#Convention Guide

[sabookey]

⭐How to Title Your Written Works⭐

I know a lot of people really struggle with titles to the point of frustration. You've put in all the work just to write the story already, and now you have to come up with a title too? Agonizing!

If you've never done it before, you might not know where to start at all. Even for experienced writers, trying to land on a title that is eye-catching and original can feel like trying to find the only perfect cherry in an orchard to stick on top of your sundae. Meanwhile, it's busy melting. I know it's tempting to just grab whatever cherry is nearest, but I promise you, there are plenty of cherries.

There are so many different methods to figure out a title that works for your piece. Personally I really enjoy working out fun titles, so I figured I'd talk some about how I think about them, and a few of the methods I use for my own works. [Long post below the cut!]

⭐Advice the First: Don't worry about your title too much when you're first starting your story.

Every time I have ever picked out a title ahead of actually writing a story, that title ends up getting scrapped. Often they have little or nothing to do with the completed project. It's fine to have a placeholder title, of course, but in my experience, they rarely stick. This is because, as you write, your story will usually change and develop into something more than your initial idea encompassed. And in my case, often the title chosen ahead of time is vague or clichéd.

⭐Advice the Second: The reasons why finding a title is so hard in the first place can actually be useful as a guideline for what your title needs to do.

The title of your piece is, often, the first thing your potential readers will see. That's a lot of pressure. Your title ideally should: ~ catch readers' attention and hold it ~ sound good and be read easily ~ represent the whole essence of your story in just a few words

That last point in particular is a scary one on the surface! But I promise you, that point is actually the key to figuring out what your title needs to be. (We'll come back to representing the essence later!)

⭐Advice the Third: Don't overthink it!

I promise you the title is actually pretty low on the list of things that will matter to your readers. It's absolutely okay if your title doesn't do all — or any — of the things I listed above. The only reason that list is there is because we're talking about nuts and bolts here - your readers don't have a checklist for The Perfect Title. If you don't hit on those points, it won't stop them from reading your story. That list — like your title — is a TOOL, not the art we are creating with it.

As writers, we often obsess over our word choices so carefully. We know that words have meaning, and articulating our ideas clearly is tricky. But let me ask you — because I know you're a reader/watcher/listener as well as a writer — has a crappy or nonsense title ever actually stopped you from falling in love with a story?

⭐Advice the Fourth: Titles have conventions and trends just like genres and eras — these can be great tools! I'm sure a lot of us have noticed the long-running trend in Romantasy where every book is titled something like "A Castle of Ice and Shame" etc etc. While that style of title had been used before, Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses series triggered an explosion in popularity for that particular style of title. Publishers will push other authors with books in the same vein to use similar titles as a way of signposting - if you liked ACOTAR, you will probably like this book too!

Romantasy isn't the only one that relies on title trends as a marketing ploy. Thrillers and crime fiction will use vocabulary that evokes an ominous feeling to suggest paranoia, tension, and stress (made up examples: "Unknown Caller," "The Stranger," "The Liar's Game"). Horror book titles might also use eerie, foreboding language, or use warnings against actions that will, of course, invite the horrors (made up examples: "Don't Look Under the Bed," "The Creepers"). On the other hand, a lot of literary fiction uses the protagonists name, or an epithet for them or another prominent character or location, to tell you who this book is going to be about (made up examples: "Annemarie," "The Stepfathers," "The Little Rock Library").

In fanfiction, meanwhile, you'll often see song lyrics or quotes from the source material used as titles. Readers that are familiar with the song being borrowed or the scenes/dialogue referenced can get a general idea of things like canonpoint, characters & dynamics involved, and emotional tone of the fic. Other trends I've noticed still lean highly poetic — for example, using all lower case, having a portion of the title in parentheses, and emotional metaphors.

Title trends & conventions may seem boring or safe, but they can be a super useful tool. It's a marketing thing, mostly; if you follow the trend of other books or stories in your genre/niche, then readers can look at the title alone and say ah, I see, this story will be like that other story I loved.

⭐How to actually come up with the words⭐

Step one, just write your story. Trust me, just get your piece written first. Sometimes, just via the process of writing and turning the words of your story around in your head like a microwave, you might land on the perfect title.

Okay, you have your story. Now you need a title.

