Feature: What Do I Title This Effing Story?!

[chomiji]

The plot's worked out, you have the ending at last, your characters' voices are coming through clearly, and you feel quite positive about your latest piece of fanfiction/original fiction. There's only one problem.

You have not the slightest idea of what to call your work.

Comments

[chomiji]

Yes, Floyd made that point with regard to novels: he said it helped people to recommend the book if the title was short-ish but memorable.

That's an interesting viewpoint with regard to titles taken from other sources, such as literature or songs. How do you feel about other forms of writing in which the authors have done the same: for example: Tom Stoppard's famous play "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead," which takes its title from a line in "Hamlet"? Or in another medium, this drawing by artist Paul Kidby (shown here on a T shirt) of Nanny Ogg's cat, paired with a quotation from "Macbeth"?

Or, in a similar scenario, how about an Age of Sail movie (something along the lines of "Master and Commander") in which the background music references a few bars of "Rule Britannia" or an old sea-song like "Leaving Liverpool" at an opportune moment?

My point is that when such referential material is chosen thoughtfully, it brings along a host of associations that can enhance the reader's or viewer's perception of the story. Although not every writer (or artist, or film maker) makes intelligent choices (and the audience doesn't always have the background to appreciate it when s/he does), I've seen it work again and again. One of my favorite Saiyuki fanfics, "Home from the Sea, Home from the Hill," references a Housman poem in a way that really cut to my heart the first time I encountered the story. Of course, it only worked that well because I recognized the reference (which was paraphrased, in this case).

Finally, it's rather interesting that the issue of "not creative enough to come up with your own [whatever]" is coming up here, in a venue in which many of the readers are working on derivative or transformational works: specifically, fanfiction. I do believe that just as one can be creative in using another creator's character and plot elements in a piece of fanfiction, one can be creative in selecting and using a few words of another's writing as the title of a work. And like anything else, it can be done well or it can be done badly.

[daegaer]

I'd agree that titles that quote other works can bring a host of resonances to the reader (if they know the work quoted - which is one reason that well-known works are usually the source. It's only part of the reason, I think,and another part is that stories, poems, plays, music are all in conversation with other, riffing off each other and reflecting each other back. For fanfic authors to use that method of titles is simply to be part of that conversation (which of course fanfic has always been part of). The words used are either so familiar at the time the work is written that no attribution is needed, or if possibly unfamiliar, are attributed, because part of the point is that readers/listeners know what's being referred to. It's not plagiarism, it's talking to the neighbours.