Ever Start With the Title?

[Stuart Dren]

Some story names are hard to think up, while others just fit. Sometimes they come to us near the beginning, or the middle, or long after the end while a working title, or codename / project number gives us something to refer to in the meantime. What about when it's the first component, sometimes serving as a testament to the tonal or thematic spark?

I've written two short stories where I started with the story's name and worked from there. I've also done it with one novella, and surprisingly a few poems which I don't even normally write. Never with a novel, though.

What about you all? Have you ever started a project with just its title as the leaping-off point?

 

[ps102]

I give all of my projects a code name and never a final name from the get-go. This is because at the start, very early on, or even late into something like the fourth draft, I just don't have a "full" understanding or grasp on everything. There are still plot holes, inconsistencies, or that one "something" that I can feel is missing. It doesn't make sense to title something I don't understand. But a name is a necessity so I just pick whatever sounds cooler. It isn't like anyone will know.

Microsoft did the same with Windows. They had internal code names for their projects and then picked proper names for public release. Windows 95 was internally known as Windows Chicago! I think I actually got inspiration for this practice from them.

That said, on the rare occasion where I do have a full picture of the story from the get-go, the code name turns into the proper name. But that generally doesn't happen due to my discovery writer nature.

 

[hirundine]

I still don't have a title for my WIP and I've been working on it since about 2018.

I do sometimes start with a title when writing songs though, if you count those. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes the song works but the title doesn't. It's weird how it all works out.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Hmmm..... I want to say "No. Never" but I think it depends on how you define "start", in which case the answer might be "all the time."

I am a very utilitarian/direct writer. I am not prose heavy, I don't write poetry or use flowery language often. Not saying colorful language is bad, just it isn't my natural inclination when writing.

And I say that to say, my titles are pretty straightforward. If the story is about a demon lawyer, the title might be "Demon Lawyer."

But it never officially starts there. It would start with a basic idea of "hey it would be cool to write a story about a demon lawyer" when I start outlining and saving files to my computer, I'll save the file as "Demon Lawyer" for simplicity and to remind me what the topic is. And unless I come up with a more interesting name, that becomes the working title.

And that builds "working title bias", so unless a really inspiring name comes to me, The working title becomes the official title which just happens to be the basic idea that sparked the story.

in short, I often start with an idea and the idea becomes the title, but I never "start with a title."

 

[Qvortable]

"Jyhad: a love letter between two bloodhunts" or "Night and day, inside the sun" or the one I wrote when Midwest emo was radio staple "When I lost liberated older women because apocalyse nary kiss still" needless to say the result is indeed vary in both quality and fun factors.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

I often go from the title when it comes to short stories. Novel length and longer, I tend to be more like ps102 with the placeholders until one comes to me. I have a giant dry erase board in my home office with all the projects I've got in various stages, and last count was 32, with about twelve of them being just ideas, and the rest are either written with edits ahead, or I know what I'm doing with them (series books and so on).

tldr: yes, often