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@storysmith

Well, a good place to start is that your title doesn’t have to be perfect 🙂 The only thing your title has to do is fit your genre and the general idea of your story. It isn’t part of the story, it doesn’t necessarily have to make a big thematic statement or show some other layer to the story. It just has to sound good, be (somewhat) memorable, and tell your readers what genre it is.

First, think about your age range. Is it a YA? Is it an Adult? Next, what genre is it? I remember you said it’s a fantasy, so that’s a good place to start.

Something that helps is to go to Amazon and just look through books in your genre and age range. You’ll pick up patterns. YA fantasy is pretty notorious for this. (They really do all sound the same) but that’s for a reason! It tells the reader exactly what the story is about. If I see the words “Crown/*Insert royal title*/Blood/Raven/Sword” in a title I pretty much instantly know it’s a YA fantasy.

So, jot down any patterns you see, both in words and styles. (Like “Adjective Noun” or “Noun of Adjective and Adjective”) Pay attention though, those age quickly. The latter scheme has gone out of fashion and if you use it now your book will look like it was published a few years ago.

Anyway, once you have those ideas, you can start writing down words related to your story and play the synonym game. Try to find one or two synonyms for each first word you get. So, instead of “Gold” try “Gilded”. Instead of Crown, try “Circlet”. Of course, you can take this to a pretty ridiculous point, but you get the idea, you don’t have to go with your first instinct.

One thing that does help is to stick to at least slightly solid concepts. Not to say you can’t use abstract concepts like freedom, courage, liberty, etc but it often won’t be specific enough.

Try fitting different words into the styles you identified earlier, and before you know it you’ll have something.

I’ll give you an example from one of my future projects!

It’s a YA fantasy story strongly related to the sea, pirates, music, rebellion, and hidden identities. The main character is a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, who is also a seamstress.

So, here are a few of my concepts:

Song of the Storm. (Not bad but a bit cliche. Sounds more MG too.)

Waves of Change (Very cliche, sounds contemporary as well)

Storm needle (Too abstract, I can’t picture it)

Shards of storm (Again, very general)

Shards of Starlight (Very vague, and it sounds like a romance ngl)

Stitching the Storm. (Better)

Mask of Storms (Interesting, I kind of like this one.)

 

I haven’t decided anything on this, and I probably won’t soon! Write it down when you get an idea, and give it time!

I hope this was helpful! Feel free to post a bunch of ideas, it often helps to explain them to other people and get feedback!