a writer should create living people

'say you interviewed a wookie in some kind of quasi-comicon line and wound up having a random hookup.'

...

'what??'

'be serious.'

'i am. lorelai gilmore would be a thousand times less wigged that you hooked up with a rando wookie than her ne'er-do-well former hoodlum almost nephew.'

'she'll never buy it. not in a million years.'

'what? i'm not even good enough to be your hookup wookie?'

'oh my god. bye, jess.'

'bring her back the coffee. she'll buy anything if you're giving her coffee. and it was worth standing in line for.'

For me, coming up with a killer title is one of the hardest parts of writing! I rarely have one sorted until the second or third draft. So if you’re struggling to come up with ideas, give these tips a try.

1) Name your work after a theme

It’s a pretty good idea to have some central themes in your story. When done well, they give a purpose and meaning to your writing. 

A lot of really successful books are named after themes (e.g. Pride and Prejudice, Atonement). 

Once you have your themes, you can try to expand them into thematic statements. These are the key messages you may be trying to get across in your work (e.g. love conquers all, don’t accept your fate). 

Doing this not only gives you a better idea of your story, but it can also give you a pretty nice, thematic title (e.g. Me Before You, How to Stop Time). 

2) Naming after your protagonist

This works best in novels with a clear, singular main character, but it’s a tried and tested method that’s pretty effective (e.g. Carrie, Percy Jackson). 

3) Naming after who your protagonist is

Ask yourself who your protagonist is in relation to other characters (e.g. Daughter of the Pirate King, Daughter of Smoke and Bone).

4) Other names for a character

Does your character have a specific job or hobby? (e.g. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice)

 What do other characters call them? (e.g. The Book Thief) 

What titles might they bear? (e.g. I am Number Four, The Martian).

"Somebody forgot to rake up in here," Jess called out, teasing, as he stepped into Luke's and found gilded, silk, autumn leaves strewn about—proof-positive that he and Lorelai were back together.

He got no answer. The diner was empty, but there was rattling around in the back.

"Hey, I came all this way—by bus no less—at your insistent request, braving my mother, my ex, and the rest of the Gilmores. Is a 'Hey, you made it! How ya doin'?' really that much to ask for?" he continued to tease his uncle.

There are gaps in the universe. Holes that ripple in and out based on what day it is.

You decide to enter one of these holes, expecting to find a magical world or a desolate wasteland.

And now she had wished he would have sugar coated things because every word he said only brought back the memories of her bawling on the bathroom floor in her mother’s arms, memories of being lied to and hurt more times than she could count but what also upset her more was when he said the things about how she had slept with Dean to prove her points and it made her feel like he thought she was going to use him, Jess Mariano, the guy she had always pushed aside because she had never wanted to use him, she had never wanted him to feel like a toy to her because he deserved so much better than that. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself as she stood there and more silent tears left her bright eyes, only adding to how bright they were and she had to choke out the next words that came.

“I want things I can’t have, I want things I don’t deserve and sometimes as Pro-child as I am and as strong as I am, sometimes I don’t want to do this at all, I’m terrified Jess and I can’t go back to him, I won’t go back to him because I know I should have let him go back when I told him no when he asked me to marry him, back when he and I said goodbye the first time I should have let that be the last time and I didn’t!” she was a bit frantic now and she looked over at him, she could tell he was still out of it but she didn’t know what to do about that right now because she herself wasn’t in any position any more to take care of anyone, not even herself.

She did step over to the bed again though, sitting back down on it but this time she left some space because she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea because clearly somewhere he had. She looks down wiping at her eyes as she does so and pushing her hair out of her face though it only seems to fall right back into place. “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, you know that more than anybody else and the things I wish I could fix and change are things that I can’t do anything about any more…..out of the few things though that I know for certain, I want you in my life, more than you have been these past few years, I know I miss you a lot more than I ever let on…..And I don’t want you to think I’m just saying this to say it or that I’m trying to use you or anything negative because I swear my intentions with you in any aspect recently are good and not bad Jess I just….out of all the people in my life I feel like aside from my mother, I’m lost when you’re not around and not because I need you to guide me but because I miss….I miss having you beside me to share things with…” she didn’t know why she was justifying her feelings or what her thoughts were but for some reason she felt like these were all things he needed to know, everything was important to know right now.

Wait, you want me in your life? You miss me?

Mid-sentence, Liz melted into the face of Rory Gilmore…Rory Gilmore who was telling him she was lost without him…wanted him beside her to share things with…and his mind scrambled to catch up, raced through the words his cursed disordered mind had interpreted as his mother’s–and if anyone mentioned Oedipus, he’d kill them–trying to make sense of it all.

Her fingers combed through his hair again and Jess swore it was like instantly being transported to a cloud… even as he heard her tell him how important everything she had been saying was, and he strained for mental focus…drew the words and concepts together like fine mist concentrating itself itself into a water droplet and plummeting toward the earth.

