Write Away

Ugh, yes, I'm terrible with titles, and generally title something long after I've written it. In fact, I was going through the "what do I call this damn thing" process last night. It's a necromancy story, so I just looked up "Necromancy quotes" on Google and found some from (of all things) Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" that are pretty spiffy.

When I write, story comes first, and then theme sort of peeks through. So what I do is finish the draft, figure out the theme, and then google for quotes based on the theme. Meantime, since I have to call the file something while I'm saving it, it gets a nickname such as "zombunnies," "angry bitter angel," or "glam Ben." Then when I've got the final, formatted draft, I call that file by the title.

I've never gotten feedback on my titles, although I've submitted three dozen stories hundreds of times. I'm certainly not married to my titles, and if an editor figured out a better one, I'd probably be all over it unless it was a title I adored. I don't have many of those.