⭐Option 1 - Themes, and the Thesis Statement Method This is where we're getting into the aforementioned "essence" of your story. If you've ever written an essay for school, you've probably talked about the thesis statement. That is, a single sentence that sums up the argument you are trying to make in your paper. If you were going to tell someone about your piece, the thesis statement would tell them what it's about and where you stand on its topic in one sentence.

In a way, figuring out a title can be kind of like figuring out your thesis statement, except that you get to be more poetic with it. Consider the following (write the answers out if you want to): ~What kind of story is it? ~What are the major themes in your work? ~What is the Big Point of your story?

Maybe it's about a character learning to admit they were wrong. Maybe it's two characters finding love again after loss. Maybe it's a adventurous quest to steal the Declaration of Independence.

Once you have boiled those questions down to find the Core(TM) of your story, start playing with language related to that core.

Don't overthink it. It could be as simple as stating it: "Learning to Admit that You were Wrong" or "Finding Love Again".

Or maybe, you want to get a little more flowery. Just calling it "Stealing the Declaration of Independence" makes it sound like a news article.... but what about "National Treasure"? .

But maybe the thesis statement style isn't for you. And maybe you're not into the title trends or conventions mentioned earlier. So, what else can we do?

⭐Option 2 - Quote Yourself Of course, the biggest source of quotable material relevant to your story is... your story itself!

When I'm writing, sometimes I'll write a sentence or a turn of phrase that just feels more elevated and poignant. More in tune with the theme, or the style I'm pursuing. I love metaphors and flowery, colorful language. I like packing symbolism and double-meaning and subtext into descriptions and set dressing. And sometimes, I can get great titles out of this.

My favorite creative writing teacher spoke to us once about the concept of "the world in a small thing," in which you might be writing about a tiny detail or moment, but metaphorically be speaking about something much bigger. I use this a lot in my writing, and very often my favorites become candidates for the piece's title.

Metaphors make for wonderful titles. A good metaphor will have an elegance and an efficiency to it. It's about communicating a complex idea with simple, graceful language. That's what your title is trying to do as well. When someone is reading a book with a metaphor title, there should be a moment at some point where they stop and look at the title again and go "Ohhhhh I get it now!" That can be very satisfying for the reader. It certainly is to me when writing it.

I often find, especially for short stories and fanfiction, that I also love mining the dialogue in a piece for gems. Dialogue is one of my favorite components of a good story. Quite often you'll find really poignant statements on the characters' desires, beliefs, and hurts. Dialogue can offer economy of language with the intent to communicate important themes, as well as language choice that is personalized and specific to the speaking character. Those can also valuable qualities for your title.

⭐Option 3 - Quote Something Larger from the Pre-Existing Canon

I talked about this some in the more general advice already, but you could also borrow from pre-existing phrases — poems, proverbs, clichés, quotations from classics or famous people. (With the caveat that you need to be careful about copyrights with modern music & writings).

You can always borrow from anything in the public domain. With your theme in mind, maybe there's a cliche or proverb (ex: Leading a Horse to Water) that your work explores. Or maybe there's a line from an older story, poem, movie, or a song that evokes the emotional response you want — a literary parallel you want people to make, a connection you want to draw.

When it's a line that is part of the popular lexicon, often readers can generally be assumed to be familiar with it. Connecting a pre-existing idea to your story can tell readers about the story, but it can also mean that you are drawing new context or meaning into the original quotation in a way that makes people think.

⭐Option 4 - Follow Genre Title Conventions

Again, I already discussed this above in the general advice, but this is a perfectly acceptable way to title your piece. Look up examples from other books or stories in your genre to see what the current and past trends have been.

Then — and this is the important part — think about the things in your story that particularly stand out. What niche within the genre are you filling? What specific notes do you want to mention up front? What vibe are you trying to evoke? The tone, the aesthetics, the mood? Thinking about these things will help you with the specific vocabulary you want to use.

Compare, for example, these made-up romantasy titles: "A Castle of Ice and Shame" vs. "The Forest of Flowers and Secrets." Even within this very specific title trope, you can glean at least a little of the vibe.

⭐Option 5 - Deliberately Ignoring Genre Title Conventions

Maybe you're writing for one particular genre, but you hate the title conventions for that genre. I get it. I know, for example, that the romantasy title trend is starting to garner more criticism (which I'm not going to get into here). There is absolutely no rule that says you MUST follow those conventions. If you can't stand it, don't use it!

