As planned, I've put the novella aside for now, and I started the anthology submission. I've frequently said here that titles either come to me right away or they don't. For this short story...I got nothing. Nothing good, anyway.
Okay, maybe I shouldn't say I have nothing, as I have been brainstorming a few ideas with friends. A lot of what I came up with just seems so generic, though, like it could apply to a hundred other stories. Also listed in my criteria was that I don't want the title to give away any major plot points. Unfortunately, with a ~5K word story, there's not a whole lot to go on except major plot points.
But then I realized something: Does a title matter as much in an anthology? I mean, obviously I do want something better than average, but if it does get accepted, it's probably not likely that the title of my story will make or break whether or not a reader buys the book. I guess it also depends on how people read anthologies—do they start from the beginning and blaze right through, or do they start with the title that grabs them the most and then jump around? (In what should come as a surprise to no one, I'm a "start at the beginning" person.)
I don't have a good answer. Right now, the frontrunner is "Another Hero". Which, yeah, I know. Snooooooore. It's not set in stone, and I still have some time to figure it out. At least I won't be kicking myself too much if I can't come up with anything better.
I also start at the beginning. :) I'm in the "they probably don't matter much" camp. A lot of the titles in anthologies I read are often very literal, but that helps me remember what the story was about later. This has prompted me to go and look, and a lot of the titles are not very good. One of them belongs to a story I love, and I realize now that the title has nothing to do with the story. LOL!
ReplyDeleteI'm in a lucky position right now in that I have titles I like for the next several projects.