November 11th, 2009 / 1:19 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
How do the titles of your works happen to you?
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Meta
I wish I knew. Usually I come up with a bunch and then throw them all away and just use a single word.
I wish I knew. Usually I come up with a bunch and then throw them all away and just use a single word.
Jesus tells me.
Jesus tells me.
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
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
gradually and then suddenly
gradually and then suddenly
sometimes a title sparks a story
sometimes a title sparks a story
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
i was talking about shooting up, bro, i dont know what all these dudes are talking about
i was talking about shooting up, bro, i dont know what all these dudes are talking about
weirdly and without warning
weirdly and without warning
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)
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)
that reminds me of turbo graf x 16 and sitting in my room with the door closed
i miss when music did that to me
that reminds me of turbo graf x 16 and sitting in my room with the door closed
i miss when music did that to me
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.
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
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.
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
i type random phrases into google and use the third suggestion
i type random phrases into google and use the third suggestion
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
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
titles matter?
titles matter?
perfect
perfect
push run button.
push run button.
yo momma
my moms dead
yo momma
my moms dead
oh shit man. well, i really get my titles yo pappy
oh shit man. well, i really get my titles yo pappy
he’s dead too.
………. buy american?
he’s dead too.
………. buy american?
bonk
bonk
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.
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.
yum
yum
was thinking of this one, too.
was thinking of this one, too.
bonk was the shit!
bonk was the shit!
mine also. Will be one year on December 1. Not gonna be a good day
mine also. Will be one year on December 1. Not gonna be a good day
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
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
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]
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]
in my butt.
in my butt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
while driving to new cities
while driving to new cities
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)
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)
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”
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”
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
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
Whatever’s written on the bathroom stall at that moment, above the tp dispenser, that’s my title.
Whatever’s written on the bathroom stall at that moment, above the tp dispenser, that’s my title.
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.
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.
I check the Big Slot and the Little Slot, and pray to God that at least one isn’t goatless.
I check the Big Slot and the Little Slot, and pray to God that at least one isn’t goatless.
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.
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.
i know you might want to be private about this but did his name rhyme with willy collins?
i know you might want to be private about this but did his name rhyme with willy collins?
almost it did. almost exactly.
almost it did. almost exactly.
This is like
This is like
Sometimes the story sparks the title.
Sometimes the story sparks the title.
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”
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”
misheard lyrics are the mine from which literary gold is mined
misheard lyrics are the mine from which literary gold is mined
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.
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.
Especially REM lyrics.
Especially REM lyrics.
nice ref.
and same for me too
nice ref.
and same for me too
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pick a noun from your story, like page 3.
“Carrots”
“The Red Shoe.”
“The Road.”
Works every time.
Pick a noun from your story, like page 3.
“Carrots”
“The Red Shoe.”
“The Road.”
Works every time.
The Nachos ;)
The Nachos ;)