Concerning Book Titles

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by Rush Limborg, Sep 19, 2008.

  1. Rush Limborg

    Rush Limborg Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Here's a question for the writers.

    How do you come up with titles for your books? Is it a spontaneous thing? Do the editors make suggestions? Something else?
     
  2. Dayton Ward

    Dayton Ward Word Pusher Rear Admiral

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    Any and all of the above.

    Sometimes a title just jumps out at me; other times I have to really ponder it. Sometimes I/we will suggest a title that doesn't work for the editor, and either they suggest alternatives, or else we brainstorm until we come up with one we all like.
     
  3. KRAD

    KRAD Keith R.A. DeCandido Admiral

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    Well, let's take 'em one by one, shall we?

    Diplomatic Implausibility: This was one I came up with, which is a play on the phrase "diplomatic immunity."

    Demons of Air and Darkness: The title comes from the phrase used to describe the Iconians from the episode "Contagion." And it just sounds cool. I'm pretty sure that using that title was Marco's idea.

    The Brave and the Bold
    : This was mine, and it is/was the title of DC's team-up comic (usually, but not always, teaming Batman and Superman), playing on the "starship team-up" theme of the duology. I honestly proposed it as a joke, but John went for it.

    The Art of the Impossible
    : This is a play on Otto von Bismarck's famous phrase, "politics is the art of the possible." I honestly don't remember if it was me or Marco who came up with it.

    A Good Day to Die
    : I was kicking off a series of Klingon books. What the hell else was I gonna call it?

    Honor Bound
    : Again, a fairly obvious title...

    A Time for War, a Time for Peace
    : This, and the other titles in the series, were established ahead of time.

    Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed
    : For the Ferenginar portion of Worlds of ST: DS9, I wanted the title to be a Rule of Acquisition. This was the one that fit the plot best.

    Enemy Territory: A literal title that I came up with.

    Articles of the Federation
    : This was my working title for my long-planned book on the Federation Presidency, and we never came up with a better title.

    The Mirror-Scaled Serpent
    : This is from a William Butler Yeats poem. The rest of the poem doesn't fit, but that phrase works nicely with the Mirror Universe theme and the theme of a metaphorical serpent in the midst...

    Q & A
    : TerriO came up with this one. I was struggling to come up with a title, and she asked me, "What is the novel about?" I said, "It answers everything about Q." And she said, "Duh!" and suggested this title.

    A Burning House
    : I believe this was Marco's suggestion, coming from the phrase uttered by Kang in "Day of the Dove": "only a fool fights in a burning house."

    A Gutted World
    : I came up with this one, and it came from the Wallace Stevens poem that serves as the novel's epigraph.

    A Singular Destiny
    : This comes from a comment by Thomas Macaulay, Lord Babington, writing in 1831 about Boswell's Life of Johnson. It fits very nicely and has the word "destiny" in it -- that last part was kind of important for a Destiny followup....
     
  4. David Mack

    David Mack Writer Rear Admiral

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    I'm not sure I remember the origin of all of my Trek titles, but I'll try.

    The Starfleet Survival Guide: This title was handed to me when I was hired for the project. I don't know which editor conceived the title; it might have been either Margaret Clark or Jessica McGivney.

    Invincible: I came up with this SCE eBook title. It was intended as an ironic title for a story about a character who is remarkably vulnerable throughout the tale.

    Wildfire: This SCE eBook title was also mine. I wanted something "action-y" that would sound like a Starfleet code name for a protostellar ignition device.

    A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal: Both titles were established ahead of time by editor John Ordover, who drew them from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

    Failsafe: Another one of my invention, inspired by the malfunctioning gizmo that makes the story possible.

    Warpath: My fault again. It was meant to suggest a "path to war" with the Ascendants, and also describe Vaughn's mission of retribution and Taran'atar's explosive betrayal and subsequent rampage through local space.

    Small World: This SCE eBook title was both literal (a planet has been shrunk and put inside a small pyramid about the size of a breadbox) and a play on the common phrase, "It's a small world." Both the story and the title were ones that I had developed as a Voyager TV pitch years earlier with John Ordover.

    Vanguard: This series title was my idea. I chose it for three reasons. First, it evokes the sense of a farthest-forward frontier, which is where our story is set. Second, it can mean a military unit deployed ahead of its counterparts, which our heroes certainly are. And third, in the arts, a vanguard is something ahead of its time, a trend-setter, which was an association I wanted for the series that Marco and I developed.