She was pregnant. She was afraid. She wished she’d let go of Logan long ago. She was turning to him…because she’d missed him, and she wanted him in her life …and she was crying.

His mind may not have been altogether coherent, but that was enough to spur Jess Mariano to action. He pushed himself up shakily to sit beside her and drew her into a brief embrace, planting a fervent kiss into her soft hair. Husky voiced, and surprised he could make his vocal cords do a single useful thing, he murmured, “S'ok…everything…is gonna be okay. I promise.” His eyes got caught up in hers for a long moment…transfixed.

Pulling himself forcibly from the spell of her eyes, Jess frowned at their present sitting accommodations. “No bed. Gilmore therapy,” he announced, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress and standing up. “Couch,” he ordered, pointing, and went to fill a kettle with water, setting it to boil.

Turning, he crouched, rummaging through the DVD collection he was grateful had been Lorelaid, and in the space of a few seconds, selected “Sweet Home Alabama,” stuck it into the appropriate slot and pressed “play.”

“Right back,” he told her, turning for the stairs with the intent of procuring stale donuts and a day-old half of a blackberry pie.

Her name didn’t bring her back right away but his touch on her arm did and then he continued to slowly speak, tiptoeing around his words, tiptoeing around everything like she was fragile and maybe she was, God, maybe she was so much more fragile than she ever played it off to be. And there was just something about how he spoke that got under her skin and though she knew he meant well, something inside of her snapped so suddenly and her eyes looked up through her bangs at him and they were glossed over as if she wanted to cry but she wasn’t going to, she couldn’t let herself.

“Why do you do that?” she didn’t have time to think before the words just defensively escaped her, “Why do you tiptoe around what you really want to say? Why does everyone do that to me?” she knew she couldn’t blame him, he did nothing wrong, he didn’t know what she was going through, he was probably trying to tread lightly in case she wasn’t okay, which clearly, she was far from okay as she got to her feet, only to turn and face him because she could not sit still, she needed to stand. “Just ask it already! I can hear it in your voice Jess, go ahead and ask me whats wrong so I can tiptoe around your questions too because that’s what we do isn’t it? We protect each others feelings even when it hurts us to do it?” she was pacing now and her hands were shaking as she tried to shut herself up but she couldn’t it was like she had shaken up a soda bottle and opened it right in front of him and her emotions, her feelings, everything she had been bottling up were exploding out.

“Ohhhh, Rory…” Jess wanted to gather her up in his arms, be her protector and her shield and her comfort and her…  His eyes closed painfully.

Despite all the bad he’s done. Those were the words. Those were the words with which she’d said, more than ten years before, that she was in love with Logan Huntzberger. He’d been cheating on her; but she loved him. She wanted to cheat to get back at him, but she couldn’t; because she loved him. He proposed to her and she turned him down; but she loved him. Now she was having his child and he was marrying someone else; but she loved him.

He knew what love like that felt like. After all…hadn’t she just been trying to get him into bed with her…without telling him she was carrying another man’s child? Who knows…maybe she’d even intended to trick him into raising another man’s child, thinking of him or her as his own…as if she’d have to trick him into doing such a thing. Did she know him just as little as apparently Logan knew her? Care about…value him…to that same minuscule degree? 

Ten years ago, he’d stood in front of her and told her, “I don’t deserve this.” He didn’t then, and he didn’t now…and neither did she.

“No that isn’t us,” he said finally, voice quiet but no longer gently careful. “We’ve never tiptoed and sugar-coated to spare each other’s feelings. And no matter how much it hurts to see you in this much pain, you’ve just reminded me that’s it’s no time to start now.” He swallowed. 

“You told me I could do more; so I did. I told you that dropping out of Yale wasn’t you; so you went back. I told you to write the story only you can write; so you picked up a pen. And now I am telling you to stop selling yourself short. 

“You stuck with Dean because you thought you had to. You gave me up because people said I told you so. You slept with Dean to prove to yourself that giving me up was what you intended to do. You stayed with Logan because it proved you loved him as much as you told yourself you did. Stop. You need to figure out what it is you want. Admit it to yourself. And then go after it.

“You want Logan cheating-ass Huntzberger to marry you and raise this child with you? Tell him so! Maybe he will and maybe he won’t; but he definitely won’t if he thinks you don’t want it.

“You want to say, ‘SCREW ALL MEN–they’re a bunch of slime, and aren’t worth it!’, raise your kid on your own, because you know you’re strong enough to do it, just like your mom was, and pursue your career? Then go for it! Don’t glance back for a second at Logan or anybody else, and don’t let anybody tell you that you need a man for anything.

“If you don’t know what you want, give yourself time to figure it out. Just…” his head dropped a fraction, “stop living by other people’s opinions, or what you think you should feel.” 

Jess stopped and looked at the tears shining in her eyes…and felt the weight of them awkward upon his shoulders. “See? You were right. No good to have people try to…protect your feelings,” he muttered. “Much better to have them yell at you when you’re already crying…”