Titles

This is (for me at least) one of the hardest parts to a story. Sometimes inspiration strikes and the perfect title just pops into my head. When this happens, the title comes up as a part of the writing process.

Unfortunately those moments are rare (for me at least). I usually try to come up with a working title while I'm writing. It's usually not very good, but it serves as a place holder. If it's bad enough to grate on my nerves, it serves as a motive to come up with something better.

Usually there's a phrase or an image that comes up once the story is complete that makes a much better title than the place-holder. Sometimes the place-holder becomes the final title.


That was the case with "The Cwoss-Time Twavelew". It was a fairly ordinary time travel title written as if spoken by Elmer Fudd. There is a character in the story who uses Fuddspeak and one friend commented that she loved any story that used the word "ewectwical". Unfortunately, "Traveler" is not a word that comes trippingly to the tongue when bereft of the letter "r".

Lane Adamson liked the story but pointed out that the title was clumsy. He suggested a simpler and (to my mind) vastly superior alternative.

The upshoot of this is that, while I still struggle with titles, "Acwoss Time" has been accepted for the anthology TIMES OF TROUBLE!

HOOWAY!