Title Anxiety

It started out as "The Fate of the Coral Horn."

Then I decided that was just a tad too trite so I borrowed from a title of a shelved project and called it "The Flight of the Coral Horn." That didn't really fit the story, and my mother is a fan of the shelved project and was worried if I borrowed from that title I would never write it. So then it became "The Plight of the Coral Horn," which is more accurate but somehow still seems to lack something. The story itself is now been through it's first polish, and is only another polish away from being publish worthy.

Yep, this officially sucks. Being a writer can be a real headache sometimes. I've had plots and stories that have refused to cooperate before, and I don't even want to go into the nightmare of writing blurbs for my stories, but this is the first time I have ever struggled so much with a title before.

But it's important.

That title is the first thing a reader sees, along with that cover. It is a one word, or one short sentence, synopsis of your story....where you have to pack as much drama as you can into a few short words that capture the essence of the story. It matters, and it's important to get it right. It's just that I've never had much trouble with them before. Heck, I often know the title of the story before I write it.

But here I sit at Starbucks, straining my poor gray cells to provide an acceptable title that doesn't sound trite, lame, or pulled out of my butt.

Sigh. It's a rotten job, but somebody's got to do it.