Writing Meme, Day 6

[estirose]

Here’s day 6: “How do you come up with names and story titles?”

Names? It really depends. Sometimes they just come to me. Sometimes I nab them from real people (Lydia from “Dreamt-of Call” is named after an old co-worker of mine). Sometimes I try to get really meaningful and use “Behind the Name”. And sometimes I just raid Google News for good-sounding names, as I did for one of my Remix fics. I’ve had characters named “Guy” and “Buddy” in my original stories, because they kept “wanting” to be named that way.

As for titles, it really is very random. I’ve been writing a lot over the years, and I don’t really like to duplicate titles. Sometimes the title comes from what happens in the story, sometimes from what someone says in there. (For example, “Harder To Be Brave” is from a line in the story; “Easier to Hide” describes why Ziggy’s acting that way. On the older end, “Mistakes” is named that because all of Melinda’s participation in her past is a mistake. “Turns to Dust” is so named because that’s what happens to Orphenochs when they die. Sometimes it’s a case of literally getting stuck with the working title. (“Utopia” is the name of the very old video game in that story because we never found a good final title and we wanted to post it.)

6) How do you come up with names and story titles?
7) Do you use beta reader(s)? If so, what do you look for in a beta reader? What specialties would your ideal beta have?
What kind of support, if any, do you get for your writing?
9) Do you share your writing publicly or keep it private? Have you or would you like to be published?
10) What’s your biggest source of writer’s envy?
11) How much detail do you usually leave out of a story?
12) Where do you turn when your research is coming up with nothing of value to the story?
13) Optimally, how many times does your work go through the revising process?
14) Do you make literary or cultural references in your work? If so, what sources do you usually draw on? How do you decide whether to make (or keep, when editing) a particular reference?
15) What repeated themes do you see running through your work?
16) How do you support your themes? How do you make sure your language reflects them, and how do you decide whether something belongs in the plot or the theme category?
17) What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
18) What genres have you written in?
19) Do you write long stories, short stories, or both? What’s challenging about writing a particular story length?
20) Is your writing generally plot- or character-driven? Why?
21) Do you ever participate in writing challenges? Which ones?
22) Out of all the characters you’ve ever written, which one is your favorite? Which one has surprised you the most?
23) Do you use unreliable narrators? Why or why not?
24) What do you like most about writing? What do you dislike?
25) Give some examples of how various story ideas have come to you. What forms did they come in?
26) What stories haven’t you written that you would like to write?
27) Do you have any works in progress?
28) Do you visualize scenes when/before you write them? Or do you go by how the words sound in your head? Both? Something else entirely?
29) What do you do when the words just aren’t coming?
30) Do you like to tell stories orally as well as writing them down?
31) What’s your policy on remixes, podfic, and other transformative work?

Crossposted from Ramblings Yet Once More here.