What’s in a title?

Tags

book, characters, gremlins, inspire, Janet Evanovich, one for the money, secret, Slice of life, Stephanie Plum, titles, writing

Slice 62 of 365

Part of what I like about writing the blog is coming up with catchy titles. I’m not sure how good I’ve been so far this time around but there have been a few catchy ones I think.

A lot of times the first things I come up with are titles and/or character names and I write around them with no particular story in mind, it just comes out.

My first book started like that. I was reading Janet Evanovich at the time and was inspired by Stephanie Plum.

From that came Jimmy Vincent and Jersey Justice.

I loved the way they both sounded together. From that I just started writing my first book having no idea where it was going or what I was doing. That was in 2003. I’ve been writing on and off ever since, more off than on I guess. These slices are probably the most on I’ve been in recent history.

As much as story ideas gallop around my head so do titles and character names. I keep a list of character names that maybe I’ll use at some point. I don’t have a list of titles but I should start one. I should start a list of blog ideas too.

My two favorites title ideas that have been in my brain for a while are “Kisses in the Rain” and “Misogynistic Madness“.

The first one would probably be a love story, I have no clear idea on that one I just love the title. The second one I have actually started but haven’t worked on in ages. In short it’s a very angry man killing women but the hook is he wins and doesn’t get caught. I just thought it would be interesting for the bad guy to win and see what happens.

I also have “The 7th Realm” which at least has an idea behind it. Plus it’s a seven book series. Lofty idea that I barely have a couple of pages written for. Rejection is definitely keeping me at bay with this one.

I keep a list of good lines too, like “that’s like throwing water on a gremlin,” which I used in a short story recently. I hear and read a lot of good dialog that I note and adjust because I don’t want to steal somebody else’s work. Change a few words and you can change the whole text.

I think coming up with titles, names and even other small details can be more fun than anything else. Little things I put in that only I know about or inside jokes or maybe even secrets…

One of the things here is inspired by a secret.

A lot of character names I use are combinations of people I know, or I use character traits, looks, etc. of friends and family. So you should be careful or I might use you as a villian.

Art does imitate life.

Until tomorrow…