For a good long spell one of my favorite ways of developing a short story was not to think of a neat idea or character but rather to come up with a title and then fashion some kind of story to go with it. This is not a great way to produce rich, nuanced tales but I got a few decent ones from some rather dubious titles. “Learning to Die” is a simple play on the song “Learning to Fly” (Pink Floyd or Tom Petty version, take your pick) and that turned out nicely. I was going to offer another example or two but I seem to have forgotten the names. Yes, that’s it.
On the other hand, here are some titles so bland or plain terrible I have yet to turn the overwhelming majority of them into stories and hopefully never will. These are examples of what happens when brainstorms are more like intermittent showers. I’ve added notes for spice, variety and to in some tiny way justify another list post.
The list is honking long, so continue reading after the break.
- (Parenthetical) Man
- A Lump or Two
- A Tale of Two Weevils
- Across the Tracks [later written as Follow the Tracks, with a 16 year gap before I finished the story]
- Am I Getting Closer? [hint: no]
- Another Furry Wentwill Story [Furry Wentwills were furry and slimy creatures in the mercifully unfinished SF novel I wrote when I was 19]
- Anything Else Matter
- Apathisma
- Argue the Point
- Autumn on an Airplane [this might make for a decent poem if I could write decent poetry]
- Away On Ice
- Big Ears [nickname for the younger of my two sisters. I’m pretty sure she was not a big fan of the term.]
- Blah Blah Blah [I smell writer’s block in this one]
- Blandhunt! [also this one]
- Blazing Intellect Burned Down the Town
- Book of Worms [suggested for Clive Barker homage]
- Bookworms [see above]
- Brain Train
- Brain War
- Bravely There Hair [this suggests possibilities]
- Broken Switch on Rail Line 3
- Bugs in Rugs [probably inspired by some of the seedier apartments I’ve lived in]
- Butch, the Teddy Bear Hamster
- Cans and Strings
- Chalkboard Blues [Write “I will not think of lame story titles 50 times”]
- Changes [I actually wrote an unfinished story with this title. It was basically a male version of Carrie. Cary, perhaps.]
- Cliff Face [Dick Tracy villain reject]
- Climb Tree Climb [but trees can’t climb!]
- Close Enough
- Conjunction Junction [what’s your function?]
- Conundrums and Bugles [terrible wordplay and yet delightful at the same time]
- Dante on the Run
- Dark Orange
- Dead Weight [has to be a horror story]
- Department of Holes
- Donor Card
- Doors
- Down in the Mall
- Down the Trail
- Draw the Cowboy
- Driving to Distraction [I still like this one]
- Ear Candy
- Everything in Lost Causes [this has an elliptical quality I like]
- Family of Favors
- Fantastic Voyage, Part III [in which a team of scientists are shrunk and injected into a smartphone to repair it]
- Fat Cats and Whale Blubber [no idea]
- Feathers and Iron [inspired by “Fall on Me” from R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant]
- Gasoline Killed My Car [prosaic or profound?]
- Get a Life
- Ghost of a Chance [ghost story, of course–or is it?]
- Global Village Idiot [more terrible wordplay, my favorite kind]
- Glow in the Dark
- God Video [I get a Videodrome vibe here]
- Golfing on Phobos [inspired by the golfing scene in Outland]
- Great Tales of Madness and Macramé [also known as The Evil Knitters Do]
- Grow up to be Eraserhead [seems more of a song title]
- Hanging on a Word [writer in jeopardy?]
- Happy Face
- Happy Pamphlets of Information
- Hell’s Okay [I like the simplicity of this]
- Hell’s Tubular Bells [wordplay]
- Here I Go Again [probably inspired by the above]
- Hey, Mr. Democracy [hey indeed]
- Hoboes With Oboes [it’s fun to say out loud–try it!]
- HomoCulture [um, I dunno. In the future “the gays” take over the world with their SECRET AGENDA]
- I’m a Formal Head [okay…]
- I’m a Milk Carton! [really, okay…]
- I’m on Cloud 8 [when your dreams fall a bit short]
- I Am Bic Pentameter [this is terrible all the way through. Shakespeare rolled in his grave with such force his spinning took him up and into geosynchronous orbit]
- I Am Fear
- I Eat Myself [a lighter version of Stephen King’s “Survivor Type,” perhaps]
- I Lost My Mind, But Found it Later [this had to be near the end of a brainstorming session]
- I Think I’m Leaking Slowly
- I Turned Off the Radio But the Martians Wouldn’t Shut Up [I like this one, no idea what it means]
- If I Were Bruce Springsteen [it would be boss. Get it?! Ho ho!]
