I’m supposed to be studying for my final exams… guess what? I’m procrastinating! Hahaha.

Today’s topic is a fun one. TITLES!

How do we name our fanfics with a good interesting title? Not gonna lie, I actually don’t know how to write this post for you as we all have different ways of naming our stories. If you are interested in my titles, you can take a look at all my fanfic chapters’ titles. They’re interesting, lol look at myself bragging and baiting you to give me views.

Anyway, jokes aside. The reason I don’t know how to write this post is because I don’t know if the way I named my titles would be effective for you. If you want to be popular and want a title that grab people’s attention with your stories, then I won’t be able to guaranteed you that. This post just meant to show you how I make titles for my chapters or for my fics, and maybe it could help you to name your own fics.
 

The Requirements:
1. Depend on the genre of your fics.
2. Keep it somewhat relatable and easy to understand.
3. Connect it to the story somewhat.
4. Make it sound nice.

The Ways:
A. Word Plays
B. Important Locations/Settings
C. Characters’ Names/Nicknames
D. Important Items / Love items, etc etc.
 

1. A lot of people think that a title can tell your whole story, this might be true, might not. Depend on how you make them, but it should be able to tell readers a tiny bit of your story. In my opinion though, a title most importantly convey the genre, and a bit of a summary for your stories. What mood it convey, what subjects does it revolve around. Don’t summarize your whole story in your title. But instead, pick something important, or something you like from your story that is somewhat important, or just pick something in the story that you think best fit both, the mood of the story and a hint to the story.

2. Keep it relatable to the story and understandable. We’re writing simple fictions, not something epic, but even the most epic of stories has the most simplistic title. i.e. Harry Potter.

3. Again, repeating some points, keep it relatable and connect to your story somewhat. You can use a thesaurus to find your title lol. Keep in mind Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms, they sometimes could help, but you really don’t have to go that far. There are other easier ways. I mostly use wordplays to make my titles.

4. Make it sound nice. Nice here could be something quirky, but ring to someone ears when they say it out loud, or see it. Do not make it confusing for them. As for grammatically correct titles, well there are many writing guides that goes over it, you can search for them yourself. As a general rule, if you don’t know how to properly use punctuations in a title, don’t use it. Actually if you don’t know how to use something, don’t bother. We’re not publishing our stuff, we’re writing fanfictions, don’t worry too much on how eloquent one should be. Use what you know and understand.

*Most of my plots came from title that I thought of. I tend to only start writing when I have a proper title for the fic. I will use titles from my fanfics and explain to you how I came about those titles. One, I’m advertising them (lol, jk). It’s because I chose the title so I know how to explain them to let you understand the process. To readers of these stories, there might be some spoilers in the explanations.
 

Three Days Emperor
    - This is an in-story title that people give to winners of the competition, because they only have three days to secure their acclaimed rank. However majority of them don’t survive pass three days, so the title could be a mock to the one that don’t survive or a nickname to the one that makes it.
    Chapter Titles:
        Dancing on Threads: The image of Xiao Yi hopping on those acrobatic wires high above made it looks like she was dancing on tiny threads, so I titled it that way. It’s a play on words. "Dancing On Wires" wouldn't sound that nice or poetic. Plus people image of threads as something very flimsy, so dancing on them would give you this image of fragility but gracefulness and thrill.
        The Peak of Heshan: He Shan is part of the Inn name, "He Shan Lou." Shan here is mountain, ‘He’ is the crane bird, also the last name of the Inn’s owner. In this chapter there is a big martial arts fight and the peak is like another word for the of the chapter, at the same time it could be the peak of a mountain. As well as relating to the top floors of He Shan Lou.

Green Glass House Agency
    - Have you heard of the phrase ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’? It basically means don’t be hypocritical. I took that as well as the term "Green House" which is a word for those farming nurseries that you nurture fruits and vegetables in from unsuitable weather. The story is just about assassin lives. So they are hypocritically effed up people that are being nurtured by some organization.

Today…For You
    - Now this is an interesting one. Interesting because there is ellipsis in the middle of the title. There are many guides that tells you not to do these type of errors in titles. I personally think that if you know how to use an ellipsis properly, then you can put it in. We’re writing fanfics, not publishing in novels. Have some fun. But of course do make sense when you try to use it. The reason why this title has ellipsis is because it’s omitting a crucial part of the sentence but also highlighted the time and the object pronouns.
    - The part this title omitted is “I will start my love”. If I put this in, it’ll tell you somewhat of the story. I didn’t take it out because of that though, I took it out because it was too long for my liking. It’s a phrase that Jaebum said to Jisoo to announce his love, in which he took it in literal that he did started and gave his love to her, that day. Furthermore, the title has to do with each chapter of the story, where each day the main male character did do something for the female character. First few chapters was obvious, the latter chapters you’ll have to figure them out yourself what he did. But yes, the title is very much align with the story, “Today (I waited; put my hair down; smile) For you”
    - Of course I can just use the comma, like so: “Today, For You.” It is still grammatically correct, it’ll just be ‘Today, for you I will start my love.” I don’t use this because it doesn’t fit Jaebum’s character dialogues. That story title came from his dailogues. He is a teenager in this story and this isn’t old era, so his dialogues shouldn’t be proper. More on this in another chapter for characterization and dialogues.
    - I like to play on words with my title if I don’t feel lazy. When I feel lazy I just pick something in the story and use it as title. Like I used Winter Lava Cake as a chapter's title. The chapter did revolve around the cake. Other times when I feel like having some fun, I use play on words.
    Offtune Autumn: In the story, Jaebum made fun of Jisoo for being off-tune in her singing as well as her piano skill. In this chapter she herself was a bit off in her behavior. Autumn is her nickname (Gaeul). Voila, chapter's title.
    Gaeul’s Blue: Jaebum gave her a gift from Tiffanys & Co. Now everybody know Tiffanys & Co. has a very unique signature color to their brand, the color is actually called Tiffany’s Blue. Blue is also a word in English to describe a mood like sadness, melancholy or depression. So the title is Gaeul’s Blue. If you gonna translate Gaeul to English it is Autumn, so Autumn’s Blue = full of sadness! LOL, but it wasn’t that sad. Hey, Autumn’s Blue would’ve been a better story title considering that the story is… Then again, I wrote this thinking of just cute flashbacks to the main story, didn’t expect it to turn out to be its own story.

