INTERACTIVE: 30 DAYS OF FAN FIC || DAY SEVENTEEN

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

DAY ONE - How did you get into fan fic?
DAY TWO - What fandoms have you written in?
DAY THREE - Favorite characters?
DAY FOUR - "Muse" character?
DAY FIVE - Pushy characters?
DAY SIX - Male or female characters?
DAY SEVEN - Fic affecting your view of a character?
DAY EIGHT - OCs
DAY NINE - Favorite Pairings
DAY TEN - Pairings and your comfort zone
DAY ELEVEN - Favorite Genres
DAY TWELVE - Adaptations
DAY THIRTEEN - Canon or Fanon
DAY FOURTEEN - Ratings
DAY FIFTEEN - Warnings
DAY SIXTEEN - Summaries

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?

We welcome your participation! There is no minimum or maximum requirements for your answers -- they can be as long or as short as you'd like. I will include my answer as a comment.

Comments

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Ah, titles! AKA How pretentious can I get in just four words? It's always a challenge! LOL! Yeah, I totally admit it. Some of my titles sound pretentious, which is a huge complaint amongst readers (in general -- not for me particularly).

For Ourselves Like We Were Yesterday, the very first review I got said something like this: I might have read your fic if the title weren't so pretentious! In my defense, in my author notes I fully explained the meaning of the title, where it came from, and why I chose it. So I explained my pretension! To no avail, alas. But really . . .

To this I say . . . if a person refuses to read a fic with a pairing (or, in this case, a threesome) that they might otherwise enjoy just because of the title of the fic? Fuck 'em. Don't read it then. If someone refuses to read my fic because of the title? I don't really care. Now if they're refusing to read my fic because they think I suck as an author? I care. And I want feedback as to why, so I can improve.

Are titles the bane of my existence? No. I love coming up with titles! It's challenging in a fun way, because you want to find a title that matches the content of the fic, but one that is perhaps a little bit segue, just to keep up a semblance of intrigue. As far as chaptered fic goes, yes, I do give each chapter its own title, the exception being Benefaction. Benefaction was originally a one-shot (a long one-shot at 70K), so when it was broken up into chapters for posting purposes, I wasn't really up to coming up with chapter titles.

Almost all my titles come from songs or poems.

[undrsomestairs.livejournal.com]

BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. I hate having to think of a title, 'cause I always feel like what I come up with is stupid and just hope it doesn't make people want to pass on my fic. I usually take them from song lyrics since I can't get creative with them on my own. And I haven't written chaptered fic in years, but when I did/if I did again, noooo. More titles=sad Ann.

[cheryl-tunt.livejournal.com]

(wow this is my first comment here after lurking for a long time)
omg I hate titles and tbh, I usually slap a song lyric/quote as the title if it fits. Right now I'm really into Joanna Newsom's music and Richard Siken's poetry, so more often than not, a line from her songs or his poems will be my title. But it often comes off as super-duper pretentious and like terrible! I cannot do titles worth a damn.

[meglw0228.livejournal.com]

Again, it's one of the worst to come up with! I'm lucky when I can find a common one word theme for most of my stories and just go with it... for the most part it takes me just as long to come up with a title as to write the story!

When I have written a chaptered fic, I've had a title for every chapter... no clue if I'll still do that since the last one I did that for was over three years ago!

[amt149.livejournal.com]

*is trying to catch up with responses*

Titles are very fun and important to me! I usually save titles for last; it's like dotting the eyes of a dragon (Chinese thing...?) I give every chapter a title, because it in itself is like a mini-summary. It can help build up anticipation for how the chapter will end, or what the climax of the fic will be. Besides, a catchy title is easier for Readers to remember ;)

[crazyparakiss.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I write my title first to remind myself where I am going with the fic. It says something about the content. Sometimes they are stupid, but I think it is one of the best parts of a story. What makes you reach for a book when you're in the bookstore? For me it's the title. (Then if I don't like the first paragraph I put the damn thing back).

[rebecca_selene]

Titles are evil. They're usually the last thing I come up with when writing a fic, and it's like pulling teeth to find one that doesn't sound stupid. The only one that was easy was Hit Me One Time, Hit Me Twice for a FernGully fic, but only because it's part of a song from the movie. If I wrote chaptered fic, I probably wouldn't do chapter titles without a theme of some sort.

[hpfangirl71.livejournal.com]

Ahh... the hardest part of writing a story... finding a title!! LOL
I hate coming up with titles and some of mine are so absolutely horrid but hey that's life, sometimes it sucks!!:D
As for chaptered fics, yes I usually do torture myself by giving them each an individual title!!

[curiouslyfic.livejournal.com]

It's hit or miss with me. Mostly they're difficult and I hate them and I cheap out and use song lyrics or whatever because they are the last thing I do.

Sometimes, though, they are a gift. I, Ferret and Sex Ed for Aurors only happened because I needed to read the fics that went with those titles. I, Ferret totally came from I, Robot, which is just bizarre considering the actual fic...Ditto The Pensieve Project. fear and loathing at the phoenix, An Inconvenient View, and Lie Back And Think of Starfleet all got slight reworkings of pop culture references--Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, An Inconvenient Truth, Lie Back And Think of England, respectively--with specific relevance to the fic.

I have no idea where Raindrops on roses and whiskers on Kneazles comes from, but tbh, it made me a little afraid of my brain.

...what is it about this meme that makes me so chatty? ugh, all my answers are novellas. :(