In fact, there's no reason that you can't use the convention from one genre for an entirely different genre — just be aware that when you borrow framing from one thing that it can be misleading. Maybe you write your thriller and decide call it "A Castle of Ice and Shame." Your romance could be "Unknown Caller." Only you will know what combination of words will perfectly suit your story!

But the entire rhetoric behind genre tropes and conventions is that these are familiar signposts, themes, plot beats, characters, and ideas that particular groups of stories utilize and discuss — that's what genre is. Part of that discussion can and does involve circumventing expectations. Just remember that if you flip the script around enough times, there will be a point where the story you try to frame as a romance... stops being a romance and becomes something else with a romantic subplot. But that's for another post.

⭐In Closing⭐

In this particular discussion, again, I will reiterate that the title is a factor with relatively low weight in the greater context of your story. Being aware of the expectations and inferences readers will attach to the choices you make is what's important, rather than blindly following them all to a T.

These are hardly the only methods you can use of course, but these are the ones I use the most consistently when I'm making up a title for a piece. I hope you'll find this guide useful, and that titling your next piece will be more fun than trouble!

[rxttenfish]

i have one other fanfic in the caecilian universe planned, Lamb, and i have. no idea when or if i'm ever going to get to it. but i do have parts of it written out already, and it is planned to be a one-shot, not a chapter fic, so perhaps sometime in the future i'll take a small break from caecilian to finish it.

[makanioverlord]

NEW VIDEO UP!!

this one is an artist alley guide, so if you've been wondering how to get into that, here's one I made! shares/likes/subscribes appreciated :D

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

Sisterhood’s Convent on Abbey Rock

A black spit of an island, far from anywhere anyone would want to go. And that's how the Sisterhood likes it. Here stands their fortress-convent. There are bear-traps that look friendlier than this.

[thatrandombystander]

Oh I see it's time for that classic post-socialisation battle where my logical "it's FINE KNOCK IT OFF" brain wants to throttle and bash the head in of my emotional "NO everyone obviously only tolerated me out of politeness" brain

[runningwindenjoyer]

Not me sweating looking at the Scottish wildcats in canon warriors and the noncanon Scottish wildcats I put in my own fanfic and knowing how non canon they are now…

[zandraillustration]

A loose guide to common merch items versus their ease of being produced for beginners ✨

[kwebtv]

TV Guide - July 11 - 17, 1964

The Anchor Men

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll.  (Wikipedia)

Chester Robert "Chet" Huntley (December 10, 1911 – March 20, 1974) was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956. (Wikipedia)

David McClure Brinkley (July 10, 1920 – June 11, 2003) was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997.  (Wikipedia)

Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor.  (Wikipedia)

Edward Paddock Morgan (June 23, 1910 – January 27, 1993) was an American journalist and writer who reported for newspapers, radio, and television media services including ABC, CBS networks, and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). (Wikipedia)

[nooral-fajr]

🗓️ Mark your Calendars for:

HajjCON 2025: In the Footsteps of the Prophets (as) 🕋

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Stay tuned for exciting updates in the coming days, including scholar, program, and schedule announcements!

Noor Al-Fajr is honored to provide this service to the Hujjaj. We make dua for you all to have a Hajj Mabroor! 🤲🏽

follow us on ig @nooral_fajr for the latest updates on Hajj 2025!

🔗 Link to register below 👇🏼

[m0e-ru]

happy monday once again! since im sharing what’s a bunch of stupid witty posts in my draft, I might as well bring out this thing.

I’ll re-debut gsaslau at some point, but here’s what feels like the 6th iteration of the timeline for it after 1000000 attempts of putting it in order.

As of queuing this, I have barely written proper synopses for half of the notes nor have I actually transferred it onto the board itself from the app i wrote it on. But I’m just hoping this is more than the nothing I’ve put out over the years than how much I’ve actually worked on this AU in the dark.

Because this is one of the hundred attempts of making it, there’s a lot of stuff i have no idea where to put nor have I actually put it down yet, but it’s the basic gist and flow of everything. And regarding everything that’s actually written, take it with a shaker of salt because I have not proofread anything at all. This thing is essentially a giant wip of things if you’ve seen kairou already.

[rxttenfish]

i might take a break on caecilian, at least until my family turns the Fucking AC On. ive been trying to write lately and its just. not happening.

[mathmusicreading]

Xiè Lián: My surname is Xiè, my first name is Lián. Huā Chéng: You can call me your third husband. Xiè Lián: What happened to my first two husbands?!

