Help me think of a title for my story · 8:07pm Jul 20th, 2017
I came to this site 4 years ago with an idea for a story. The novel is now at the last polishing stages, and it's only a matter of time before new chapters are published.
The thing is, after 4 years, I still can't decide on the title.
In this blog, I hope to get as many ideas as possible as to what the title of my novel could be. And don't worry if you haven't read my story yet, you can still participate. Everything goes in brainstorming. There are no wrong answers.
Here are the ideas I have so far:
Sweetie Belle’s Fight with Darkness
Sweetie Belle Trips on Darkness
Sweetie Belle Trips of Darkness
Sweetie Belle Spites Darkness
Sweetie Belle Defies Darkness
Sweetie Belle Gets High on Darkness
Sweetie Belle Embraces Darkness
Sweetie Belle’s Dark Embrace
Tripping on Darkness
Tripping the Darkness
Evil Sweetie Belle
Overpowered Sweetie Belle
In Spite of Darkness
Sweetie Belle Befriends Darkness
Sweetie Belle’s Dark Secret
In the Dark Embrace
Embracing the Darkness
Sweetie Belle’s Amounting
The Power Within
Darkness in Sweetie Belle
If you can think of any other title, please post it in the comments below.
I'd suggest something such as The Darkness in the Sweetness.
4607619 Awesome. Thank you for participating. I can't wait to see even more suggestions. After that, I'll make a poll to see which title people like the most.
Sweetie Belle kisses Darkness / Sweetie Belle hugs Darkness
The Dark Belle
The Sweet teats of Darkness
a Sweet treet for Darkness
Sweetie Belle loses the light
The Belle, the Darkness, and the Sweetie
The prisse for your magic back
The sweet kiss Darkness gived to the belle / The sweet hug Darkness gived to the belle
The poison cure
4608917 You're bursting with title ideas, I see. That's awesome!
4608991
Do you want more ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upD6cB9Rzvk
4609162 The more, the better. This is brainstorming, after all.
4609217
Dark Belle
the Sweet Darkness
Darth Sweet
Darth Belle
the Belle in the Darkness
Sweets in the Darkness
4609299 These are really great. Thank you.
4609307
Sweetie Belle + Magic = Darkness
The Dark Magic of Sweetie Belle
The Dark cost of Magic
What would Sweetie Belle do for magic
When Magic came in Sweetie Belle's life
When the Darkness came in Sweetie Belle's life
Sweetie Belle, the Dark unicorn
King/Queen Sombr-eetie Belle
Sweetie Belle + Sombra's horn
Umbrum Sweetie Belle
the Umbrum Filly
The Power of Darkness
The Umbrum Power
the good Umbrum
the nice Umbrum
Sweetie Belle + Magic Power = Umbrum
4609677 Oh, you're on fire, my friend!
4609705
I'm just a Brony and I am on fire
https://youtu.be/D7vgwbJ_3Jc
4615100 Those are fantastic. Thank you for your contribution.
These titles seem really edgy, especially if you end up using the word 'dark' in them.
Another problem is that I have a hard time saying Sweetie Belle's full name seriously.
I'd go with something simplistic, like "Belle's Last Dusk," or something like that.
4625930 It's a bit of a dark story, and there's an actual dark entity in it. The title you suggested sounds a bit too general. It's hard to imagine what the story is about from the title alone. The reverse of it would be, Sweetie Belle Gains a Soul, for instance. The whole plot is right there in the title in that one.
4626205
In my opinion, that's not necessarily a good thing. Especially when it comes to horror or dark stuff in general, the less your audience knows in the beginning, the better.
I just don't think you should show all your cards at once with the title alone, you know?
4626209 I get your point, but I feel that if I don't catch my readers with the title, I won't catch them at all. They tend to shy away from long dark stories. It's kind of a niche category, and it's hard to attract the general population with it.
A Bell tolls in the dark?
4687394 That's a good suggestion.
4687614
Or make it A Bell tolls in the darkness
4687943 That's a good one, as well.
Of those you personally suggested I like In Spite of Darkness.
I ought to read through them more.
Hi again.
4732590 That does sound like a good title.
4732766
I had a favor to ask. Absolutely deniable but would help me out tremendously. I was wondering if you could read two pages. Just two. Little over 800 words. It's a new opening to my now revoked and to be resubmitted story, "The After". I hope you remember that one. The chapter is entirely finished and is placed at the very start of the story.
Titled, "Chapter Zero: Just Before Sunrise" it requires no background information. It's supposed to be a hook and as a result I'm curious to know how effective it is/what anyone thinks of it.
