Coming up with titles

[Serena_Charlotte]

I have the most trouble coming up with titles to my stories. How do you come up with titles?

[Amagine]

Titles are sometimes the easiest thing for me to do in a story. Sometimes, I have the title before I have the plot of the story. Sometimes, I'll write a story with a certain title and then go back and change the title because the plot took an unexpected turn. In general, the titles can be the funniest part of writing

[Central]

Titles are also fairly difficult for me. If I have to make one, my brain farts and I come up with really bland ones. A story about a Viking raid becomes 'A Raid on Cornwall'. A story about Jesus fishing in a lake with a Nazi gets the title, 'The Fisherman'.

I recommend trying out as many titles as you can possibly come up with, maybe ask a friend to help. Then a get a third party to judge what would best suit the story.

[KS Crooks]

I usually have a few titles in mind for my story. I place them all on a cover page and start writing. As the story progresses I'm able to narrow down the title. Generally between 1/4 to halfway into the plot I have the title set.

[K-McD]

Ideally, you want something that accomplishes two goals:
1. It represents your story
2. It entices a potential reader to try out the books
The problem with the second one is that people vary. A certain word that will make one person pick up the book might completely turn other one off. Still, it should try to sound like the type of book that your target audience might like. If you're writing a sci-fi story about intergalactic war, then it probably shouldn't have a title that looks like it belongs on a romantic comedy.

Anyway, for actual title generation, what I'd recommend is looking at your story and identifying the prominent themes or symbols. For instance, if it's about mortality and it uses some type of flower as a metaphor for that, then something with a death or floral theme might work. You could try looking up some older poetry about the theme or the symbol to see if there are any catchy phrases that resonate well with the story.
Alternatively, if the story revolves around something important with a striking name, then that might also make a good title. For instance, the Hunger Games.

I usually tend to pick simple titles for my stories, and I try to make them work in more than one way. I make the important things into symbols to support the theme, or I pick something that works well with more than one theme. Sometimes that's not possible, but I do try.

[Rebeccaej]

One trick I've used is to use the smallest tangible object in the story as the title.

Sometimes it works--I have one short story called Nymphae Strawn, which is a shortened version of the botanical name of a flower that appears in the story.

Sometimes I need to work my way up--I rejected "Centipede Eggs," for my novel, and the working title for now is Sticks and Stones.

It doesn't always work, but it's a place to start.

[Sushan Ekanayake]

I just write the story first and later when I think about the plot, several titles come to my mind and I choose most suitable among them

[Monet_va]

Titles are tricky. It usually takes me ages to find the right title for my book. But after I've been working on a project for months, then the right title just comes to me one day. It's frustrating to not know the title of your book while writing it. But when I get that idea, it's usually a good one... so I let it come to me.

[ElizaPeaks]

The title of a story is as important as the first line of your book; it's the introduction! Now, depending on your target audience, the purpose of your title might change, so this is important to determine. Once you have your audience, you then need to determine what kind of first impression you want to give the readers. Furthermore, your title should also recall the reader to the theme of the story. For instance, a story may look like a romance upon first glance, but the ending of the novel reveals that it was really a coming of age novel. In this example, you wouldn't want your title to focus on the romance so much as it should focus on the protagonist and their development.

[DD129]

There are a lot of title generators online that can help you too. If you don't really know where to start, you can look through title generators by genre and see what words stick out to you. Most titles that are generated won't fit your story exactly, but I usually find interesting words here and there, which I then either use or find a synonym that matches my story better. If the title doesn't feel complete, repeat!

While it's not the best method, it's helped me in a lot of my 'tip-of-the-tongue' cases.

[Kate_But_Not_Kaitlyn]

I like to do plays on other languages so the novella I'm currently in the process of publishing is centered around a teenage resistance group setting up a black market solar power industry. With this the sun is a big symbol so I ended up calling it Sol, after the Spanish word for sun.

[Kate_But_Not_Kaitlyn]

Otherwise I name the story after something in the main character 's life. I as the author of a story on eugenics may call it a fertility clinic but my character may call it a factory. I then incorporate that into the title.

[Florence Nalianya]

Personally I think once you have the story, the tittle comes automatically.

[Inkroverts]

Usually the title summarises the protagonist or the situation or the environment of the story. If one of them is very unique, you can use it as a title.
At least that's what I see in most fiction book titles. And for some reason, a lot of books nowadays like to have the words "Girl" or "Game" in the title.

[Sarah Langley]

I feel like the title of my book is less and less accurate and am thinking of changing it, but I started this book 17 years ago and cannot think of another title that I like as much. Go figure.