    Harbinger: My choice again. For a first book in a series that could only set up some scenarios and pay off very few of them, a title that meant "a sign of things to come" felt very appropriate.

    Road of Bones: This title, for my Wolverine spy-thriller novel, was borrowed from the nickname for a Siberian road built by gulag prisoners. In the book, I used the phrase to symbolize Logan's long history of violence.

    Reap the Whirlwind: This title was suggested by TrekBBS poster RatBoy. With his permission, I stole it for the third Vanguard novel.

    The Sorrows of Empire: For my Mirror Universe short novel about Spock's ruthless rise to power and subsequent democratic reforms, I unabashedly stole this poetic and elegiac title from a nonfiction political tome by the esteemed Chalmers Johnson.

    Destiny: This "umbrella title" for the new trilogy was one of dozens that I tinkered with for months. My earlier suggestions had all been rejected, and I was tasked with thinking up a name for the trilogy that hadn't been used on a Star Trek book, and which would make it easy for the sales force to market the trilogy. This was my solution.

    Gods of Night: I think I stumbled across this phrase during a late-night web crawl, and I liked the way it sounded. I decided it could apply to my newly created alien civilization or to the Borg, so I went with it.

    Mere Mortals: To establish a metaphysical theme for the trilogy's titles, I decided to counterpoint the first book's invocation of "gods" with its opposite: mortals. This was also a title I had wanted to use for some time, and it felt right for this, because the second book of the trilogy focuses a lot on the limitations of our protagonists against an overwhelming threat and civilization-wide disaster.

    Lost Souls: The metaphysical theme continues for the trilogy. I don't want to say what the exact references are for this title in book three, but I will say it has a triple meaning with regard to the trilogy's final volume.

    Special bonus title trivia: My New Frontier: No Limits short story title, ZAK KEBRON: "Waiting for G'Doh, or, How I Learned to Stop Moving and Hate People," is actually a parody of two titles in one: Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and "Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Okay, I'll try it too. I think all my titles were my own suggestions (with one exception), although often after going through several rejected ones.

    Aftermath: The kind of multiple-meaning title I like. The story was about characters dealing with the aftermath of various events -- the losses in Wildfire, the Breen attack on San Francisco, and other such things. So the title was pretty obvious.

    "...Loved I Not Honor More": From a poem by Richard Lovelace. The full sentence is "I could not love thee, Dear, so much / Lov'd I not honor more." I chose it because the story was about love and honor, and to some extent about the kind of sacrifice suggested in the poem.

    Ex Machina: From the phrase deus ex machina, which refers both to the Yonadan Oracle and to V'Ger (at least as some characters perceive it) -- a god from a machine. I think it took me a while to come up with this one, though.

    "Brief Candle": From Macbeth's soliloquy after learning of Lady Macbeth's demise. Represents the ephemerality of life, so a good fit to the story.

    Orion's Hounds: Not a direct quote from anything, but a mythological metaphor that fit the story. It was originally Spirit of the Hunt, but Marco didn't like that. I tried to find something that suggested the idea of being underfoot while giants roamed above, but I couldn't. I came up with several suggestions, and Marco and I both preferred Orion's Hounds, but Marco thought it would be too confusing because of the Orion pirates and such, so we were going to go with my second choice, Heaven's Prey. But then Marco decided, what the hell, let's use OH and deal with any fallout as it comes. And I have yet to get a single complaint from someone saying, "Hey, I thought this book was supposed to be about the Orions!"

    "As Others See Us": Marco and I went back and forth for a long time trying to find a title that we both liked. It was "Hidden Truths" in the outline, and somehow to this day Amazon.com has a listing for a nonexistent novel of that title under my name. I was lobbying for "How Not to Be Seen," from a Monty Python sketch, but Marco didn't like that. Finally, "As Others See Us" just popped into my head and Marco liked it right away.

    Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again: This is the exception. KRAD came up with the titles for the miniseries, all taken from Yeats' poem "The Second Coming."

    The Buried Age: From the start, I wanted a Shakespearean title for this Picard-centric novel, but it took some searching to find a good one. I was drawn to Prospero's line "The dark backward and abysm of time," but I couldn't make that into a good title; luckily I was able to make "Abysm of Time" one of the section titles. I finally found "buried age" in one of the sonnets, and it worked well. The novel is about a "buried age" in Picard's life as well as the uncovering of a buried age of galactic history.

