November 11th, 2009 / 1:19 pm
Snippets

How do the titles of your works happen to you?

114 Comments

  1. Matthew Simmons

      I wish I knew. Usually I come up with a bunch and then throw them all away and just use a single word.

  2. Matthew Simmons

      I wish I knew. Usually I come up with a bunch and then throw them all away and just use a single word.

  3. D.P.S.

      Jesus tells me.

  4. D.P.S.

      Jesus tells me.

  5. Nathan Tyree

      It almost seems random. Sometimes a phrase from the thing will be the title. Sometimes the title will be a part of the thing. They just seem to be there. I don’t know how it happens

  6. Nathan Tyree

      It almost seems random. Sometimes a phrase from the thing will be the title. Sometimes the title will be a part of the thing. They just seem to be there. I don’t know how it happens

  7. james yeh

      gradually and then suddenly

  8. james yeh

      gradually and then suddenly

  9. Charles

      sometimes a title sparks a story

  10. Charles

      sometimes a title sparks a story

  11. thomas p levy

      i find titles difficult because I often feel that they try to explain or summarize what you are about to read. I think the best titles act as if they were part of the story or poem, rather than a description of it. This is true, at least, of poetry.

      Maybe this is true of fiction and other forms. I don’t write too much fiction so I don’t know if I can comment on that.

      recently i’ve been finding titles and then writing from the found title

      then after i’ve put the content of the piece together, I look back at the original found title and edit it a little, for brevity or clarity or something

  12. thomas p levy

      i find titles difficult because I often feel that they try to explain or summarize what you are about to read. I think the best titles act as if they were part of the story or poem, rather than a description of it. This is true, at least, of poetry.

      Maybe this is true of fiction and other forms. I don’t write too much fiction so I don’t know if I can comment on that.

      recently i’ve been finding titles and then writing from the found title

      then after i’ve put the content of the piece together, I look back at the original found title and edit it a little, for brevity or clarity or something

  13. Meredith

      I name it with something totally temporary that has the spirit of something I might actually want to call it down the line when the work is less nebulous/shitty, and then it just somehow never gets changed. Would not recommend my methodology.

  14. Meredith

      I name it with something totally temporary that has the spirit of something I might actually want to call it down the line when the work is less nebulous/shitty, and then it just somehow never gets changed. Would not recommend my methodology.

  15. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      Works? Works?

      You have a problem with “working” as a substitute for “writing” but apparently no problem with “your works” as a subtitute for “your stuff” or “your writing” . . .

      “Works” works as a noun in terms of “collected works,” but only for the collected works of Conrad or Wikie Collins — I don’t think “works” works well for the collected “works” of 20th century writers.

      “Works” as a verb has never worked for me in terms of talking about how someone’s stuff or writing “works.”

      However, I do think that the word “works” works in terms of the maximalist “the works,” as in “gimme the works” — this variety of “works” especially works in an erotic context.

  16. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      Works? Works?

      You have a problem with “working” as a substitute for “writing” but apparently no problem with “your works” as a subtitute for “your stuff” or “your writing” . . .

      “Works” works as a noun in terms of “collected works,” but only for the collected works of Conrad or Wikie Collins — I don’t think “works” works well for the collected “works” of 20th century writers.

      “Works” as a verb has never worked for me in terms of talking about how someone’s stuff or writing “works.”

      However, I do think that the word “works” works in terms of the maximalist “the works,” as in “gimme the works” — this variety of “works” especially works in an erotic context.

  17. Blake Butler

      i was talking about shooting up, bro, i dont know what all these dudes are talking about

  18. Blake Butler

      i was talking about shooting up, bro, i dont know what all these dudes are talking about

  19. Ken Baumann

      weirdly and without warning

  20. Ken Baumann

      weirdly and without warning

  21. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhh haaaaa
      overdo it and have a fit
      ahhhh haaaaa
      love you so much, it makes me sick
      ahhhhh haaaa
      come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhhh haaaa

      beat me outta me, (beat it, beat it) (x8)