- If the True Thing Happens [kind of dumb, really]
- In Tabloid Dreamland [this intrigues me a little]
- In This Town
- Incident at Fuller Lake [Fuller Lake is near Chemainus; I like the implication that there is another lake nearby that is not as full]
- Island of Lost Soles [terrible pun taken from the Blondie song]
- Isolation
- It’s a Grand Old Flog [this makes me laugh at the sheer dumbness]
- It’s Slinky!
- Killer Bunnies in Disneyland [too cute]
- Klingon Bastards Killed My Son [sounds more like an indie record]
- Lana Banana
- Light House [separating the words is important somehow]
- Long Term Interest
- Make Mine Pear-Shaped [possibilities]
- Mind Doesn’t Matter [instead of “over,” presumably]
- Misery Has Arrived [I like this, it’s delightfully straightforward]
- Model Ship
- Mr. Continental [not to be confused with the Christopher Walken character on SNL–or is it?]
- Much Too Much Music [bonus opinion on the Canadian music channel?]
- NC-17 Guy
- Nature is a Cruel Woman [protests would help boost interest]
- Nebraska Hunters [coming soon to History Channel]
- Never Admit It
- Nice Shoes, Art Fag [an expression a friend of mine used in college]
- Nightmare Inc. [this screams “Twilight Zone]
- Notgone Woods [this also inspired “Follow the Tracks”]
- Oh Sticky Me [don’t think about this too much]
- One Leg at a Time
- Orange Grapes
- Oregon Coast Snake [inspired by a snake on the Oregon coast my dad almost stepped on. It was a rattler.]
- Out of the Ground [zombies?]
- Paper Wait [terrible/delightful]
- Peeing on the Universe [irreverent sociopolitical commentary of the type I never write, maybe]
- Penguins in Paradise [an ode to flightless fowl]
- Pete’s Hair [no idea]
- Photograph of Amelia [Earhart? Maybe.]
- Pick-up Truck [the tale of a PUA and his Ford F150?]
- Pleasant Log Flume Ride [if it’s pleasant there’s not much of a story]
- Poodle Pie [inspired by Theater of Blood, with Vincent Price]
- Pool of Ink
- Pretty Bunnies and Happy Flowers [I wrote this as a poem. A terrible, mildly disturbing poem]
- Pygmy God [another poem]
- ROMBO [some AI-gone-wrong thing]
- Scratches on the Wall [horror, of course]
- Secretary of Definition [nicely weird]
- She Was an Iron Rocket
- Spirit Boon
- Stew! [the exclamation point sells it]
- Sting of Love [I imagine this as a song]
- Stop That Cow [turned into an actual short story]
- Straight From the Source
- Suggestion Box
- Take Two Stone Tablets
- Tasty Crunchy Something
- Telephone Lines
- Ten Thousand Crosses [World War II story?]
- Tennis Court, No Office [another off-kilter title I like]
- The Axe Murders or The Ice Pick Cometh [some Friday the 13th rip-off]
- The Bells of a Fairy
- The Bridge [long short story written as The Broken Bridge]
- The Clay Doll
- The Complexities of Nudity [indeed]
- The Deep End
- The Door [written as At the Door]
- The Flowers (Are Dead)
- The Incredible Shopping Cart Journey [so dumb I almost wrote it]
- The Lady in the Store
- The Lesser of Two Weevils [I had a weevil thing, apparently]
- The Long and Winding Toad [bad]
- The Man, the Woman and the Koi [a jab at arty films]
- The Relentless Pursuit of the Chronically Untalented [this makes me laugh]
- The Sand is Sliding In [could be a Minecraft adventure]
- The Shape of Fools
- The Sometimes Island [written as a short story]
- The Value of Screaming [so sayeth Tears For Fears]
- The White Duck
- There’s a Nut Inside My Hospital Gown [the especially dumb ones always makes me laugh. I’m easily amused.]
- This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquariums [They Might Be Giants could sue]
- Thumper Eats Bambi
- Tired of U [as performed by Prince]
- Title Page
- Tombstone Structure
- Tornado Alley
- Train Wreck
- Triple Click
- Twin Geeks
- Vegetable Shooter [inspired by too many infomercials]
- Verse With Verve
- Visual Aid
- Weenie Spirit
- Weirk [weird work?]
- Wight Christmas [pretty sure this is an actual horror movie]
- Windsong On My Mind, In My Hair And On My Clothes
- Wing Ding
- Wrong Planet [I think of this as an album title]
- Killing Time [actual short story]
- Time Enough to Screw Up the World [I like how straightforward this is, even though it’s really “Killing Time,” above]
- Time: 3, Wayne: 0 [someone needs to write this]