I should really pick a title

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 17:15:38 GMT

I've been using one- or two-word identifiers for WIP files, which is fine, but as I approach a time when I'm contemplating actually sending it out to people, the lack of an actual title becomes irksome. I find proper nouns both stressful and nonessential. For some characters, I know about how I want their name to sound/feel. A little poking at my brain, lists of names, etc., and I can find something that works. For places, it's sometimes the same deal, though most of the time I find myself raiding a map of actual place names or hitting up a random generator. If I keep reading it and it feels right, it stays, otherwise I can always repeat and do a find/replace. (This is one annoyance with Scrivener, since I have to do it by individual text file. Unless there is, in fact, a way to do it globally in a draft. Hm, maybe I should check that...although now that a major supporting character's been renamed, it's less of a big deal.)

I used to do a lot of one word titles, and that's a thing I don't want to repeat. I like the idea of something longer, more distinctive, and a little whimsical. I have things I like for a couple shorter pieces in this series as well as last November's NaNo--well, I don't have them firmed up, but I mostly have the shape of the titles--but one for this WIP eludes me. I think the problem is that I originally had a "maybe" title, a line from this WIP that I was thinking could work if I bundled stories, or that I could use for this book. I now don't like it for a number of reasons. (It's okay as a line, doesn't work as a title.) But I'm having a terrible time coming up with a replacement.

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A. P. Howell

I should really pick a title