      Come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhh haaaa
      over do it, and have a fit
      ahhhh haaaa
      come on over, and shoot the shit
      ahhhh haaaa
      Love you so much, it makes me sick
      ahhhh haaaa

      beat me outta me, (beat it, beat it)(x8)
      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAHH

      She keeps it pumpin’ straight to my heart (x8)

  22. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhh haaaaa
      overdo it and have a fit
      ahhhh haaaaa
      love you so much, it makes me sick
      ahhhhh haaaa
      come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhhh haaaa

      beat me outta me, (beat it, beat it) (x8)

      Come on over, and do the twist
      ahhhh haaaa
      over do it, and have a fit
      ahhhh haaaa
      come on over, and shoot the shit
      ahhhh haaaa
      Love you so much, it makes me sick
      ahhhh haaaa

      beat me outta me, (beat it, beat it)(x8)
      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAHH

      She keeps it pumpin’ straight to my heart (x8)

  23. Blake Butler

      that reminds me of turbo graf x 16 and sitting in my room with the door closed

  24. Blake Butler

      i miss when music did that to me

  25. Blake Butler

      that reminds me of turbo graf x 16 and sitting in my room with the door closed

  26. Blake Butler

      i miss when music did that to me

  27. Kyle Minor

      Special language from within the story, the King James Version, the taunts of small children, Shakespeare, place names, anger, Fleetwood Mac songs (an editor complained), college football bowl games, character names, hospital talk, quotations from my mother, descriptions of physical objects, emotions, Broadway musicals, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, John Madden color commentary, Lenny Bruce jokes, cliches, cliches inverted, cliches ironicized, cliches used unironically, combinations of letters and numbers, years and other dates, puns, synecdoche, the mimetic fallacy and the intentional fallacy and other fallacies, newspaper clippings, New Yorker articles, anything by Lawrence Weschler or Wislawa Szymborska or Frank Stanford, overheard conversation near the railroad tracks, transcripts from murder trials, 19th century advertisements found in Lexis Nexis searches, outdated jargon, the Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, famous plagiarists, trucker talk, cop talk, astronomer talk, sideways syntax, gerunding nouns, nouning verbs, anything with the words Sweet, Sour, Syrup, or Syringe, diagrams of dental procedures, anything with D-11 Root Extractors, anything flapper, flipper, flamer, or phalangical, the Southern Baptist Hymnal, issues of the Gospel Trumpet from 1921-1923, father-in-lawly utterances, Latin, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hungarian, slurs of all varieties, and any variety of harsh or hateful speech, memos from secretaries, misheard Michael Stipe lyrics, distillations of ideas stolen from Elliott Smith or the band Smog (such as paraphrases of “The kind of memories / That turn your bones to glass”), varieties of grass, varieties of dirt, bodies of water, land masses of all kinds, cheap and easy deployments of metaphors such as the Grand Canyon as a vast sunken emptiness, diseases, tombstone inscriptions, archaeological terminologies, presidential pardons, law school entrance examination questions, the words of cuckolded lovers, descriptions of the violent vengeances of cuckolded lovers, Anglicized Yiddishisms stolen from Isaac Bashevis Singer.

  28. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      i found the old insecticide cdr in the trunk of my car this sunday and lost my goosebumped shit driving into the sunset, windows down, volume way up, 80 MPH