I learned Huā Chéng was having Xiè Lián call him "husband" from Ty the Canasian on Kictor's YouTube, I found this when I was trying to corroborate the linguistics, and I indulged and bought the official Seven Seas Entertainment (translator and editor are on Tumblr!) English translations of the books so here's further confirmation from Volume 1:

ETA:

I made this post private because I was unhappy with it (misspelling/misformatting Wúmíng, knowing I wouldn't have good reach for larger and less biased sample size even if I could have tagged better for the fandoms and characters if Tumblr organized by more than the first five tags), but I'm making it public again since it finished and so did the similar poll that fun-mxtx-polls was kind enough to make for me.

Not to bias towards the first option, just to explain it, the first option and why I wanted this poll come from the naming pattern trivia for MXTX's love interests/male leads/gongs, which I think you can best read on Huā Chéng's page on the Heaven Official's Blessing/Tiān Guān Cì Fú wikia. I'm just using that as my citation given:

I'm not sure if MXTX has discussed this meta in-joke somewhere and if so, where.

The SSE Glossary: Terminology note (all volumes of all three MXTX novels) only explains the second and third gongs, and implies MXTX is doing this purposefully. Lán Wàngjī's wikia page explains only the three published gongs, and implies this started from fandom phenomena creating a proto-stage pattern (if you subscribe to "one is chance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern"). Huā Chéng's page linked above is the odd man out and so probably incorrect about Lán-èr-gē vs. Lán-èr-gēge, but it goes above and beyond by explaining the fourth gong, and it uses the most neutral language regarding this trivia.

I think citation is unnecessary for "gē" (哥 | 哥) meaning "big brother" and in certain contexts having the connotation or meaning of "eldest brother" (admittedly my unverified inference), "èr" (二 | 二) meaning "two", and "sān" (三 | 三) meaning "three".

I actually like so much because I like to think if it could use more wordplay and less literalism. Please forgive me for being a poor reader not remembering exactly, not buying the TGCF raws yet, not being able to buy the SVSSS and MDZS raws, and only being able to find old fan translations/interpretations of MXTX's fourth novel preview, but let me explain:

I believe Luò Bīnghé isn't being called "Luò Bīnghé-gē" (or rather "Bīng-gē" since I think? it's more usual to use the suffix with the single/first character of a person's given name, not with their full name, especially when the full name is three (or more? some of my reading has mentioned two-character last names but I didn't find if culture was strict about then making the given name be only one character) characters) for the usual reasons to address someone with "gē", but actually the PIDW!Luò Bīnghé is being called Luò Bīnggē (or "Bīng-gē") because he's more aggressive than canon/SVSSS!Luò Bīnggē who when being differentiated gets called Luò Bīngmèi (or "Bīng-mèi"), and I love that "very fitting reasoning for the naming, not strictly literal and not so bound to literal".

Then with Lán Wàngjī, I see the opportunity that his nickname could have used the natural naming of "erhua is used as a diminutive suffix", and the "er" would have been homophonous with "èr" (二 | 二) for "two" for him being the second gong, and homophonous to the potential "proper address for him as the second Lán son/brother".

In the most literal sense, you'll notice that the gongs so far have had their nicknames be using "(big) brother" and Huā Chéng's uses láng (郎 | 郎) "son" (his stated meaning, although it can also mean "man" and "husband" and the latter is how we can interpret he wanted it to be when coming from Xiè Lián). There's nothing wrong with that and the numbers are perfectly probable, and would still be so as they grow, but also they could feel more like "contrived" coincidence, which is part of my wanting to get away from literalism a little bit, not just my loving clever wordplay. With Huā Chéng, I don't have a homophone I can use for punning like with Lán Wàngjī, or really the "cultural language use where literal suffixes/honorifics get used figuratively for XYZ purposes", but I can make it fit with character interpretation. To me, Sān Láng doesn't have to be "Third Son" because "he has two older brothers" and in fact we aren't sure that he was telling the truth about that—instead, I think Huā Chéng could be being clever with not just getting Xiè Lián to call him (Third/surname "Three") Husband but in saying his name is "Third Man" because this is the third alias he gives Xiè Lián. (Some additional feels this gives me: It's like he's saying he's the same person Xiè Lián met before, that they shared all of that experience and it mattered, that he's the final form of that person wanting to be with Xiè Lián, that he's like a fairy-tale character with many names and forms and a true name and form and all along there was a trick or thread to follow in knowing and identifying him.) It just works out so perfectly because of the third way he introduces himself to Xiè Lián matching him being the third gong, and also the fairy-tale significant number of "three".

