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30 days of fanfic meme, day 17
Jul. 12th, 2011 01:53 pmDay 17: Titles Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
Firstly, I kinda despise chaptered fic (with a few special exceptions)—besides which, I don't write long enough stories to justify breaking them up like that. The nearest I've done is my 'episodic' series, The Chronicles of Lancyn and Ser Chrisfer, but each piece is actually a separate story and therefore titled as such.
As for titles—they vary. Sometimes I get the title first, eg The Christmas Tree Conspiracy and Bouquet, and that tells me what kind of story I'm going to write. More usually, the title emerges as obvious while I'm writing the fic; sometimes these titles are fun (eg The Pussycat and the Porcupine), sometimes they're a bit more workmanlike (eg Prone; A Hogwarts Christmas; It Pays to Advertise). Sometimes I have to find a title once the fic is done, and oddly, this can lead to something prosaic or something good, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for it. If You Want To Fly was the trickiest title I can remember, I quite literally thought of it as I was posting the dragon challenge stories, and yet it is so patently obvious for that story, I can't think why it didn't come to me sooner.
So, titles. Who knows?!
Firstly, I kinda despise chaptered fic (with a few special exceptions)—besides which, I don't write long enough stories to justify breaking them up like that. The nearest I've done is my 'episodic' series, The Chronicles of Lancyn and Ser Chrisfer, but each piece is actually a separate story and therefore titled as such.
As for titles—they vary. Sometimes I get the title first, eg The Christmas Tree Conspiracy and Bouquet, and that tells me what kind of story I'm going to write. More usually, the title emerges as obvious while I'm writing the fic; sometimes these titles are fun (eg The Pussycat and the Porcupine), sometimes they're a bit more workmanlike (eg Prone; A Hogwarts Christmas; It Pays to Advertise). Sometimes I have to find a title once the fic is done, and oddly, this can lead to something prosaic or something good, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for it. If You Want To Fly was the trickiest title I can remember, I quite literally thought of it as I was posting the dragon challenge stories, and yet it is so patently obvious for that story, I can't think why it didn't come to me sooner.
So, titles. Who knows?!