  29. Kyle Minor

      Special language from within the story, the King James Version, the taunts of small children, Shakespeare, place names, anger, Fleetwood Mac songs (an editor complained), college football bowl games, character names, hospital talk, quotations from my mother, descriptions of physical objects, emotions, Broadway musicals, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, John Madden color commentary, Lenny Bruce jokes, cliches, cliches inverted, cliches ironicized, cliches used unironically, combinations of letters and numbers, years and other dates, puns, synecdoche, the mimetic fallacy and the intentional fallacy and other fallacies, newspaper clippings, New Yorker articles, anything by Lawrence Weschler or Wislawa Szymborska or Frank Stanford, overheard conversation near the railroad tracks, transcripts from murder trials, 19th century advertisements found in Lexis Nexis searches, outdated jargon, the Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, famous plagiarists, trucker talk, cop talk, astronomer talk, sideways syntax, gerunding nouns, nouning verbs, anything with the words Sweet, Sour, Syrup, or Syringe, diagrams of dental procedures, anything with D-11 Root Extractors, anything flapper, flipper, flamer, or phalangical, the Southern Baptist Hymnal, issues of the Gospel Trumpet from 1921-1923, father-in-lawly utterances, Latin, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hungarian, slurs of all varieties, and any variety of harsh or hateful speech, memos from secretaries, misheard Michael Stipe lyrics, distillations of ideas stolen from Elliott Smith or the band Smog (such as paraphrases of “The kind of memories / That turn your bones to glass”), varieties of grass, varieties of dirt, bodies of water, land masses of all kinds, cheap and easy deployments of metaphors such as the Grand Canyon as a vast sunken emptiness, diseases, tombstone inscriptions, archaeological terminologies, presidential pardons, law school entrance examination questions, the words of cuckolded lovers, descriptions of the violent vengeances of cuckolded lovers, Anglicized Yiddishisms stolen from Isaac Bashevis Singer.

  30. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      i found the old insecticide cdr in the trunk of my car this sunday and lost my goosebumped shit driving into the sunset, windows down, volume way up, 80 MPH

  31. drew kalbach

      i type random phrases into google and use the third suggestion

  32. drew kalbach

      i type random phrases into google and use the third suggestion

  33. mark leidner

      almost always start w/the title. something basic and unflashy that contains the idea or the starting point. like ‘water poem’ or ‘horse poem’ or ‘death scenes’ etc – then after the poem is finished – if it ever ends – i relook back up at the title and think ‘is there anything better than this?’ like one time i wrote a poem called ‘poem not about your hair’ that spawned a poem i really liked, then at the end after looking at the poem i was like ‘true, this is a poem not about their hair, but it’s even more of a poem not about their eyes’ so i renamed it ‘poem not about your eyes’ – like that almost always – but prob half the time no change from the original shit

  34. mark leidner

      almost always start w/the title. something basic and unflashy that contains the idea or the starting point. like ‘water poem’ or ‘horse poem’ or ‘death scenes’ etc – then after the poem is finished – if it ever ends – i relook back up at the title and think ‘is there anything better than this?’ like one time i wrote a poem called ‘poem not about your hair’ that spawned a poem i really liked, then at the end after looking at the poem i was like ‘true, this is a poem not about their hair, but it’s even more of a poem not about their eyes’ so i renamed it ‘poem not about your eyes’ – like that almost always – but prob half the time no change from the original shit

  35. jereme

      titles matter?

  36. jereme

      titles matter?

  37. Blake Butler

      perfect

  38. Blake Butler

      perfect

  39. Matthew Simmons

      push run button.

  40. Matthew Simmons

      push run button.

  41. michael james

      yo momma

  42. michael james

      my moms dead

  43. michael james

      yo momma

  44. michael james

      my moms dead

  45. michael james

      oh shit man. well, i really get my titles yo pappy

  46. michael james

      oh shit man. well, i really get my titles yo pappy

  47. michael james

      he’s dead too.

  48. michael james

      ………. buy american?

  49. michael james

      he’s dead too.

  50. michael james

      ………. buy american?

  51. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      bonk

  52. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      bonk

  53. Josh

      I don’t really buy that they’re an “extension of the art.” I think of titles as a means for readers to easily identify a piece w/o having to say “the one about…” Usually, I try to be funny in some way.

  54. Josh

      I don’t really buy that they’re an “extension of the art.” I think of titles as a means for readers to easily identify a piece w/o having to say “the one about…” Usually, I try to be funny in some way.

  55. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      yum

  56. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      yum

  57. Matthew Simmons

      was thinking of this one, too.

  58. Matthew Simmons

      was thinking of this one, too.

  59. BAC

      bonk was the shit!

  60. BAC

      bonk was the shit!