Finally, with the fourth gong, I've looked at Suika's TGCF Afterword translation, a NovelUpdates MDZS spoilers forum post by K.san crossposted to the Grim Reapers Have No Days Off spoilers forum by alexfilia, a reply to this post in r/tianguancifu by u/chenmochou, and also this post in r/tianguancifu by u/Loud_Daikon6167 which cites a TikTok I can't see either because of TikTok's thing about opening to a random page/the homepage or I assume the TikTok being removed or locked. Given the first NovelUpdates post maybe having more of a direct translation compared to the first Reddit post, it's still not definitive to me whether this is "actually more of a fandom thing, with MXTX acknowledging and participating in it enough to help make it possible" or it's "MXTX doing this on purpose with her name choices and character traits, whether she meant to have the pattern from the start or later, and yes could have been influenced by fandom" because I think "Other: 四少" is probably about the male lead(s) compared to it following "Protagonist: the uke's name is not determined yet" so it doesn't seem like the fandom came up with a nickname out of whole cloth. "Four young masters" is perfectly probable and could be equally reasonable, and "four ikemen" could even follow in reasonability; in fact it could be more likely and realistic since this is a modern setting, which would have different use of "young master" to me, and because we believe the gong to be the regular human and the shou to be the grim reaper. But for the wordplay, I would have liked it if the gong were the grim reaper and the "four theme naming" came from the famous "sì" (四 | 四) meaning "four" is homophonous with "sǐ" (死 | 死) meaning "die/death" and the latter being used in the Chinese for "grim reaper"/"death god".

[howmanyheartaches]

Am 7. April halte ich bei der aniMUC einen Vortag zu "Queeres Japan". Kommt rum! 11 Uhr 15 ist showtime!

[zapsoda]

mephisto is an ecto hybrid of gamzee and caliborn. for lore reasons thsi is because one of the troll grubbies spilled milk all over the ectobiology apparatus when karkat was making the little paradox clone babies.

for me reasons there is a story behind this.

the whole point of meffy is that i just wanted to make a character who would be a good friend to jake.

so i had to figure out their species. human could work, but thats fucking boring. i thought he definitely deserved a real troll friend, but i felt that a regular troll who grew up in alternian society wouldnt fit the niche i wanted this character to. cherub was a viable option, but whats the point in making a homestuck oc if its not a troll? so i made a compromise. troll cherub ecto baby

i chose gamz and caliborn becsuse uhhh i like them. there are other lore reasons i jusr cant remember them right now

fun fact. gamz is a rage aspect and caliborn is a time aspect. the One aspect directly in between these two on that hive swap aspect wheel is HEART. which is meffys aspect. i think heart complements jake very well and fits the role of someone who was Made just to be a friend to someoen. thus a selfless class (passive) would be most fitting! i chose the passive creation class, sylph, because i think his purpose as i have created him most aligns with the idea of creating bonds and/or identity, for the sake of others [jake]. isnt that something.

[houseofwolvess]

kinda wish i could just... ditch my glasses in public sometimes. no contacts, no glasses, just vibes

[zeydaan-isabella]

Furcation's Guide

Ponk Energy: While the best drink in the universe is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster- the drink defined for its ability to speedrun one through the many stages of drunkedness, hangover, inevitable decline, sobriety, rebound and then moving on and forgetting about the sodding drink. It's widely well known that many companies would simply seek to create their own rather than using the similar level of Quantum Fermentology to cure world hunger or finally giving a conclusive answer to a much debated subject on woodchucking woodchucks. Ponk energy was the result of such endeavours, created by two ferrets after one was instructed to create a drink of the colour, having mistyped it due to having small paws. The resulting drink has been described by the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as 'Unquestionably Ponk'- and when asked what Ponk actually means, the guide immediately tells you a list of the universes greatest Philosophers, how to contact them, and a list of equally renowned Therapists and Rehabilitation centers for after you two would have loosened up. - Piece made for Furcation 2023, based on the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy and the Ponk Meme from various furcations. Frankie taking a swig of the infamous drink and Clive describing the situation very succinctly.