Titles? What do you mean, /titles/?!

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by Jean, Nov 18, 2018.

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  1. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    Post a summary of what you're trying to do with your wip and get advice for how to title it! It's something a lot of people struggle with, so I figured hey, better work together, right?
     
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  2. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    One of my many ofic:

    The setting: a fictional world. Post-post-apocalypse - yeah, everything went tits up, but it's been a good two centuries and a lot's been forgotten, including a great deal of the former technology and even why society collapsed. Cut to an insulated mountain country, nearly completely cut off from the rest of the continent on all sides. Beyond the mountains to the north east is dessert, occupied by several entirely different peoples.

    The characters: Rahim is facinated by the way people relate, think, communicate. He has dedicatedly researched the way their language has changed over time, and had found burried here and there bits and pieces of other languages, clearly foreign but translatable with some efforts. Further research tells him what directions these people come from, answering his long-held questions about the nation's clear genetic diversity. An enthusiastic and effusive man, he makes acquaintances easily but rarely friends. Generous to a fault and well-versed in psychology. A sly, playful sense of humor, though he can sometimes go to far.

    Hexaba is facinated by architectural history and what it reveals about society as a whole. The shifts of culture over time, social norms, what can be traced back to where... she has many of the same questions as her partner. Cold and closed off right up until she trusts you, but don't let her world-weary practicality fool you - this woman is a dork. Easily the main source of the craziest ideas between the two of them. Dry sense of humor that many mistake for cruelty or mockery, leaving her with her shaky social skills unsure of how to straighten things out.

    Sae: ancient android preserved in a closed-off section of ruins left from before the apocalypse, half-lost in the desert. In hibernation until dug up by locals who somehow become convinced that they are a gift from/conduit of their god. They only partially come out of hibernation then; they require use of their native language for that, and its current form just isn't close enough. Emotionally intelligent, not that they always bother to use that. Excitable and eager for adventure(!!), with a deadpan sense of humor and an archivist's way of thinking about the world.

    The plot: Hexaba and Rahim meet, team up, fall in love, and scrape together the funds to go on an anthropological expedition. And so they encounter Sae, and, well, the only version they know of the local language is very, very old...

    Basically, the three of them run about having adventures and learning about other cultures and polyamory happens. Also an ancient villain turns out to have uploaded his brain into a computer and is unearthed - he's not content to leave the continent as it is - that is to say, not under his control - and so it's up to them to stop him!

    Eventually their exploration takes them to the northern coast, and a sea captain whose character I'm not solid on yet agrees, with the agreement of her crew, to take them, and a mathematician who has calculated the size of the globe and is certain there is more land to be found, out into the unknown. Sae is v frustrated that they were created after the continent had already closed itself off.


    This will be a web comic as soon as I have a drawing tablet and also a NAME. Why is figuring out titles so dificult?
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2019
  3. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    Bumping cause I still think title collaboration is a good idea.
     
  4. Loq

    Loq rotating like a rotisserie chicknen

    break-up-make-up romance oneshot set over court intrigue and fantasy-typical Save The World In Three Days action
    probably shouldn't go out as "garbage man in his garbage can"
     
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  5. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    Song quote? What kind of save the world is it? "Your plot has been foiled, villainous scum!" Or "REVOLUTION!!" Or "global warming has been Solved!", etc etc?
     
  6. Loq

    Loq rotating like a rotisserie chicknen

    Little of columns A and B? Two Villainous Groups at cross-purposes (one Magic Apocalypse-Bringing Cult, one Invading Army that coincidentally want there to still be a world to conquer) accidentally catch our Bold Heroes in the crossfire. Invading Army is technically the only one that actually ends up defeated, Apocalypse Cult remaining for further plot nonsense later on.
     
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  7. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    Premise: Harry Potter, at the urging of his friends, vamoses out of England and travels the world after the final battle. He is quite reluctant because he feels he should be continuing to help in the rebuilding/reforming efforts
    After the war is over, Harry can’t stay in Britain. Oh, he tries - he does everything he can to help with the rebuilding and recovery. He attends every single funeral. He works himself to exhaustion every day and shakes with nightmares, daymares, flashbacks - ruthlessly stifled and pushed down. He develops a minor addiction to Dreamless Sleep and has to go through quitting it. He doesn’t quite dare to try muggle sleep aids.


    Ron and Hermione - hell, everyone - looks at him with concern when they have the energy and time, and eventually his best friends take him aside to the kitchen in Grimmauld Place and sit him down.


    “Harry…” Hermione’s brow is furrowed over worried eyes. He can tell by the look on her face that she’s trying to be tactful, which has never been her strong suit. Or any of their strong suits.


    “Mate, you’re twitchier than Mad Eye and as miserable as when we were carting around that bloody locket with us.” Ron, as usual, cuts straight to the heart of it.


    Hermione nods, ignoring the way Harry is tensing up.


    “You’re not healing, Harry. And I know it’s a lot to ask for, and I know you’re not the only one, but it’s just… You of all people deserve some peace. I don’t know exactly how to find you that, but we want to help.”


    Harry just - he cannot <em>believe</em> they’re saying this to him. <em>”I</em> deserve? What about everyone who -” He can’t quite say it. “<em>They</em> deserve to be alive! Teddy deserves to have his parents, George deserves to have his twin - everyone lost someone, everyone is hurting, everyone deserves their loved ones back and their lives and to not be so scarred up and <em>damaged</em> and to find <em>peace</em>.” He practically spits it. “I deserve less than anyone - if I hadn’t - if I’d just -”


    He’s standing, hands clenched, breathing labored. ...Huh. He hadn’t noticed himself getting up.
    but they convince him to put himself first for once.

    Somewhere in the American northeast, he meets a pair of cursebreakers whose job isn't really important - the relevant bit is that they foster and mentor magical children and young adults who need somewhere to turn to, before they turn to something or someone that'll hurt them. Or help them recover, after. But not in a self righteous kind of way. They're a major part of both the magical and muggle parts of their local community. They're not actually a couple; they're aro/ace best friends who married because it would make it easier to adopt and/or foster and they wanted to give the kind of help they needed but never got. (Why yes, these are my beloved ocs from an entirely different story.) They get him therapy.

    The main focus is him forming healthy bonds with a wide range of people and getting therapy, with a side of culture shock because Americans Are Weird.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
  8. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    That sounds really cool. Uh... No clue.

    Google songs about an apocalypse? Pick foiling evil type lyrics from something? Ugh sorry I'm super bad at this.
     
  9. Loq

    Loq rotating like a rotisserie chicknen

    I can't claim credit for the concept, I'm filling in character studies around a plot-driven section of vidya game :P
     
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  10. Loq

    Loq rotating like a rotisserie chicknen

    'another kind of battle'? 'a more personal peace'? I am in Lyrical Prose mode atm I can't think of anything less purple :P
     
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  11. Jean

    Jean Let’s stop procrastinating -- tomorrow!

    I mean, my strategy is "grab lyrics from whatever I'm listening to atm" or "mangled literary quote from something I read five years ago", so... Sometimes poetry? Or This Is Literally What Happens In The Fic. And even then half the time I can't think up anything. Really no place to judge.
     
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