Episode #240: And You Are Called?

Books By G.B. Miller

Today's pic is a 100% honest attempt at promotion. This novella is my latest release, a dark fast paced rural/urban fantasy that doesn't slow down until the end. Available at most major e-tailers in e-book and print. Click the link for further details.

There are three things that I absolutely loathe as a writer: 1} picking a title for a story; 2} writing blurbs for a completed book and 3} choosing characters names.

As much as I would love to rant about my trials and tribulations in picking character names (and there are a lot) today's post will be about my trials and tribulations in picking story titles.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've always, ALWAYS, had problems in choosing/brainstorming titles for my stories. More often than not, the titles that I pick for stories would often have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the story whatsoever.

One example, the original title for the novella that you see standing before you. Prior to the final title that you see, I originally went through almost seven different iterations of what this story was known, and I only remember what the previous title to this novella was, "Blackness In The White Sand". Could not remember why I came up with that title originally and it took me over 8 years to come up with the title that you see before you, and I had to use the very sound advice of a writer's group to help me come up with that.

Another good example of a very bad title was the original title of my adult fiction novel The Inner Sibling, which was Line 21. This was a title that absolutely no one understood the meaning behind it. Twelve years later, even I came to the conclusion it was a crappy title. For those who are curious, the original title refers to the old version of the 1040A form, in which line 21 is where you put the amount of miscellaneous income that you had earned for the year.

Now let me give you a couple of examples of titles that I had given to some short stories of mine. Red Stripe and The Right Thing. The former story is featured in my collection called What Is Life? and it tells the story about a day in the life of a punk rock musician. Why I titled the story after a bottle of beer is anybody's guess, because the story has absolutely nothing to do with beer. The latter story is about a day in the life of a guy who was cheated on by his girl with another girl, and it uses the backdrop of a town festival for the story to unfold. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The latter story can be found in my collection called A Trilogy of Love, which is actually a replacement title for the same collection under the name Broken Promises.

Now to the present. When I had originally started my current project, which has the blog tag Hot Mess, it was called Dandelion Tears. Again, I have absolutely no idea as to why I had chosen that title to begin with. I mean, it's mentioned very briefly as a place of employment for one of the characters, but that's about it. I have, however, come up with a working theory as to why I choose bizarre titles for my stories: I simply latch onto a particular word, regardless whether it actually applies to a story, and viola! it becomes a title for a story.

However you want to break it down, the real challenge, at least for this series, is to come up with an overall title for the series. My saving grace this time around is that because I have the four volumes broken down by events {kidnapping, 1st recovery attempt at a campsite, 2nd recovery attempt is a pitched battle, and the final recovery attempt takes place at the place} I will have no problem it titleing those four volumes.

Literally, my entire writing journey is littered with stories that have absolute crap titles that I now have to rectify with brand new titles, and it hasn't been easy. I have succeeded in renaming a previously published story with one that actually makes sense, while another novella desperately needs one beyond the placeholder of the "Average American Novella". In addition to those messes, I have nearly three dozen short stories from my defunct short story blog that needs new titles so that I can create new collections.

Basically, I suck at picking out titles for my stories, because apparently I subscribe to the bizarre philosophy that some musicians apply to their works, which is to pick a nonsensical title for the c.d.'s, which leaves everyone collectively scratching their heads trying to decipher the reasoning {example: The Boomtown Rats, who had that cult hit "I Don't Like Mondays" titled their album "The Fine Art of Surfacing", which contains that cult hit}. I guess you can call me "The Muddler" when it comes to story titles, because my muddle choices often make no sense to anyone, including myself.

Happy Monday to one and all, and remember just because the world doesn't revolve around you, you can take comfort in the knowledge that people used to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved