Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

Where does the title of your book come from?

Published or work in progress, does your title have specific meaning?

Is it a line from the text or a phrase that represents it?

Or just something thats special to you?

The Scarlet Riboon

It refers to the red ribbon my character Scarlet wears constantly around her arm as an accessory. :3

Arthur

It's the name of the main character. Much like...Harry Potter? =)

the title of my work in progress was almost accidental. it was originally called simply RUN, but I decided to change it. there's a shady organization in there called The Agora. since the book takes place mostly outdoors, The Agora Files seemed mighty clever to me

Without revealing too much of the story—because you learn it only in the sequel— the name of the series (The Legacy) is actually the reason why things happen to my protagonist: his crash, what he will become etc. It's his legacy, passed down to the first male of each generation for the last 20,000 years. The snag is that the family is not aware of it.

Fate (book one): Since he doesn't know about the legacy, what else could explain what happened? Blame it all on fate!
It also ends with the word as it is mentioned in the last paragraph of the epilogue.

Destiny (book two): Mainly chosen for the theme, it's also the name of a new character introduced in the sequel: an important one who has a lot to do with the actual legacy.

@Josh So it has nothing to do with the color! (Or is it also red?)

@Christopher You can't really go wrong with the character's name. No one can say it's irrelevant!

@Adam I had to check what agora meant. I've learned a new word! Thanks! (It is clever indeed.) :)

@all of you: I love your titles, all of them! They seem fit. Granted I haven't read the stories but still, I can understand their purpose.

What about you Bisky?

perhaps I should have mentioned that it sounds like agoraphiles, which would be the opposite of agoraphobia, fear of open spaces

Mine came from a dream that suited the novel I was writing. We were having a baby and I dreamed of a little girl named Innocence. We had a boy so I thought innocence is lost to me. So I called my novel "Innocence Lost"

I know of agoraphobia but not of agoraphiles so I've searched on Google but the only thing I can find that is close to agoraphile(s) is 'What is Agoraphilia: Agarophilia refers to sexual urges, preferences or fantasies involving sex in public places.' It's public places alright...but is it what you mean?

Still, I like the title no matter what :)

@JD I like that :)

I wish you good luck to have a baby girl next time.

@Chris - I thought of renaming my previous story "Light" after the main character: Josue (Joshua in Spanish) Light. :3

@Adam - Is there Greek involvement in your story?

@G.G. - Your titles are very, very pithy descriptions of your novels' content. :3 Yes, the ribbon is red. I learned the word "scarlet" from the scarlet thread that's around the voodoo-ish dolls' necks in the anime Hell Girl. x3

@JD - I have to say that dreams have never affect my writing--at least consciously. That's an interesting way you came up with a story. :3 You'll have to include it in an author afterward or something in your story.

Titles can be very difficult for me. I'm rarely satisfied with what I come up with. But for our new book, I'm really happy:

The Long Way

There's a double meaning there. It refers to the very long journey my characters make from war-torn China to the frontiers of the American west; and "long" is also the Chinese word for dragon, and a Chinese dragon is central to the plot.

I feel like I'm learning lots of inside secrets to your writing here >:3 *Bisky Bond*

A Dance With Fury is quoted from in the dialogue of the main character somewhere in the middle :3

Vermillion is named after a slipknot song that was playing on the TV during a traumatic event in my teens. But I've decided to change the book and add atleast one prequel. I'm intending to name them all shades of red :]

@Josh and Bisky

I see red obsessions in both of you. :p (Fans of The Mentalist TV show? hehe)

Such interesting titles and explanations!

The Baker's Man is a simple title because the main character is a baker, and the unusual way the man arrives is what helps drive the novel.

I called mine Uncle Speed and the Tuner Punks for a long time while I was writing it. The story centered around an antique Cord motorcar at the time. When I started thinking about the cover, I realized I had a very nice poster that I had made in Photoshop of an Auburn Boattail Speedster. I thought it would make a great cover so I changed the references in the text from Cord to Speedster and changed the title of the book as well. Serendipity.

@G.G. I don't think an agoraphile is a real thing, at least from what I've seen...although the sexual urge deal is intriguing... the suffix -phile just refers to a fondness of a certain thing, so, public/open spaces in this situation

@Josh not so much for a Greek influence. it's set in The States. Just thought that The Agora was a fun name for a black market organization. Then it also ended up playing in well to the title as well.

My book was untitled for a long time and then was known as 'Outlander' for a few months before I had almost finished writing the novel and thus; 'The Path To Redemption' came into being. It does encompass the whole novel in its own little way! The main character and his supporting cast of characters all go on their various journeys throughout the book with very different outcomes.

Most of the time, I come up with the title first and have no clue what it means. I find out when I actually write the story.

MISSING TIME is a reference to UFO abductions, (or the earlier Satanic abductions that pre-date the concept of UFOs), people report "missing time" i.e. they don't know where they were for X amount of time.

TIME SPENT refers to the concept within the story that time is falling apart, and it's power to keep out creatures of incalculable power and evil is finally spent.

Nicole - exact opposite of me - great, my first message on this site and that happens! lol

Nicole wrote: "Most of the time, I come up with the title first and have no clue what it means. I find out when I actually write the story."

