• From: Red Deer, AB
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Topic: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

This is a thing that came up in the Alan Rickman Talks About Galaxy Thread, but I thought it could be a cool discussion.

So what makes a good title? A bad one? How do you pick a title? Does a good title even matter?

I'll pull Zarban's post to get things rolling, but I'm sure there's a lot of different opinions on this.

Zarban wrote:
Teague wrote:

Aaaaaaand "Out There" is a worse title. Thoughts?

Yeah, that's awful. The point of the title "Galaxy Quest" is that it's the title of the dumb sci fi TV show and so it's kind of a dumb title in exactly the same way as "Star Trek" is kind of a dumb title.

A good title, in my opinion, is one that is intriguing but doesn't make a lot of sense until you watch the movie/read the book and then it makes perfect sense.

The Pixar films run the gamut. Toy Story, Cars, and A Bug's Life are meaningless and could literally be about anything involving toys, cars, and bugs. Whereas Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille are peculiar until you see the movie and then seem like they could ONLY be stories about a company run by monsters, the search for a fish (or else a submarine captain), and a rat who wants to be a French chef.

EDIT: But if you do choose a simple title, it has to be the be-all and end-all of that thing. If you make a movie called The Godfather, it needs to be the last word on godfathers.

  Show
The main character needs to be a godfather in every sense, conventionally a gangster, literally a godfather to someone, figuratively a father to everyone, and even metaphorically god-like. If possible, his son even needs to die / sacrifice himself / be reborn after being away / take over for him.... AND ALL THAT HAPPENS.

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  • From: Bristol. Again.
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

If I can add a question, Do you guys come up with your titles first or last?

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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Faldor wrote:

If I can add a question, Do you guys come up with your titles first or last?

My titles almost always come last. My documents folder is filled with "Detective Movie Thing Script," and "Horror Idea" kind of titles. Often if a story has a strong central character it'll be "[Character Name] Script," that sort of thing. Very occasionally I come up with a concept and the perfect title for it all at the same time, but it's far from the norm, for me at least.

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  • From: Indiana, USA
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Faldor wrote:

If I can add a question, Do you guys come up with your titles first or last?

First.

And then I don't write the story.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

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  • From: Somewhere cold, Norway
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Faldor wrote:

If I can add a question, Do you guys come up with your titles first or last?

If I'm working on something that requires a title (whether it's some school paper or the novels I've been lazily working on for the last year)  I usually will have no idea what the title is when I start out. Finding the title for the thing comes as a result of me actually realizing what it is I'm writing and I know from experience that the end product might be substantially different from what I set out to create. So I normally will have written at least half of whatever I'm working on before any potential titles come to me. Normally it is some phrase, term or word from the actual work that stand out and that I feel is representative of the whole in some way that's both somewhat literal and suitably evocative.

C-Spin wrote:

My documents folder is filled with "Detective Movie Thing Script," and "Horror Idea" kind of titles.

I more and more find myself starting out with painfully honest titles like "Buffy ripoff" or "LOST ripoff".  tongue

Last edited by Hansen (2012-12-22 23:04:43)

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  • From: Red Deer, AB
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

C-Spin wrote:

My documents folder is filled with "Detective Movie Thing Script," and "Horror Idea" kind of titles. Often if a story has a strong central character it'll be "[Character Name] Script," that sort of thing. Very occasionally I come up with a concept and the perfect title for it all at the same time, but it's far from the norm, for me at least.

Heh, all the files for the thing I'm writing right now are all named as "Unnamed Miniseries".

But otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty much the same way.

The only thing I can really think of that I named fairly early on in the Process was Lily In The Wind. And that was mostly because I needed to have a name because our mentors told us we had to.

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  • Teague
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Sad Max was impossible to title.

I literally didn't have a name for it until I was about to render out the trailer and needed to have one. Batted ideas around with Jim and Cloe for a few minutes, and that's the one we all liked the most. Immediately after the trailer, I made the poster.

The leading contender before Sad Max was The Musical at the End of the Internet.


...

See? Ugh.

EDIT: I also liked A YouTube Account. But again. What the hell is that.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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  • Dave
  • Dave
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Zarban wrote:

First.

And then I don't write the story.

This.

However if I ever get around to writing it, Night of the Vented Spleen will be awe-inspiring.

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  • Phi
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Re: A Rose By Any Other Name - Choosing Titles

Dave wrote:
Zarban wrote:

First.

And then I don't write the story.

This.

However if I ever get around to writing it, Night of the Vented Spleen will be awe-inspiring.

How is naming the kid going? tongue

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