A Doorway to Temptation

A while ago I wrote a piece called Fishing for Xeroverse: 101. I'd been wandering through town and, on the same street that has inspired two other pieces, I thought about how often we are tempted. I don't mean tempted to do bad things, I'm not talking about Lucifer perched on our shoulder, whispering.

I just mean tempted in little ways. By a good shop window, a scent or a poster. People tempting people. I imagined demons sat on rooftops fishing for mortals in the same fashion. But I decided that Fishing was a dull title. Who would go look at a piece called that? Only maybe someone with an interest in the sport, and I didn't think they were the likeliest to enjoy my story...

So it became Lure. A more tempting title, no? ;) And it keeps the fishing reference, which I like.

101 has been an interesting experience. (continues to be). Sometimes I think of titles and write to them, titles I think will be interesting. I have the title Doom sitting unwritten on file. Other pieces, like the most recent, Doors, are written without a title.

Doors is one of the pieces I'm most proud of. And, having written it, it couldn't have been called anything else. Sometimes I feel able to play around with a title, a good title is just good, a great title begins the storytelling before the story has even begun. But sometimes when you strike on the right title you just know it.

Clever title for a post about titles

How important is a title?

The title. You only get one. It's the first thing that most people see. It can draw people in, it can put them off. I still think the first line is the most important of any piece of writing, but the title can come close.

I was thinking about this a lot with Brumathick. In my last round of editing on the piece I thought of many subtitles that might catch the eye, draw more people to the story. Brumathick: Between the Stars. Trapped Between Stars. Lost in Space... I'm kidding with that one, but you get the point.

In the end, Brumathick was just the right title in my mind. I couldn't bring myself to alter the title for the sake of attracting more readers. Pretentious maybe, given that few enough people read my work as is, and I really would like to reach a larger audience, but ultimately, I have to go with what I feel is right for the piece.

Doctor Crow is another name. It does a little more than Brumathick, the words are real words and have some resonance, they even vibrate a little against each other, suggest a little of the strangeness that the piece holds. But it doesn't do as much as it might.

Sometimes I try and set up tension in the title. This Mundane Slavery or This Bright Lie, for example, are both hooks. How can you apply the adjective mundane to slavery, or how can a lie be bright?

This Old Man, Once Mighty tells you where you're going. It already sets up a history for the story. It holds a lot of resonance.

(I talk about resonance a lot, because it's important, especially when you have so few words. You need to be aware of how things resonant inside people's memories, in their heads, and you need to know how to work with that, how to use that.)


Edit: And then, literally the next day, a column on titles goes up on flashfictiononline.com... which has a lot of what I was trying to say and a good comment on titling to genre to.