I do that a lot too, Nicole!

I am terrible with titles, always have been. Doesn't matter if it's a novel or a simple blog post... my titles always SUCK. First published novel is titled "Kira's Tale"... not a whole lot of mystery or deep meaning there. Sadly the one I'm about to work on for NaNo is simply called "Vivian's Journey". Since it's a series it might work, but I really need to get better at titles.

Reading these posts brings me to amazon and their reviews. I hate posting reviews there because they ask for a title. As we don't have enough problems finding a title for our books already... humph!

I always stupidly stare at the page for long minutes... (And I just feel like closing the browser and say, "the hell with it!"

Dawn - no worries, I am great at titles....the blogs, articles, essays, poems or even novel may suck....but the titles..am a genius! lol

The title of my current book has meaning and actually refers separate events and character profiles.

The title for my current work in progress refers to the origins of the main protagonists in the underlying plot.

Normally I use a phrase from the work itself: Into The Dreaming, Forever After, etc. all have to do with main story points or snippets of dialogue.

Yikes, well if I ever sell 50,000 copies there is no way in hell anyone will be able to convince me to change my title... NO WAY!
What could they say that weighed enough for you to do it?

Series Title: The Death of Ink

A work-in-progress

I chose the title because I was reading an article on how the ebooks was replacing hard/soft cover books. It didn't use the phrase 'the death of ink' but something close to it.
My book is set during the time the different ereaders was a craze, so I think it fits.
Also the book is about a dead girl who helps a boy write, so I think it fits in that way as well.

@Nicole Yeah, a lot times I do that with character names and fictional towns as well. Usually I just put a generic term that describes the name. For instance, in one of my stories I called the town Shit-town because it was literally a crap town. And then I just kept it. Ha

@Josh Light sounds like it would've been a good name. Is that going to be the name of the next one?

The title of my first book, The Erotic Musings of an Ordinary Girl, kind of came from my own life. I've always thought of myself as just an ordinary girl and my facebook page and blog are called Musings of an Ordinary Girl...the erotic bit was added as it's an erotic romance. Pretty plain and simple I guess, just like me.

I usually don't have trouble making names and slogans for things. I figured out what I wanted to call Vermillion's prequel and it makes me squeal alittle inside whenever I say it :D

@Anita, I almost called it just musings in my review :p My finger hovered over the E for so long.

I'm such a pissing prude :p

No, I'm just a big naughty.

@Anita, ;] I love it.

@Briar It must have been awesome to get so much feedback :3

Yes but by changing the name of your book you lost all your reviews/feedback. Was it worth it?

Edit: What I mean is that usually a lot of sales are generated from people who loved your book and recommend it to friends etc. By changing your title, you might have lost all that and it's not a mere thing if we're talking 50 000 copies sold.

Healer's Touch

It's not the only one. In my book's case it comes from my main character who heals by transferring life through her touch. Therefore, her touch heals & hurts. So, it's sort of ironic.
Then I have Warrior's Touch & "Magician's Touch" still to come... Unless we change our minds. I dunno... does it sound more touchy-feely than ironic?

Briar wrote: "The first 50,000 copies of my novel ..."

Far out. Congrats.

Mine came from one a dead write never used but talked about for years. No, I'm not going.

My book is called "Chasing the Wild Sparks." The main character's boyfriend's last name is Wilder and the "Sparks" comes from something in the second book of the series.

War Song and Lust and the Widow.
I am currently writing them.
War Song came from some movie where the warriors had a battle cry and I felt like the battle cry was their war song and that's how it happened

The Battle for Brisingamen ... my first book - comes from Freya's necklace in Norse Mythology.

The Glade ... my 2nd book coming out soon - this book is based (fictionally) on The Forest of Dean in the UK, and this title just really suited the whole book. :)

1. The Mighty First series

2. Currently in production' just finished editing, moving to cover art.

3. Title refers to the 1st Marine Division

4. YA sci-fi war series featuring teens as the central characters

The Battle for Brisingamen... Love it already :3

@Mark that sounds rather epic right there.

Just began my NaNoWriMo Project, so I thought I'd include its title here:

THE WIZARD IN MY WINDOW
YA Adventure / Fantasy

Thanks Bisky :)
David: The Wizard in my Window ... now I love that!
Back to Bisky: Shades of Red, great! Those three words grab my imagination right off the bat.

I'm really enjoying this thread :)

I've actually decided what I'm going to do with those books :3 I'm sooo excited but I'm not probably going to release them until 2015. Unless of course A Dance With Fury gets super successful and then I can buy an editor and get them finished really quickly :D

My trilogy called Virtual Wars is just a description of how humanity resolved the problem of escalating warfare. The world was already ruined once due to war, and everyone united to never repeat that mistake. If they can't resolve their differences diplomatically then the two countries combat each other in a virtual reality video game "war" to decide the outcome. The subtitles for each book (Initialization, Running, and Crashing) are analogies between computer programs and what happens in each book.

Reminds me of RobotJox :3 I like it!

I hope they don't have to kill themselves if they die in the virtual war. :P

@ Brian - great idea! @ GG - ditto :)