Some thoughts on fic titles

[regshoe]

I find that my fic titles fall into two categories. Sometimes the perfect title, usually a quote from something, springs fully-formed into my head along with the initial idea for the fic, and I think it's so brilliant that I am extra-motivated to write the fic by the thought of getting to use this amazingly brilliant title. Sometimes I write the whole fic without having a clue what the title is going to be; I then go hunting for suitable quotes and either find one after some effort or fail and come up with an invented phrase to use as a title. Some are in between—sometimes I'll find a title during the process of writing, after a little thought about what might be suitable—but it certainly feels like most fics are at one extreme or the other, and I get the impression this is a fairly common experience with fic titles.

I usually go with quotes as titles, and I was wondering idly about my habit of using folk song lyrics for everything. So I decided to make a graph! Here are all 67 of my fics published to date categorised by where the title comes from:


That's 31% from folk songs and ballads, 19% original invented titles, 16% from the canon I'm writing for, 12% from books, 9% from non-folk songs, 6% from poems, 4% from plays and 1% Other (that's 'The Ladies of Briarfield', which is an invented phrase playing on the title of a related canon—so maybe ought to be 1/3 each in the 'invented', 'canon' and 'book' categories?). The distinction between folk songs, non-folk songs and poems is a bit fuzzy; I've tried to categorise by the context in which I learnt each one.

I was correct that more of my fic titles come from folk songs than anywhere else, but it's not actually a majority. I'm disappointed at the number of invented titles—these tend to be the ones that took a lot of effort to come up with something I don't like very much, and looking through them now, I'm only really happy with about a third of the invented titles, whereas I like most of the quote-based ones. The rest of my sources are more diverse than I appreciated! My most-title-quoted authors, apart from the ever-reliable Trad, are Shakespeare (three titles) and Oscar Wilde (two titles, plus another related one from Alfred Douglas).

What about other people's fic titles, then? It's actually fairly rare that I recognise the source of a quote in someone else's title, which is perhaps a sign that I should worry less about the intricate perfection of my own, but I very much appreciate nice quote titles when I do ('here in your arms is cured' is an especially good and adorable one). I like a well-chosen canon quote, especially when it's recontextualised in a clever or funny way ('Scarcely a Cloud in the Sky' uses a quote from the beginning of canon for an AU epilogue fic, which I think is lovely in its sense of things coming full circle and the characters finding new happiness despite the hardships they've been through; 'If Fate Should Reverse Our Positions' is another great bit of recontextualisation, turning an offhand remark into a huge AU). And you can always just explain the title quote—I like when titles and epigraphs interact in clever ways, and having the quoted source appear within the story itself can be a really nice opportunity to add depth to the fic and its world ('That Good Faith, To Which an Enemy as Well as a Friend Is Entitled' is a great example of that). Much as I enjoy good titles and think they add to a fic, titles pretty much never influence my decision of whether to read a fic, and don't form a large part of my overall opinion of the fic itself once I've read it.

Unfortunately my current longfic WIP is looking like it'll be the 'can't think of a title at all' type, which is sad—but I suppose I've got plenty of time to come up with something... and meanwhile I have another semi-WIP whose title is going to be the best, most clever and hilarious quote ever at least to me, so that's good motivation.

Comments

[sanguinity]

I am! Part of the impetus was seeing someone express doubt that mere bees couldn't possibly interest and occupy someone as intelligent as Holmes in his retirement -- I confess that I saw red. I'm not a beekeeper myself, but bees as a genus are fascinating (as is most of natural history!), and there is definitely more than enough there to occupy someone in devoted study for a lifetime. Consequently, there are many many bees in this story: Apis mellifera, Apis cerana, Bombus spp., Lasioglossum xanthopus... It's not really about the bees, but they are very much a source of principal occupation for Holmes, and one of the central questions of the story is whether bees can replace crime in his and Watson's relationship.

But I take it that you are, or have been, a beekeeper? I've been hoping to find a beekeeping beta for this story.

[hyarrowen]

"seeing someone express doubt that mere bees couldn't possibly interest and occupy someone as intelligent as Holmes"

goodheavens. No womnder you saw red. The BBC radio adaptation with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams did this (as everything else) very well - Holmes realising that bees have their own language and taking it from there.

Will PM you regarding bee-beta-ing rather than take up regshoe's comments, hope that's OK...
I

[sanguinity]

Lion's Mane is an amazing episode! I mean, their whole series was strong, but their LION was sheer brilliance. I also really enjoyed the Further Adventures written by the same principal adapter, also starring Merrison (Williams having unfortunately passed away); Bert Coules, imho, has a stronger idea of what makes a good Holmes-and-Watson case than ACD did.

And yes, we can certainly discuss that in DMs!

[regshoe]

:O What a horrible thing to say—of course the natural history of bees would give Holmes more than enough to do in retirement! (The leader of the bird surveys I do is a bee specialist, and the titbits of facts he tells us walking past one popular solitary bee nesting spot on the route are clearly a tiny part of a very wide and endlessly interesting world.) That sounds like a very good reason for writing it and a fascinating idea for a story.

[sanguinity]

It's a bid sad, really; I can't help but think that they don't know how interesting a place the world is!