    "Friends With the Sparrows": Not sure how this occurred to me, but once it hit me, I knew it was perfect. From the Tin Man's song "If I Only Had a Heart," clearly applicable to a story about Data and his emotion chip. The specific line is "I'd be friends with the sparrows / And the boy who shoots the arrows / If I only had a heart," which fits the use the emotion chip is put to in the story.

    Places of Exile: My original title was The Other Side of the River, from the scorpion fable, since the novel branched off from the events of "Scorpion" and showed an "other side" of the timeline. I wasn't too happy with it, though. I would've loved to call it The Farther Shore if Christie Golden hadn't already used that. Eventually I had to abandon that metaphor/theme and look for other aspects of the story, and I found this quote by typing "exile" into the Bartleby.com quotations search engine. (Pre-internet, I would've looked up "exile" in the index of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.) The passage fit well and served as the epigraph of the novel -- although now I wish I hadn't used it, because it'd be a perfect title and epigraph for an original spec novel I'm now working on.

    Greater Than the Sum: Another case where I struggled to find a title and then a good one finally hit me. I don't recall any of my other ideas, but this one nicely encapsulates the unifying theme of the book.

    "Empathy": I'll save the explanation for after the story comes out.

    Over a Torrent Sea: This upcoming Titan novel is a revamp of an unsuccessful spec novel I wrote a long time ago. It was called Daughter of Earth and Water, a line from Percy Shelley's poem "The Cloud." That title fit the spec novel perfectly, but couldn't work for this one, so I chose another line from the same poem. And as it happens, the last verse of the poem, containing the "daughter of earth and water" line, makes an excellent epigraph for the book.


    EDIT: And since Dave included his Marvel novel, I'll throw in mine too:

    X-Men: Watchers on the Walls: The title is a fairly common phrase, which I think is Biblical in origin, though I didn't know that at the time. I was looking for something that suggested the barriers we erect between one another and our efforts to defend those barriers, as well as more literally referencing the Sentinels.

    Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder: Not a specific quote, though others have used the phrase before. Refers to how the conflict and accusations between the two main characters swamp the truth and their good judgment, and also connects to Electro as a main villain of the piece. Plus it fits the heavy thunderstorm/downpour that opens the novel and inspired the really great cover painting (my favorite of all my book covers to date).
     
  6. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

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    I think that's one of my favorite titles of...well, anything. I died laughing when I first saw it. :D
     
  7. KRAD

    KRAD Keith R.A. DeCandido Admiral

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    I didn't even get into the non-novels. But since Dave and Christopher did, and I am a sheep....

    Comics
    Perchance to Dream: I was originally going to call this miniseries What Dreams May Come, but that title was being used by a lousy Robin Williams film, so I was asked to change it. Dreams were an important part of the story, so I went with a different dream-focused phrase from Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. The issue titles also came from that speech (a well I would tap again).

    Four Thousand Throats...: From another saying uttered in "Day of the Dove," to wit, "four thousand throats may be cut in a single night by a running man." That saying is the foundation of the story.


    eBooks
    Fatal Error: John wanted technical sounding titles for the early S.C.E. eBooks, hence this and Hard Crash (no, I don't know how The Belly of the Beast fits that pattern -- ask John). And the story was about a computer failure, and that's the error message one often gets in such situations...

    Cold Fusion: See above about technical sounding titles. And there was a fusion reactor that was cold....

    Invincible: See Dave's answer.

    Here There Be Monsters: The old saying legendarily put on pre-Columbian maps over the edge of the ocean. Since the S.C.E. was dealing with what looked like 1960s Marvel Comics monsters.... (Aside: John and I wanted the cover to be a riff on Fantastic Four #1, with Duffy in the gravity boots in the Human Torch role, Faulwell as Mr. Fantastic, Gomez as the Invisible Woman, and P8 Blue as the Thing. Unfortunately, Paramount nixed it. Sigh.)

    War Stories: Either John or I came up with this one. Fairly straightforward title, since it's about, y'know, war stories....

    Breakdowns: Another literal title. The stories are about the breakdowns that happen after tragedy.

    Security: And another literal title. Whee. This is about the security detail on the da Vinci, and also about the more personal security of both Tev and Corsi.

    Many Splendors: From the novel and movie and TV show all titled some variation of Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing, since it's about the romance that blossoms between Gomez and Duffy on the Enterprise.

    Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment: With the Slings and Arrows miniseries, I did the same thing I did with Perchance to Dream, and use titles that came from the "To be or not to be" speech.


    Short stories
    "Broken Oaths": This was a sequel to the episode "Hippocratic Oath," so the title was a natural. I was originally going to call it "Oaths," but we were doing an S.C.E. story with the same name, and Marco suggested a change, and I realized that adding the "broken" made it work better, since it was about O'Brien disobeying his own oath.

    "Revelations": A rather dull title for a story about Soleta receiving a revelation or two.

    "The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned": I took this title from the William Butler Yeats poem "The Second Coming," which is one of my favorite poems. (I also mined it for Mere Anarchy.) The title was perfect for the story of the fall of Betazed.

    "loDnI'pu' vavpu' je": Just went with the Klingon translation of "Fathers and Brothers" for a story about, well, fathers and brothers.

    "Letting Go": A fitting, if dull, story for a title about, yes, letting go.

    "Four Lights": I don't need to explain this one, do I? It's a sequel to the episode that gave us, "There! Are! Four! Lights!"

    "Family Matters": You'll see in January. :)


    Novellas
    Horn and Ivory: This one was Marco's, and came from Homer's The Odyssey, and fit perfectly with the theme of Kira's choice at the end of Demons of Air and Darkness that led to what happened in H&I.

    The Unhappy Ones: This is the literal translation of QuchHa', the Klingon term for the smooth-headed Klingons seen in TOS and created by the Augment virus mess in "Affliction" and "Divergence."
     
  8. David Mack

    David Mack Writer Rear Admiral

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    I'll add a mention for the 2001 comic-book miniseries I cowrote with John Ordover, Star Trek: Divided We Fall. The inspiration for that one was fairly straightforward. We were telling a story about unjoined "purists" inciting a civil insurrection on the Trill homeworld by unleashing a retroviral pathogen that would kill symbionts and render the humanoid Trill population incompatible for future joinings. Because the severance of the link between joined hosts and symbionts would result in death for both, the title served to describe both the schism in the Trill society, and the fatal consequences of severing the host-symbiont relationship.
     
  9. TGTheodore

    TGTheodore Writer Admiral

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    Ooh! Since the door is opened for short stories, here are my three from SNW:

    "A Little More Action". Very dull second choice, obvious follow-up to "A Piece of the Action" which spawned about 3,412 SNW stories based on that episode. I chickened out from my original title "The Iotian Dick". I went with the "safer" title because it was my first shot at SNW. Hey, I made it in ...

    "On the Rocks". Basically where the Paris/Janeway lizard offspring are located at the beginning of the the story. Also a tip to the fact that the entire idea of the story is so bizarre that it's "on the rocks". Original title: "My Sister Is a Lizard". Again, I chickened out at the last minute.

    "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer". Nope. Didn't chicken out on this one. The title came first -- as a result of someone asking on Dean Wesley Smith's board if the title made any difference in Dean's liking a story. (It didn't) We all started suggesting weird titles. I came up with mine and Dean said if I could write a story that matched that title and kept its odd tone, it would sell. Ironically, it turned out to be kind of a sweet Christmas story -- but it sold!!! I worked backward from the title while writing it.

    A humorous DS9 short that almost got into SNW two years in a row: "Wake Me When the Planet Gets Back". A nod in tone to How Much for Just the Planet?

    --Ted
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2008
  10. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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    That's a shame, I would've loved to have seen that cover. Although I gotta wonder why the SCE idea was nixed, but the X-homage cover to the first issue of IDW's Star Trek: The Last Generation was approved? :confused:
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2008
  11. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    World's Finest teamed Superman and Batman. Brave and Bold was team up title that morphed into a Batman teamup title. The current version is team up book that on occasion features Batman.
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Oh, I always assumed they were meant to be kaiju, Japanese movie monsters like Godzilla and Rodan.


    Perhaps because the former was an eBook and the latter is a comic book. Also because the X-homage cover to ST:TLG is not the primary cover, just a retailer incentive cover, something marketed specifically to comic shops. So it's aimed specifically at comics-oriented buyers to begin with.
     
