Just curious when you guys (and gals) title your WIP's?
Seems to me that most of the posters here mention their titles for their WIP's.
Try as I might, the title of my story always occurs last (or nearly last).
Should I name it before? Is it that important?
Ronnie
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
I give WIP a working title from the beginning so I know what to call the file. Usually a better title comes to me along the way to completion, but sometimes not. Creating a good title is an art. Sometimes the title comes before the story. Ender's Game was written that way. OSC started with the phrase "End Game."
Posted by Calligrapher (Member # 2985) on :
I find that if I title a WIP too soon, the title limits what the story can be and hampers my imagination. So I either don't title it or use a working title that can be changed as the story grows and changes.
Posted by Shendülféa (Member # 2964) on :
For me, it depends. Sometimes I base a story off of a really great title that I've thought of. Other times, I start writing the story, come up with a temporary title and change it later. I'd say it's really not all that imperative to have one right away.
Posted by Leigh (Member # 2901) on :
I always think of the title before I write. It's just weird, I could be sitting down staring into space and suddenly an idea could creep into my mind instantly. One of my latest ones was "Tower of Shadows", I'm not sure if that has been done before but if it has been I will be more than glad to change it.
The whole story seemed to flow with from the title as well for me. SO I began to write it and soon had a 60000 novel written in under 2 weeks.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I used to have this habit of thumbing through books, pointing my finger at a page, and picking out an interesting turn of phrase as a possible title---and then wrote the story. It produced some interesting results and a lot of bad stories too. (Also I've been haunted by some of the titles for, on and off, twenty-five years, trying to fit stories to them, and failing.)
I don't do this as much anymore...but I still have a lot of the lists of titles I made, and still occasionally fit one to some story I'm working on. And my books are all around in case I want to generate some new titles...
Posted by JmariC (Member # 2698) on :
Sometimes I know what I want to name a flash or short story before I've written one word.
In regards to novels, I haven't had one yet that had a name first. I have a couple in various stages of disrepair, and each one has a temporary name that mostly reflects the idea/setting/main (current) POV character, pretty much whatever was the primary inspiration. Not one name is set in stone. Titling can be easy or it can be hard, it's an individual thing. I advocate the advise, -Don't worry about names/titles until the answer comes to you, and even then, be open to change-
If the novel is sold, the publisher may request or even suggest a different title.
Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :
I had a name for my WIP when I started it, but that name has become totally inappropriate now. At this point, the overall work is untitled, as are volumes 1 and 2. Volume 3, however, has a title which was inspired directly from a conversation that occurs between two characters in volume 1. At the time, it was so blatantly obvious that I needed to use that title for volume 3 that I immediately wrote it in at all the appropriate places.
On the other hand, my ideas file has several ideas that were inspired by spur-of-the-moment titles. Also, there are a few items in that file that are JUST titles, because I thought they sounded cool, and they suggested possible stories, though I hadn't thought of one yet.
Posted by Totty472 (Member # 2869) on :
Like a few other bods, i have a working title which may or may not be the end one. It's the same with character names, if i feel stuck i just give them a number, so that i don't lose the flow by getting hung up on a name.
Posted by Silver3 (Member # 2174) on :
I'll second a lot of people here. I have a codeword so I know how to name my files, and that's about it. I do insist on having everyone of my character names before I start, though, because otherwise I'm stuck on visualizing them.
Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :
Sometimes I start with characters before they have names, because I don't want to wait just because I can't find the perfect name. In that case, I either give them asterisks or name them (temporarily) after an archetypal character of similar nature. For a long time, my WIP had a temporary 'Obi-Wan' until the character grew enough that he didn't resemble everyone's favorite jedi anymore, and I thought of a name for him.
Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :
Sometimes the title inspires the story. Sometimes the story inspires the title. Sometimes the title is just tacked on because I have to call it something.
Posted by Silver3 (Member # 2174) on :
