On titling stuff from poetry

[extrapenguin]

Titling is Hard, and while sometimes I get an idea for a thematic little phrase (ex. Snow Over Old Tracks), mostly it's very hard. The other type of title I'm overly fond of is the "X, Y with bonus alliteration" type (eg. Babbling Brook, Silent Sea or Rediscovery, Reconstruction). Occasionally, though, there's a nice poem or song lyric to crib from! Here, some examples frorm this year's work, with explanations and links.

When the Honor Comes too Late is from Sarah Williams' The Old Astronomer, fourth stanza, slightly modded. It fits Wei Wuxian's death and eventual reincarnation in the fic very, very well:

You may tell that German College that their honour comes too late.
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate;
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

(The rest of the poem is wonderful as well, even if the last two lines of the fourth stanza are the ones that best echo with me.)

Date of Rebirth is from a song by Origa as part of the Ghost in the Shell SAC OST. Song, translation. The title works for the fic – there is, after all, a rebirth – and the rest of the song lyrics also fit Song Lan nicely, from canon and the fic.

Alarms Will Ring for Eternity is a line directly from the song it's based on, and as long as Chila's alive, the alarms will definitely be ringing for forever.

And All is Wasted on the Land gets its title from an edited line from the song it's based on. "And all is wasted in the sand" -> "And all is wasted on the land".

My Unconquerable Soul (which I really need to return to) comes from William Ernest Henley's Invictus, which very perfectly encapsulates my aversion to religion, predestination, and the concept of soulmates, so of course I had to title my soulmate subversion thingy with a line from it! (I just ... really hate the concept of soulmates, it seems.)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

Then there's also "inspired by vague memories of a quote" titles, like Despite the Warning Signs (after the very fic-fitting Troubled Birds card), Gaze into the Abyss (very technically a Nietzsche reference, and I suppose the Abyss gazed also into Lan Wangji), and The Truth Shall Set You Free (upon googling, a Bible reference, but whatever, it fits).

Do you often title your fics after poetry/songs/quotes, or do you have no titling method in particular? If you go for poetry snippets etc, how much attention do you pay to the rest of the poem fitting the fic? Is there a type of fic that gets poetry/song/quote titles etc disproportionately often?

Comments

[naye]

Excellent questions! And gorgeous poem...

My titles are usually the "no titling method in particular". As in: they remain nameless until it's posting time, and then I panic wildly. Some of my recent titles I've gotten by: begging a friend to rescue save me from my suffering (They also serve who only stand and wait), going for the jokey WIP title (Volcanolanche), and getting an idea from a prompt and then writing the fic to suit it (It can be hard to tell the difference between a stray dog and a wolf pup).

My current WIP is a bit of an exception, in that it's had a title for most of its existence! I scrawled a page full of free-associated words, and realized I had come up with a perfect match. (With a twist of the Kaleidoscope, which - fits. And isn't a reference.)

But yeah. Panicked scrambling/free-associating and the odd lyric I think is how I manage. For my most recent fic I went for the old "When in doubt, Vienna Teng!" and got Never Look Away.

I am fascinated by people who actually have a system! And make it work so beautifully! Sometimes I never get further than "Meh, it's... a title?" when it's time to post. Which is annoying.

[extrapenguin]

The only one of those who got a title before posting was Despite the Warning Signs. The rest are of the "panic wildly" vein, though occasionally I hit upon something nice with my panicking. My WIP titles are usually very descriptive, in that they have the fandom, pairing/character, and central concept/AU. Giftfics are ExchangeYR-Fandom_recip and even less informative. The only system I could subscribe to would be "this is the 114th fic I've posted to AO3, so it's Opus 114 now".

[trobadora]

Yeah, The Old Astronomer is gorgeous, isn't it?

I don't really have a system, other than "flail wildly if a title doesn't miraculously appear on its own". I do use quote titles sometimes, though generally not song lyrics. And even when I'm not using a quote for a title, chances are I'll have poked through a dozen pages of quotes on relevant themes/words/phrases in the hopes that something there would spark something and help me think of an appropriate title. Titles are hard!

(My Yuletide story needed my beta to find a title - it went through six different ones between the deadline and reveals, and I couldn't find anything that worked for me until my beta helped me out.)

If there's a context to a quote, yeah, I definitely want it to fit. Because if someone recognises the quote, I don't want them to get mental whiplash. (Obviously more important if it's a famous quote, but regardless.)

[extrapenguin]

I find that I don't generally seek out song lyric titles, except for jukebox_fest fic, where the fandom is the song. For poems, there's poemlinefortitle for a random selection of poetry, and of course my favorites I remember.

I also find translated song lyrics are better titles than english-original ones. Perhaps because it's still poetic, but less obviously song lyric rhythm?

[trobadora]

I also find translated song lyrics are better titles than english-original ones. Perhaps because it's still poetic, but less obviously song lyric rhythm?

Huh, I've never tried that, but it makes sense to me! Maybe next time I'm desperately looking for a title ...

[extrapenguin]

Translated from an Indo-European language generally works better than Translated from Chinese! Likely it's due to cultural differences on what's considered poetic. Translated from Finnish also doesn't really work, based on back-of-the-envelope translations, so probably also something about the grammar.

[chromemuffin]

Oh, how I hate titles. I spend a lot of time on them, but they always end up lame and they are never consistent. Very rarely do I base it off poems, though, since I have found most Chinese and Japanese poems not conducive to titles (the best lyrics are the most difficult to render into English without using too many words!). I use idioms, sometimes, or references to other literature. Others, I just throw a thematically related word or two at it and call it a day.

(and you did me a favor by naming fuck the sun, so thank you, I am grateful because otherwise that fic would have sat in my google docs for the next week or two due to not having a title)

[extrapenguin]

I know the feeling. And, uh, "fuck the sun" is ... now how I expected to be immortalized in fandom lol. Even if it's a good fic and the title isn't too off from the tone.