  13. Dayton Ward

    Dayton Ward Word Pusher Rear Admiral

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    Okay, I suppose I can chime in, though my list doesn't seem all that exciting when I read it:

    "Reflections," "Almost...But Not Quite," and "The Aliens Are Coming!" - For SNW 1, 2, and 3, respectively. These were just the titles that sprang to mind as I was writing the stories. "Almost," refers to a running thing between Dulmur and Lucsly, who say it to each other in response to this or that a few times throughout the story. For "The Aliens Are Coming!" I wanted to evoke some of that old-school 50's and 60's SF B-movie/UFO scare flavor.

    Interphase - Our first SCE story. Kevin and I originally titled this Defiant, but John Ordover opted against it since there was already a DS9 episode with that title. Not that there aren't stories or novels that share titles with episodes, but he just wanted something different on this occasion.

    In the Name of Honor - Rather obvious title, given the book's subject matter. It was the first title which came to mind when I pitched the idea to John Ordover, and it stuck.

    Foundations - I think John O. suggested this as the umbrella title for the 3-part SCE story, and we had no better alternatives.

    Home Fires - Our gag working title for this SCE story was Inner Corsi (:D), but cooler heads prevailed and we came up with this one instead.

    "Loose Ends" - For the New Frontier - No Limits anthology. Another pretty obvious title. Calhoun has to deal with a pretty big dangling thread left over from a previous TNG episode. Voila.

    A Time to Sow/A Time to Harvest - As already mentioned by Mack and KRAD, these titles were pre-determined by John Ordover.

    Grand Designs - The first of what would become a habitual use of Rush song titles for our SCE stories. Given the plot and topic of our story, this just seemed like a nice fit.

    "Field Expediency" - Our SCE story for the Tales of the Dominion War anthology. The term "field expedient" is something I heard and said a lot back in my service days, particularly on deployments where the right tools/materials might not be available and you had to make do with whatever was around. It wasn't unheard of to hear someone crafting a "field expedient shelter" or whatever. Since our SCE gang has to take several improvisational actions during the story, this title seemed appropriate.

    Where Time Stands Still - Another SCE tale, and another riff on a Rush song ("Time Stand Still"). We wanted something which would allude to the Delta Triangle from "The Time Trap," and by this point we'd already decided we were going to milk the Rush gag for all it was worth.

    Distant Early Warning - Another Rush song title that fit, particularly when viewed in concert with the Mack's first Vanguard book, Harbinger, and the idea that we were somewhat retroactively setting the stage for the whole Vanguard storyline.

    Summon the Thunder - Our working titles at different points were Reckoning, A Reckoning Cometh, and a few others I don't remember. We were again trying to build on what Dave had wrought in Harbinger. Marco wasn't all that jazzed about any of the titles, and we kicked around some ideas. He suggest something like To Summon the Thunder or Summoning the Thunder, and I counter-suggested just Summon the Thunder, and we were gold.

    Things Fall Apart - This first installment of the Mere Anarchy mini-series, like the other installments, all have their roots in Yeats' "The Second Coming." To get to the title of the story, we have to step back to how the series title was chosen. Kevin and I called it something else in the original pitch (I forget what it was...something like Damnation and Salvation, I think), and our working title for Book 1 was Our Most Noble Intentions. Keith rightly pointed out that the series title was a bit clunky. He suggested Truth & Consequences, and that stuck for a while, until he hit on the notion of using Mere Anarchy, from Yeats' poem. Once that was decided, it was thought that having all the stories use titles taken from the same poem would add an extra flavor, and there you go.

    "First, Do No Harm" - For the Constellations anthology. Kevin suggested this title, based on the main guest character, and we never looked back.

    Turn the Page - For the "relaunched" Corps of Engineers e-Book line. Keith wanted story to serve as a jumping on point for the series. With Sarjenka joining the crew, Keith, Kevin and I thought this was a good time for us to use a storyline we'd been wanting to use pretty much since the start of the series, an homage to a M*A*S*H episode called "Old Soldiers," with Captain Gold serving in the Colonel Potter role (obviously). Once we married that story up with Sarjenka coming onboard, we started looking for a title. My wife is actually the one who suggested it after reviewing the list of Rush song titles I keep on my computer for just this purpose, and as soon as she said it I thought it was perfect. I also loved the irony of it being the title for an e-Book :D

    Age of the Empress - This was Mike Sussman's title, which followed the working titles Restoration, Rise of the Empress, and another one which escapes me at the moment. His story, his title. No problem here.

    "Acts of Compassion" - For the TNG anthology The Sky's the Limit. Another title suggested by Kevin, based around the fact that our story was centering on Crusher and a benevolent Cardassian doctor.