Of course, if you don't have time to read it and/or simply don't want to, don't bother, I'll be fine. I do want to let you know how immensely I appreciated the other comments you gave me on my earlier works and I want to let you know they've helped me out tremendously.
I certainly hope this isn't too out of the blue. Feel free to request me to read anything of yours in return, as always.
—Joshua Aaron Skousen
4733981 I'll gladly read it and comment on it. I'm a bit sleep deprived now and I have to wake up soon and should really head to bed, but I predict the deed shall be accomplished in about 24 hours.
If you wish, you can look if there's anything you haven't read yet here:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/713204/gdocs-of-my-stories
I'm glad to hear your passion is still intact. I feared your studies would bury your project for good. There may yet be an after for The After.
4733981 Okay, I've gone over your story now. I could tell that it was you who wrote it. You have a very unique voice. I don't agree with the voice, but I do recognize it right away.
We all like to read different things, and I guess this kind of writing is something you like to read. Perhaps there are other readers like that out there as well. If so, then that's great for the prospects of your story. However, I'm not among those readers. Your voice feels like a mistake to me. You're trying to achieve 2 things at once:
1. Describe every little thing as vividly as possible.
2. Hide the essence by any means necessary.
My voice is the exact opposite to yours. I try to get to the core of the issue as soon as possible, I don't waste reader's time by describing something that the story can do without. Such are also the stories I like to read.
Have you ever met a person that you could never get a straight answer out of? The kind of person that talks and talks but never says anything useful? That's kind of how your voice feels to me.
Sure, your story gives loads of hints, but you're probably one of the few who can interpret those hints. The cards you play on may get lost on an average reader, especially if you can't keep them committed to reading the rest of the story.
When a reader reads this chapter, what does the reader have to look forward to besides more impending confusion?
Here's what I'm getting at. I fear that you might be losing yourself in the details, obsessing which words to use, but you never take a step back and look at the big picture. You're trying to find the perfect shade of color for your house, but you haven't even started on the foundations.
Your sentence structure reminds me of that of the professional writers. The kinds I never bother to read because reading that complexity feels like torture. You're quite prolific and descriptive. I think that's the area you focus a lot. Perhaps more than you should.
I know what you're trying to do. You want to place your idea at the very peek. A reward for those who were persistent enough to make it through the whole story.
If I were in your place, I'd use your awesome idea as a springboard. Instead of hiding it, I'd try to make it as clear as possible. Think of the Lord of The Rings. If you were to write it, I'd imagine you'd mention the ring in the very last paragraph of your story. Lord of The Rings does it differently. It starts off with the ring and explains exactly what it is.
I'm sorry for being so harsh. It's just that I'm scared that you're going to lose yourself in a fog and won't find the focus you need to finish your awesome project. Please don't get lost.
4734519
What if I were to give you this as an opener?
Example Chapter Opening
4734519
No, not all the time. I can hate my own voice too VERY OFTEN.
Which, if this happens to be the case at the end of the day for why you flat-out would not enjoy my presentation of the story within The After, I can accept it and move on. I'm sad that you don't enjoy, but I don't have enough power to influence your tastes, nor do I believe I should pander to yours either simply because you're the first opinion I received on my piece. I respect your comments one way or the other.
Well, definitely not the goal. The essence should shine out. At the same time, the essence should not spoil the truth behind every action/object so quickly. I could add more narrative explanation for minor things, (such as the pills Twilight takes), but not without leaping onto bigger themes and larger questions, which eventually all just come back to one big, unanswered question: What world am I reading about?
Example:
It was with some personal embarrassment that she was still taking the pills she’d been prescribed when she was only an AfterYear of one, but all the same, the large yellow capsules within were lessened by one as she put miniature jar back on it’s wooden shelf, biting into the sweet, nectar-tasting pill, and swallowing its contents.
Twilight took these pills on account of her symptoms of PIVS, or Post-Importation Viewership Syndrome. It was only with mild comfort that Twilight was reminded that hundreds of thousands of ponies suffered from some level of the infamous syndrome. Lately, flairs of hers had been dying down. The last time she remember being watched, was in the supermarket. She imagined the narrative in her own head, hovering over her, as she went to pick-off the jar of Sunflower Seed butter off the shelf. She imagined someone reading the narrative, knowing her every move. It was the first time in a month she was forced to take a deep breath.
“There’s no one there.” Twilight reminded herself.
“There’s no one there.” she breathed deeply.
