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Literally going insane over title selection

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laritybug View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote laritybug Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Literally going insane over title selection
    Posted: 23 Nov 2019 at 9:19pm
How do you choose a title? I’ve been through no less than six that I was SO SURE were the perfect ones, only to hate them shortly after. How do you pick one? Any tips on what the judges would like/expect?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jbilyen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Nov 2019 at 10:02pm
I know what you mean! I'm an English teacher, and I often tell my students that their essay titles should relate to their topics (duh). I tell them that an easy way to make sure of this is to use only words found in the essay itself. I think the same can be said for fiction writing. I like my titles to come from lines/phrases in the story.

I also tell my students to not sweat it too much. Whatever you do don't call it "Micro fiction round 2 story" :) 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ADave411 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Nov 2019 at 10:11pm
I searched for puns relating to my story's topic.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ksarge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Nov 2019 at 8:35am
I do that, too, along with searching for idioms.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jennifer.quail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Nov 2019 at 11:53am
I have been known to save the file with the name as a random noun in the story I happened to be looking at, and ended up keeping it. Book-length things I've been know to to swipe quotes from famous poems. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Paul Bee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Nov 2019 at 12:07pm
In a story this short, create a title that helps add clarity and also sounds cool as hell.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Saidinotherwords Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Nov 2019 at 2:37pm
I opted for a title that would prime the reader to the mindset of the target audience. "X and the Y" generally evokes YA fiction, so there's no expectation for a complicated psychological character study. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote angelagilbert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Nov 2019 at 2:43pm
I agree.  There have been a few times where the title just came to me and felt perfect.  This happened to be one of those times.  But more often than not, it's a super struggle.  I find titles to be either super easy or super difficult.  There is no in between
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JamesMarkMiller Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 2019 at 4:30pm
I just used the first thing that popped into my head after each story was done, it hadn't really occurred to me that the title might impact the judging.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BarbaraFL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 2019 at 8:39pm
I have to admit that I too used the absolute first title that popped into my head - and it shows, haha, I just had not a brain cell left at that point to come up with anything better! I kind of smirked as I chose it, because I knew I was making an iffy choice by using it. I mean, she did make an ill-fated choice. But it's not very clever as a title LOL
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