  61. Nathan Tyree

      mine also. Will be one year on December 1. Not gonna be a good day

  62. Nathan Tyree

      mine also. Will be one year on December 1. Not gonna be a good day

  63. Nathan Tyree

      I normally like for the title to expand the work. Like, if The bath were named something else it might mean something else. I may be retarded, though

  64. Nathan Tyree

      I normally like for the title to expand the work. Like, if The bath were named something else it might mean something else. I may be retarded, though

  65. Matt Cozart

      Sometimes I think of them as a practical way to identify a piece (usually with stories and novels), but with poems I think the title is part of the poem–not an extension of it, but an actual part of it. A poem might even start like this:

      Having a Coke With You

      is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
      or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona

      [it goes on from there]

  66. Matt Cozart

      Sometimes I think of them as a practical way to identify a piece (usually with stories and novels), but with poems I think the title is part of the poem–not an extension of it, but an actual part of it. A poem might even start like this:

      Having a Coke With You

      is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
      or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona

      [it goes on from there]

  67. daniel bailey

      in my butt.

  68. daniel bailey

      in my butt.

  69. reynard

      my titles don’t happen to me, i happen to them. they’re like no, no. but i’m like, hey don’t worry, it’s not gonna hurt, stop squirming, you – you’re so cute – and once i’ve managed to hang and gut them and whatnot, i mount them on my wall.

  70. reynard

      my titles don’t happen to me, i happen to them. they’re like no, no. but i’m like, hey don’t worry, it’s not gonna hurt, stop squirming, you – you’re so cute – and once i’ve managed to hang and gut them and whatnot, i mount them on my wall.

  71. Mike Meginnis

      I usually just name it after the most significant object or action in the story, because I suck at titles. My novel right now came from its title, though. I wanted to write something called “Fat Man and Little Boy.” So I am.

  72. Mike Meginnis

      I usually just name it after the most significant object or action in the story, because I suck at titles. My novel right now came from its title, though. I wanted to write something called “Fat Man and Little Boy.” So I am.

  73. MoGa

      while driving to new cities

  74. MoGa

      while driving to new cities

  75. Ross Brighton

      Title comes last; and like most of my work through vague association or lack of it – or something from the process (ie there’s a piece that utilises heavily processed found text from the wikipedia article on a subspecies of peacocks that i’ve entitled “Birds”).

      Otherwise just something ridiculous that sounds cool (but that’s a lot of my writing anyway)

  76. Ross Brighton

      Title comes last; and like most of my work through vague association or lack of it – or something from the process (ie there’s a piece that utilises heavily processed found text from the wikipedia article on a subspecies of peacocks that i’ve entitled “Birds”).

      Otherwise just something ridiculous that sounds cool (but that’s a lot of my writing anyway)

  77. Ross Brighton

      na that’s not retarded – my reasoning below may well be though – but I prefer to think it’s just cool.
      re: the bath, I far prefer “a small, good thing”, both in terms of story and title.

      Best carver title (and my favorite story): “and I could see the smallest things”

  78. Ross Brighton

      na that’s not retarded – my reasoning below may well be though – but I prefer to think it’s just cool.
      re: the bath, I far prefer “a small, good thing”, both in terms of story and title.

      Best carver title (and my favorite story): “and I could see the smallest things”

  79. Nathan Tyree

      actually, yeah that is a better title. I dumbly just picked the first carver title I could think of. My point might have been better with What do You do in Alaska

  80. Nathan Tyree

      actually, yeah that is a better title. I dumbly just picked the first carver title I could think of. My point might have been better with What do You do in Alaska

  81. Aaron

      Whatever’s written on the bathroom stall at that moment, above the tp dispenser, that’s my title.

  82. Aaron

      Whatever’s written on the bathroom stall at that moment, above the tp dispenser, that’s my title.

  83. C.G.

      It’s nice on the rare occasion I start with a good title and go from that, because my titleless stories go through several shitty title-incarnations until I finally give up and settle for the title that annoys me the least.

  84. C.G.

      It’s nice on the rare occasion I start with a good title and go from that, because my titleless stories go through several shitty title-incarnations until I finally give up and settle for the title that annoys me the least.

  85. Tim Horvath

      I check the Big Slot and the Little Slot, and pray to God that at least one isn’t goatless.

  86. Tim Horvath

      I check the Big Slot and the Little Slot, and pray to God that at least one isn’t goatless.

