I'm horrid at titles. Absolutely horrific. I'd number fics if I could. When pushed, I've taken them from appropriate songs (but never the song title, I find that cheesy and it tends to indicate songfics, most of which are crap), from poetry, and I'm a fan of the one-word title a little too often. Ah, thesaurus, how I love thee. Very rarely will a fic gain a title without angst from me.
And I TRY to pick something original, but that's very difficult sometimes. Just like particular phrases in well-known fics, they're easily to steal if you're not thinking about it properly.
As for other people's titles... well, I'm mildly put off by "Untitled" as well - I figure if you can't even make the effort to title your work then the contents probably aren't great. Not always true, I know. I don't like song titles as fic titles, for the reason mentioned above. An intelligent sounding title is more likely to make me read it, as well - appropriate lines from poetry, a bit of Latin here and there.
But on the whole, I don't think it lends as much weight as the summary (something I'm also horrid at). I pick what to read by minor summary details all the time, which probably means that I'm missing out on some great stuff, but when you have limited time...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-07-17 12:22 pm (UTC)I'm horrid at titles. Absolutely horrific. I'd number fics if I could. When pushed, I've taken them from appropriate songs (but never the song title, I find that cheesy and it tends to indicate songfics, most of which are crap), from poetry, and I'm a fan of the one-word title a little too often. Ah, thesaurus, how I love thee. Very rarely will a fic gain a title without angst from me.
And I TRY to pick something original, but that's very difficult sometimes. Just like particular phrases in well-known fics, they're easily to steal if you're not thinking about it properly.
As for other people's titles... well, I'm mildly put off by "Untitled" as well - I figure if you can't even make the effort to title your work then the contents probably aren't great. Not always true, I know. I don't like song titles as fic titles, for the reason mentioned above. An intelligent sounding title is more likely to make me read it, as well - appropriate lines from poetry, a bit of Latin here and there.
But on the whole, I don't think it lends as much weight as the summary (something I'm also horrid at). I pick what to read by minor summary details all the time, which probably means that I'm missing out on some great stuff, but when you have limited time...