive-this-thing look at powered armor and giant robots in action.

The Last Laugh and Letting Go were both pretty much about what the say.

Night Life is a somewhat ironic reference to the way the setting usually works.

And I could spend hours on chapter names, but they're usually descriptive.

(I demand to read your NanoProject, Chi!)

edited 23rd Oct '12 9:54:29 PM by Night

1 sounds more like a military documentary than a work of fiction. If that's what you were going for, fine.

2 is far too broad.

3 is a little unclear. The first things I thought of were "Is it referring to the plane? Or to someone with the name?" And I'm still not sure how the story matches with the premise.

4 is a little close to WALL-E. If that's what you were going for, have at it.

5 through 7 are a bit too transparent. You should be careful about using common figures of speech. Even "common figure of speech + clever wordplay/in-story twist" is pretty overused.

My titles?

edited 23rd Oct '12 10:03:22 PM by Leradny

Is it wrong to say that I don't really care that much about titles?

For what it's worth, my current project (lengthy action-comedy-homage space opera webcomic) has the working title of Star Nerds. I'm not really planning on actually using it, but coming up with a real title is close to the lowest priority on my list.

Yes. Considering how this is a thread devoted specifically to titles and feedback.

That was probably a bad way to put it - I'm not trying to challenge the thread as such. What I am wondering is how I'm supposed to provide any kind of feedback when all of these titles would have no effect on whether I'd read the work (although I agree that Road (to Mecha) is probably unnecessary).

For most people, titles are the first thing they see of a book and they have some sort of first impression.

We are asking those people if, should said first impression fall within their preferred reading genres, whether these titles are interesting enough to urge them to read.

And if the titles don't fall within their preferences, whether the titles are interesting enough to urge them to read it anyway.

I would have thought that would be the cover (which does have an effect where I'm concerned).

And that still doesn't really answer my question: what do I do if I want feedback on my title (which I do - it's a working title and not particularly good, but I want specifics) but can't give anyone feedback in return?

edited 23rd Oct '12 10:25:04 PM by nrjxll

Sadly, it's much too late to change any of those titles, as they're already posted works.

In The Service is a work of military fiction, so it works.

I should mention that The Last Laugh and Letting Go were both short stories, rather than longer works; Letting Go was probably the shortest story I've posted. The titles were intentionally transparent as such. I can't milk that much complexity out of 383 words.

Actually of all my stories, I think IAR was probably the most widely beloved by the people who read it. Certainly I got the most continuous and long-lasting feedback. I still talk to at least one person who read it.

edited 23rd Oct '12 10:25:36 PM by Night

I am not worried about being perceived as the next Twilight. Thanks for the advice, anyway.

nrjxll: Well, you can't say a picture when telling your friends which book you read. And describing what the image is like tends to be dubious, since some covers are reused or generic.

edited 23rd Oct '12 10:45:37 PM by Leradny

Yes, which is why I intend to have these books, and eventually get a talented drawer to make New Dawn Graphic Novels as well, as a sort of adaptation.

And, again, thank you for the advice.

Oh, wait. Copy-pasted wrong name.

Uh. Titles.

Let Sleeping Gods Lie was the big project I was working on during the summer that's currently on hiatus.

My Glasses Are Broken it the short that's currently in slush.

And currently the other two are referred to as "Wizard Murder" and "VR Story" in my notes. I guess that's better than what I called Let Sleeping Gods Lie — "Fucking Wizards".

I don't find myself all that affected by titles either; most of the time, titles just feel like 'eh' because I realize that they usually reference something in the story, and whatever that thing is makes no sense to me because I'm still deciding if I want to pay any attention to that book out of all the other ones on the shelf at Books-a-Million.

Relevance of titles aside, let's see...

• Aether is the (working) overarching title for the body of works that are taking place in this conworld, Aetherion (also a working name).
  • Shining Over Heaven (roughly final) is about an Earth-originating chancellor's attempts at reforming his country's corrupt, decadent government. He gains his magical power through belief in gods; his god of choice is Amaterasu, and that's a translation of her name.
  • The Water Bearer (roughly final) is a rough translation of the protagonist's surname, Vinicio Acquati. After a centuries-long journey, he's returned to his clan and it follows the ways that he has seen his home change, and his eventual fate at the end of his long life.
    • The Heliocentric (very much working) is a short story that takes place an undetermined- though extremely long -amount of time after The Water Bearer. It follows a young woman living all alone on a tiny planet with a boring survival routine until she decides to shake things up a bit.
  • Adamant (also very much working) also follows Vinicio Acquati, in addition to his three sons and their respective families following a mystery where he almost kills his sons and has absolutely no recollection of the event. 'Adamant' currently references diamonds, which are everlasting like the immortal protagonist.

edited 24th Oct '12 6:03:06 AM by CrystalGlacia

My trilogy is called The Fourth Mystery.

That makes me think of Sherlock Holmes-esque mysteries. Is that at all on the right lines?

My current project is called Time Travel Abuse. What does that make people think of?

edited 24th Oct '12 10:48:46 AM by Yej

I SUCK at titles. And my titles are usually pretty generic. I used to have a comic called Power Zone, which I don't do any more, but I love it because it served as my first actually good story basis.

The only story title I have is Thirteenth Sage. And one other story with no name. I just call it "Amnesiacs" for simplicity, but no idea what it should actually be called —lesigh—