Title Above The Name (naming stories and finding inspiration)

Beginning in the '70s, when I was a teenage wannabe writer trying to remove "wannabe" from my chosen job description, I often started with a title. Even if a specific inspiration predated selecting a title, I wouldn't really start writing a story until I had chosen a suitable title for it.

Part of what prompted this approach of naming before creating was a matter of function: the title came first at the top of the page, I didn't want to waste time or paper, so I needed to type the title and take it from there. No rewrites! No revisions! First draft should be final draft! And typos...well, typos tended to scotch the plan, but I still tried to stick to the plan, numbskulled as it was.

Looking back, though, I betcha I also favored the idea of a catchy title helping to sell the story. I was versed in superhero tropes, movie serial hype, rock 'n' roll showmanship, and the expressive eloquence of my writing idol, Harlan Ellison. The title was an integral part of the story. So the purple prose of TITLE! helped to direct and drive my fanciful ambitions.

Nightmare Resurrection. Reflections In A Golden Egg. Seven Minutes To Blackout. The Children Of Malice. Lazarus Lives. The Autobiography Of Somebody Else. The Casebook Of Sherlock Tracy. Saturday Night At The Shoot-Out. The Maltese Padlock. The "Red" Badge Of Courage (which had nothing to do with Stephen Crane). The Splitting Of Infinity. Christmas In July, and its presumed sequel Love, Death, And The Santa Claus Killer. The Men Who Read To Death. Messiah. A Piece Of The Outer Space Action. The Day I Met The Batman. My Mom says I mentioned wanting to write a book called Lone Star Falling. Sometimes the idea occurred first, sometimes title and idea were the same thing. Prose short stories, comic book scripts, some completed, some abandoned, some never really started beyond the picking of a title. None of them were any good, mind you, but each was at least a tentative step in my stumbling march toward becoming someone who writes.

My approach has evolved a bit over the decades. Nowadays, I usually start with an idea, whether it's a general concept or a line or a hook. Relaxing in a sprawled position on the coach the other day, my mind suddenly spewed out a new opening line--"The ghost of Quisling knocked back a drink"--which was in immediate need of a story to go with it. I tethered that line to an unused notion I had in college, wrote a few more lines, and gave it a tentative title of "The Traitor's Tour Guide: Visiting Hell." I'll pick at that one to see if it can become something.

I still keep track of notions by title. Even if the title is just a placeholder, it helps me navigate the Sargasso Sea of my creative process. I sold two short stories with copperhead motifs--a Western called "The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid" and a '30s pulp hero yarn billed as "The Copperhead Strikes!"--so of course I'm toying with the notion of a '60s secret agent story, "Codename: Copperhead!" These join my ever-present list of proposed story titles, from "The Devil And Her Details" to "The Last Will And Testament Of [Your Name Here]" to "Last Stand On Uranus." You shall know me by my trail of titles.

And I tell ya: if I can ever figure out something decent to go with "The Men Who Read To Death," I'm writin' it.

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Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying it from Futureman.

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