The memory slowly faded from Twilight’s mind as she swallowed the pill whole, without water. Once she’d finished, she moved into the kitchen to make breakfast.
The music in her earbuds continued…
Some of the details I’ve put in I will admit are nothing more than flower vases amongst the much more important meals on the dining table. I understand I could make a story where the dining table only contained meals. My problem with that personally though, is then I would have a world that would be so basic and bland (or overly-thick), at least in my eyes. I admit it should be the reader who gets to fill in 90% of the romantic details of imagining what exactly the places and ponies I describe would look like, but not having any external decorations whatsoever sounds like it would be a little to cutting-to-the-quick. Plus, with the type of heavy, mind-bending material I’m trying to lay down on readers, I really don’t want to alienate them by making it seem like they have to understand this immensely complex world quickly, or otherwise they’re idiots.
I suppose you don’t like Mystery Novels much. Or at least, I’ll venture to guess. Of course, if you want a straight answer, I can give you one in the story, (I posted a version in an earlier comment that does so), but it would ruin the point of experiencing the perspective of someone who is new to the After, who, (unless, as in Jonathan’s case, asked for it) would not get such a blunt answer.
True. However, I trust the audience to be able to make linguistic connections and see that there are themes being drawn here.
Example: “PONYVILLES!” With a capital “S”, indicating more than one, right after, “Multiquestria” (not hard to piece together, it’s just, “Multi-equestria”). I think those are fairly solid hints at something. The reader shouldn’t know what yet, but they should know it’s something. A lot of the other terms are mentioned for the first time in this chapter, and they are expanded upon in later chapters.
Some of these cards aren’t meant to be understood at all. Some are meant to go over readers heads and be forgotten about, in the same way adult humor in kid’s shows goes over Kids’ heads, they can still enjoy the overall material so long as it explains itself overall and moves forward at a well-set pace. I don’t expect anyone to know what this means:
Current AfterTime: 13-03-26 07:30
Current ScriptorSphere Time: 2016-03-26 05:00
(DST-Standard Disregarded)
Unless they do some digging…
An answer to the confusion. As confusing as the chapter may be, confusion (the right kind at least), does breed curiosity, and curiosity leads to wanting to know what happens next. Now, if it were the kind of confusion that was so blatantly frustrating as to be: “I’m sick of this and I don’t want to give it any more of a chance because it makes no fucking sense whatsoever,” then I wouldn’t want the reader to slug through my story either.
I do recognize though, that those first few lines are confusing, mostly because they move a little too fast and don’t describe what’s fully occurring in a way that makes logical sense.
Thank you.
I’ve cut down quite a bit from what I used to be. I do understand though, although I often miss the mark: “Less is More”
Well, I wanted to place the idea at a high-point in the story, a climax, but not the only one in the whole story. Not at the very end. You see, I have every intention of making The After a full length book, and so to explain and show what it is in Five Chapters, relative to the other Fifteen that may be published, it won’t be such a long wait. Or at least, I’m gambling that it will pay off for readers to wait so long and be rightfully rewarded so for their ability to stick out so fo the more confusing bits. I gamble, I know. I gamble I’m willing to take.
Also I’m going to merge Ch. 1 & 2: I realized it actually is fairly ridiculous, (very much in part to your suggestion) that Fineshine won’t be in the room that Fluttershy wakes up in automatically.
Once again, thank you for your wonderful feedback. I tremendously appreciate it!
4734910
Personally, I like it better. By reading that chapter, the reader forms an idea about what your book is about. The reader also knows more than she did before she started reading.
It can't shine if nopony understands it. It can only shine if you stop hiding it.
The answer to that should always be given in the first chapter. Preferably, in the first paragraph.
Personally, I prefer this. You're explaining things instead of hiding them. The reader knows more and more with time instead of less and less.
If there's an elephant in the room, the reader may want to see more than just hints of it.
If the reader didn't get that in the first chapter, what guaranty does she have for the next one?
If you watched the Matrix, remember the scene where Morpheus explains to Neo what happened to the world. It's precise and to the point. It gives the viewer all the information.
Then there's the scene with the Architect. I hated that scene. He uses fancy words but says nothing. The viewer would be better off if that whole scene was deleted. If you told me there's another scene with the Architect coming, I wouldn't be thinking 'Finally, an answer to the confusion.' I'd be thinking, 'Oh, god, more confusion...'
Anyway, don't take my comments the wrong way. I like your story even in the state that it's in right now. It's just not perfect in my eyes, is what I'm saying.