The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#192) -- Titles and Timelines

At what point in the process do you usually title your stories? And what's your philosophy for titling?

I'm an odd writer in that I usually have my title set in stone (or at least soft concrete that's firming up quickly) before I ever write my first word of a story. For me the title drives the tale. The title can come from a  mental image that spawned the story in the first place, a quote that triggered the telling, or from a line of narration or dialog that's always waiting for its place in the text of the tale. But it's usually there.

Occasionally, and this is quite rare, will the story dictate to me a new title. This happened recently in my story for the Armless O'Neil volume published by Pro Se Press/Pulp Obscura. It was originally titled "From the Liquor to the Lady," but by the time I had finished writing of O'Neil's frustration at his "sidekick" Tommy's eye for the ladies and how it always causes him to make poor decisions that lead to dangerous adventures, the story made me change to title to the final one: "There's Always a Woman Involved."

But as I mentioned earlier, that's rare.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#49) -- Creating Titles

How do you come up with titles?

For me the titles most always have to be in place before I feel comfortable writing the story. I know that's backwards from a lot of writers who can put placeholder titles up and then get to work on the story itself. But for me, the title is part of the map that helps me get there. (There being the end of the tale, of course.)

Occasionally I have been able to work that way, but I think that (in my mind anyway) the stories suffer for it.

I spend a lot of time get the titles, working through quotations to find just the write sequence of words, or sometimes pulling it from bits of dialog that came to me during the character creation.

A few times even, the titles have come from song lyrics while I'm listening to the radio or CDs in the car.

Twice, and only twice, I've had titles sitting in reserve just waiting for the right story to come along.

The important thing, though, is that the title must do two things:

1. Compel a reader's interest to read the story.
2. Broaden the understanding of the story itself to the reader as he or she reads.