  87. Amy McDaniel

      i have a hard time with titles. i used to date this dude who had an easy time with titles and he had way more titles than he had poems, like all these poemless titles, and it made him seem like a phony.

  88. Amy McDaniel

      i have a hard time with titles. i used to date this dude who had an easy time with titles and he had way more titles than he had poems, like all these poemless titles, and it made him seem like a phony.

  89. reynard

      i know you might want to be private about this but did his name rhyme with willy collins?

  90. reynard

      i know you might want to be private about this but did his name rhyme with willy collins?

  91. Amy McDaniel

      almost it did. almost exactly.

  92. Amy McDaniel

      almost it did. almost exactly.

  93. Nathan (Nate) Tyree

      This is like

  94. Nathan (Nate) Tyree

      This is like

  95. Ben Spivey

      Sometimes the story sparks the title.

  96. Ben Spivey

      Sometimes the story sparks the title.

  97. Natalie Lyalin

      For me the titles come first. They are the start of everything. They usually spin out from one word or two words. Often they are phrases from television or film dialogue. Often they are text from whatever it is I’m reading. I have a title from There Will Be Blood. I have a title from an interview with Bea Arthur. I now have a particularly troublesome title that I know I must change because it is weak, but I’m kind of fond of it. It’s “He Did Not Do My Dishes”

  98. Natalie Lyalin

      For me the titles come first. They are the start of everything. They usually spin out from one word or two words. Often they are phrases from television or film dialogue. Often they are text from whatever it is I’m reading. I have a title from There Will Be Blood. I have a title from an interview with Bea Arthur. I now have a particularly troublesome title that I know I must change because it is weak, but I’m kind of fond of it. It’s “He Did Not Do My Dishes”

  99. james yeh

      misheard lyrics are the mine from which literary gold is mined

  100. james yeh

      misheard lyrics are the mine from which literary gold is mined

  101. Angi

      Titles either magically pop into my head and seem absolutely perfect and I give them no further thought, or I can’t think of a damn thing and I read the story over and over on a quest for what will work as a title and finally end up picking something and then changing my mind and picking something else and never really feeling like it’s just right. It’s always one of those two extremes.

  102. Angi

      Titles either magically pop into my head and seem absolutely perfect and I give them no further thought, or I can’t think of a damn thing and I read the story over and over on a quest for what will work as a title and finally end up picking something and then changing my mind and picking something else and never really feeling like it’s just right. It’s always one of those two extremes.

  103. mimi

      Especially REM lyrics.

  104. mimi

      Especially REM lyrics.

  105. Landon

      nice ref.

      and same for me too

  106. Landon

      nice ref.

      and same for me too

  107. Slick Watson

      I steal my titles from other people. They say something mean to me and I use that as my title. Someone told me a few weeks ago to get my ass of my dick, and that’s the title of my latest 60 page run-on sentence: Get Yr Ass Out of Yr Dick. So keep them coming, fucknuts.

  108. Slick Watson

      I steal my titles from other people. They say something mean to me and I use that as my title. Someone told me a few weeks ago to get my ass of my dick, and that’s the title of my latest 60 page run-on sentence: Get Yr Ass Out of Yr Dick. So keep them coming, fucknuts.

  109. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      i thought “turbo graf x 16” had something to do with doing sixteen bong hits on a “turbo” graffix–brand smoking implement . . . i thought “bonk” and “push run button” were nirvana songs i didn’t know . . . now I know: i’m among the vid youth.

  110. +!O0o(o)o0O!+

      i thought “turbo graf x 16” had something to do with doing sixteen bong hits on a “turbo” graffix–brand smoking implement . . . i thought “bonk” and “push run button” were nirvana songs i didn’t know . . . now I know: i’m among the vid youth.

  111. Sean

      Pick a noun from your story, like page 3.

      “Carrots”

      “The Red Shoe.”

      “The Road.”

      Works every time.

  112. Sean

      Pick a noun from your story, like page 3.

      “Carrots”

      “The Red Shoe.”

      “The Road.”

      Works every time.

  113. Aaron

      The Nachos ;)

  114. Aaron

      The Nachos ;)