Autumn is Here!
    - There is an exclamation mark in here. It is announcing that Autumn is here. To be fair, I wrote this when Autumn came, like a few months ago, I was feeling that Autumn's sentimental feelings. Anyway, that title is as so because the main character in the story is Autumn ( Gaeul ) and she came back. It’s a simple title but it’s exciting, that is because Gaeul coming back is an exciting thing to the main male character. It is also to represent her appearance and relationships in the other characters' lives. I can’t see the title without the exclamation mark, It would be too simple without it. Basically it is announcing something, it gives you the mood of the story. It should be a comedy as well as something melancholy in it. It’s a little hard to explain this title to be honest.

Free Samples:

Here’s a few titles that I made; complete with a synopsis to sum up the title.

Between the Pages: Idk if anyone does this, but I remember I used to see in my mom’s diary, a fresh flower or was it a leaf that she put in there and pressed them together, and it stay there for years. That could be an idea of a love exchange or a story there.

Boys of Your Fantasy: ( This was an old title and prompt that I had lol) Basically a search for that boy in your fantasy. This title and prompt has to do with ‘The Matchmaker’ drabbles from chapter 1 of this series. I just don’t have times to write this elaborate crack story lol.

Summary: What type of boyfriend do you wish for?

Girls tend to want their boyfriend to be: cool, calm, smart, handsome, cute, tall, great built, tough, strong, talented at a lot of things, nice, observant, considerate, loving, caring, honest, faithful, loyal, to sum it all up, something called perfection.

Perfection…you say?

If given one month to date them, would you be good enough for them?

The Matchmaker: The drabbles in chapter 1, check them out. The prompt I had for it was that Jaebum was rejected by this girl, his group of friends decided to find him a gf, they put out flyers and many different girls came to audition. He ended up dating one each month, and each one of them has a different personality. This and the Boys of Your Fantasy was supposed to be a crack series.

Nerd’s Knight: Just a girl that like this kid that she thought was a nerd since young, she protected him from the bullies or so she believed he was bullied. From then on she only like nerds, real nerds, the one that wear thick glasses and have hiked up pants and carry books around. The type that others look at and called ugly, but to her they are handsomes. The first few chapter that I wrote for this was pretty funny but it was years ago. I didn’t have time for it. If you want to read, I might post them up the three chapters that I have for it. It’s unfinished. It's a HS story.

Lonely Moonlight:  It could be a setting to a love story.

If heartbroken, take a stroll under the moonlight, you might find something there.

Across the Fence: A story about your neighbor’s crush. Or anything across the fence of your house. Could be a horrific neighbor that you can't stand and is plotting how to murder them... (it's a very simplistic but full of mystery type of title)

Two Birds and a House: Two people living in a house. Actually this was the title I had planned for a drabble about two s trying to lose their ity and they had a plan to meet in this Lake House, ( It was meant for Jaebum and Jisoo’s drabble before I started "Today…For You". I believed I wrote a snippet of it in the 2nd chapter of this series). Interestingly enough, in my language, birds could be a slang word for male. So Two Birds and a House could means two guys living together.

Some other titles that I have remnants of a plot, but too little time to explore:

The Princess’s Dream Lover
The Emperors' Couriers
Jiwon: The Most Michievous
Dokkaebi’s Anecdotes; The Dizi’s Spirits; The Devil’s Princes ( all were original titles to a few stories that made up “The Red Prince” )
One Shot, Two Shots, Baby baby, Goodbye  (It’s a funny title, its original prompt is related to a drunk Jaejoong who rambled on and on to his wife about his past life. While he rambled on, he kept saying 'one shot, two shots, baby baby, one shot, two shots, baby baby..." )

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll have a better topic next time for you.

By the way, did you see what I did with this chapter’s title? LOL.

Here's a bonus.
"No Longer a Goldfish" : The goldfish that I picked up from the festival, I cherished it and placed it in a bowl. I cherished it and nurtured it, give it food, changes the water, almost everyday. When I tapped on the bowl, it would move along to my fingers tapping. Yet day by day spots grew on its back and day by day it deteriorated. And one day when I woke up and came to tend it, it disappeared.