The Name of Your Next Epic Fantasy Novel Will be …

17.02.2019 Nate Hoffelder 2 Comments

Today I would like to bring something that I made for Facebook and introduce it on the blog.

Over the past few months I have been making fun graphics to post on Facebook (and Instagram, and Pinterest). Some of my graphics are new takes on existing memes (like the Roomba meme or the guy wakes up at his funeral meme) but others are conversation starters.

Today I’d like to share one with you, and see if you like it as much as I do. This is basically a variation on the porn star name game, only this time around your goal is to come up with the title of your next book.

You might also think of this as a MadLib. Today’s MadLib goes something like this:

The name of my next epic fantasy novel is:

The __( color)__ + __( aristocratic title )__ + of the + __( direction )__ + __( a garbled version of something forbidden when you were a kid )__

When I put this up on FB last week, my answers were "The Red Lord of the Western Smoe’k" and "The Black Prince of the Southern Vandals". (You have to admit, they would make great titles for epic fantasy novels.)

How about you? What will your epic fantasy novel be called?

P.S. Since this is a fantasy novel, be sure to throw in at least one apostrophe in the last part of the title. You might also misspell it, and make it more authentic to the genre.

Comments

Robert Nagle February 18, 2019 um 11:30 am

First, here’s a really useful linguistic term you should become aware of: snowclone .

This is not my genre and so I can’t play, but it seems that the most crucial thing about this snowclone is the OF — suggesting origin or family, etc. Title-wise, I’ve always preferred the compact, but what’s interesting about this variation is that it refers to a character — and not a place or plot detail or a literary detail.

I could see it being a chapter title or a particular book in the series, but as a standalone title, I don’t think it’s as common as you would think.