    "Ill Winds" - for the upcoming Shards and Shadows anthology. Sounded good to my ear, based on our story's subject matter. Check it out in January to see whether we were right.

    Open Secrets - The fourth Vanguard novel. Our original working title for this was The Rarer Action, based on several plot points we're pursuing this time around, and the fact that the main storyline is taking a much-required departure from the types of things which filled the series' first three books. Marco never really warmed to the idea, so I went back to the reliable Rush song list and pulled out another working title, Peaceable Kingdoms (the actual song is called "Peaceable Kingdom"). At first Marco was okay with that, but then he hit us with an e-Mail one evening, puzzled over our Rush fetish and suggesting we talk to someone about it, but then humoring us with a list of possible alternatives after his own perusal of the song list. Of those suggestions, Open Secrets worked for me, given what we're trying to do this time around.

    So, there you go.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2008
  14. Rush Limborg

    Rush Limborg Vice Admiral Admiral

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    :eek::eek:WOAH!:eek::eek:

    What an extensive anthology! AMAZING!

    Looks like there's a story behind every title....

    Thanks y'all!
     
  15. Stevil2001

    Stevil2001 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The Future Begins: Michael and I puzzled for titles for this one all the way through the outline stage-- most of the time, the outline bore "Monty Scott in the 24th-and-a-half Century!" on it. (This actually became the title of the timeline at the back of the book.) The Future Begins was a last-minute suggestion by me, based on the idea that Scotty was finally moving forward with his life. We sort of intended to change it, but never thought of anything better.

    "Meet with Triumph and Disaster"/"Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You": Michael's original idea was that the Halloway story would have a title in Hindi, and the Picard story one in French. But when looking up Indian poetry, he stumbled upon Rudyard Kipling's "IF", two lines of which formed the basis for the title. (And to make them relevant, we made Kipling Halloway's favorite writer, and had him quote The Jungle Book.) Even though the only person who doubts Picard in the second story is himself.
     
  16. Ro_Laren

    Ro_Laren Commodore Commodore

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    :lol: I always thought it was a clever title!
     
  17. TerriO

    TerriO Writer-type human Premium Member

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    *bows* Danke.

    As for myself:

    "Three Sides to Every Story"--Aside from being an homage to my favorite band ever, Extreme, it's something that fit the story to the letter. There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth. We saw one side of the story onscreen, and by getting to the other side, maybe we could shine a light on the truth of what happened during the occupation of DS9.

    "'Q'uandary"--Obvious. It's a Q story. With a few exceptions, those stories tend to have "Q" in the title. And since Selar was in a bit of a dilemma, "'Q'uandary" it was.

    "Malefictorum"--an occasional misspelling of the second half of Malleus Maleficarum. And since the story's getting ready to make it's first paperback appearance, that's all I'll say on that.

    "Eighteen Minutes"--This was almost called "Time In A Bottle," but I changed my mind. I really wanted to put in stark terms from point one just how much time was taking place in our world while this story happened. So much life in so little time. The Doctor was only there for a few minutes, but what he left behind was enormous, and how it affected him was even greater.

    "Progress"--This had dual meaning. One, it was the name of Gold's transport ship (which was an homage to the Russian supply ships for the ISS, and considering they were transferring supplies to a new space station, it fit), and the other was showing how much things had changed since the last time we saw Drema IV.

    "Remembrance of Things Past"--This entire story dealt with with the past, both literally and figuratively. Putting the past to bed and learning to move forward was a central component to the story.

    "That Sleep of Death"--This one came from the editor. It was a reverse working here, in that I came up with the story to suit the title.
     
  18. David Henderson

    David Henderson Commodore Commodore

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    One difference in the titles is that yours has quotes around the "Q", unlike the episodes... and even the one episode that had the "Q" as part of a word, "Qpid", just let the "Q" stand unquoted. Was there a reason for the single quotes in your title?

    davidh
     
  19. captcalhoun

    captcalhoun Admiral Admiral

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    Apr 29, 2005
    Location:
    everywhere
    there's quotes on all her titles. The title is Q'uandary - presumably the apostrophe is to emphasise the Q...
     
  20. TGTheodore

    TGTheodore Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2003
    Location:
    TGTheodore
    Not wanting to get caught up in this, but the title was typed with single quotes around the Q (as opposed to a single apostrophe) and double quotes around the entire title, therefore David's 'Q'uestion. :D

    My life is so empty ...

    --Ted