Writing Prompt Short Story Title Generator

Kurlumbenus · Dec 9, 2011

Messing around in javascript, I came up with a short story title generator that strings together a number of words culled from pulp and contemporary magazines to create titles. About half the titles are gibberish, but it seems to come up with interesting story sparks more often than not.

Sample Output:

The Flame and the Comb
The Demon's Bus
Quantum Rabbit Highway
The Cabin Must Ride Dark

Consider it a work in progress; this is version 1, and its library of words is still on the limited side.

edit: The game: Generate a few titles, and come up with a premise or logline for each one.

The Flame and the Comb - A young girl discovers the powers of magic using only the heirloom ivory comb her grandmother left her.

The Demon's Bus - Passengers unwittingly get onto a bus hijacked by a sociopathic madman, and must endure his machinations.
Quantum Rabbit Highway - It's 2012 and the internet has come to the burrow.
The Cabin Must Ride Dark - There's a reason all the lights are dimmed and the windows covered every time Flight 317's airplane departs...

Nymtoc · Dec 9, 2011

It's fun to play around with. I tried it and got:

Going the Wings
The Rats and the Doctor
A Poor Player Beyond Bookkeeper
Sip Forgets Facebook
Under the Cold Casket

If you're suggesting it as a game here, what do you suggest we do with these titles? Maybe write a very short story?

Kurlumbenus · Dec 9, 2011

D'oh! Forgot to mention that part.

Let's make it slightly atypical. Come up with a logline/premise for the titles generated.

BunnyMaz · Dec 9, 2011

Ooh, some interesting ones...

The Frankenstein of the Tartarus
The Second Mad Escape

A couple broken ones...

Imaginary of Insects
The Crypt that Spoke the They

And my personal favourite...

Man of Men

Nymtoc · Dec 9, 2011

Kurlumbenus said:
Let's make it slightly atypical. Come up with a logline/premise for the titles generated.

Okay, here's what I came up with:

The Soldiers of the Hidden Piper

The Hidden Piper is a powerful cyborg whose location and appearance are unknown, but day by day the world is becoming more aware of his evil. Somehow, he has enlisted legions of soldiers who will blindly obey his every command, leading toward the ultimate destruction of the world. He controls his soldiers with five notes on a pipe made from the rare element hafnium.

Matera the Mad · Dec 15, 2011

The Midnight Violet Case
Beautiful Viola Rainey, an African Violet breeder whose attempts to produce a pure black flower have brought her some mixed renown, has disappeared. Only her ex-lover believes that there is foul play, and he can't tell why.

toogrey2 · Dec 15, 2011

Cove in the Hieroglyph
Nyla had been obsessed with Egyptian history since she was old enough to read. Now her lifelong dream has come true, she is on an actual archeological dig in Egypt working at the site of a newly discovered tomb. While translating a tablet of hieroglyphs, Nyla learns the location of an ancient hidden cove along the northern coast of Egypt that is said to be a place of great power- a link between the present and the past.

Farmhouse of Two Glory
Sara didn’t know about the old farmhouse that her husband inherited from his great grandmother until after he died. Sara with her son and his wife, take a trip to the mountains of Idaho to see the old place and try to decide what to do with it. In the old house where Two Glory Robertson lived for most of her life , they discover trunks of diaries, journals, letters, newspaper clippings and photographs, a virtual treasure of Indian and western history.
Writing sucks but the imaginations there.

Nymtoc · Dec 15, 2011

The Cold Scarlet Labyrinth

Cindy, 14, and Jeff, 15, live in Abbotsville, a small farm community in North Dakota. Like all the other children in town, they have been taught to avoid a certain cave in a hill. But one day their curiosity gets the best of them and they enter the cave. A rock tumbles from above and closes the cave's entrance, and they are trapped in a freezing, endless underground maze whose walls are stained with blood.

(Junk, of course, but I like this game. It actually does make you come up with story ideas and conceivably might lead to some good ones.

)

Nymtoc · Dec 16, 2011

The Dragon of the Golden Vengeance

The hamlet of Hallingskarvet was known for its kind and gentle folk, but one day hordes of Viking marauders came to rob and pillage the hamlet. What the Vikings did not know was that Hallingskarvet was protected by something bestowed upon its people by the great god Thor. It was the fire-breathing Dragon of the Golden Vengeance...

Matera the Mad · Dec 17, 2011

The Da Vinci Above the Fog

A starving artist who thought he had found his muse in a series of drug-induced visions realizes that the ability was in him all along.

short story title generator

Nymtoc · Dec 26, 2011

The Claim of the Invisible Accidental Plant

While working in his greenhouse, Horace accidentally creates a hybrid between a thistle and a gardenia. Invisible to the naked eye, the plant strangles Horace, takes over the greenhouse and moves into the surrounding town, creating terror wherever it goes. Its next victims are a boy and girl out for a drive on a country road. The sheriff's men go after the plant but are slaughtered. The President calls a meeting of top military leaders, but even their most powerful weapons cannot stop the rampaging, all-devouring IAP.

short story title generator

Silver-Midnight · Dec 26, 2011

I just might try this.

I got "The Hand that Rocks". This easily reminds me of "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle".

To the OP: I really like this idea, but that might be because I really like using generators.

Nymtoc · Dec 26, 2011

This game is fun! I hope more people start playing. The short story title generator gives you a large choice of titles, and you take it from there.

The Woodcarver for the Special Faerie

Once there was a humble woodcarver. He live in a hut at the edge of the forest and carved exquisite objects from fallen tree branches--things like angels, dwarves, castles, and even a tiny waterwheel.

One night, the woodcarver awoke to find an old crone standing at his bedside. "Woodcarver," she said, "I am a beautiful faerie, but I have been transformed into this ugly shape by a wicked witch. If you will carve for me a tiny spinning wheel, perfect in all its dimensions, I will be released from the witch's spell, and I shall spin you a cloth of gold."

The next morning, the woodcarver set to work. He chose a fine piece of mahogany and brought out his tools, but just as he started to carve...

Matera the Mad · Dec 28, 2011

The Riders of the Beard

Santa is plagued by an invasion of Polar Bear Lice; he can't get rid of them no matter what he does, and the itching is losing him sleep. But even annoying little cooties can not resist the Spirit of Christmas. When it looks like Santa and the elves will not make the Christmas Eve deadline because of a production problem with delicate electronics, the bugs save the day. Because of their small size, they can get inside the problem devices and correct the misalignment of a crucial tiny part.

(Get your random title here)

Nymtoc · Dec 28, 2011

The Lightning From the Lead Goblet

Gwyntellasland had been invaded. The bloodthirsty Borfs had slain every man, woman and child in the south. But the north was still free, and Brigittaletta had sworn to save her people. As it happened, Brigittaletta was in possession of an ancient Lead Goblet that had been passed down through her family for generations. It was said to possess a magical power, but no one knew what that power was. As the Borfs were about to strike her native village, Brigittaletta brought forth the Goblet and said, "Goblet, by all the gods and goddesses on Mount Svitnikovarustantroigo, thou and thou alone can save Gwyntellasland!" Instantly, a bolt of lightning shot forth from the Lead Goblet, and...

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Matera the Mad · Dec 29, 2011

The Third Whispering Mozart

A psychic is hired in a last-ditch attempt to prove the authenticity of a recently discovered music score. The results are far from expected when a plethora of spirits come forth to cast doubts on the very identity of more than one well-known composer.

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Nymtoc · Dec 29, 2011

The Yellow Grim Inheritance

When Silas Twomporthy died at the age of 103, his relatives gathered eagerly to hear the old man's will. Each was greedy, and each expected to get the greatest share of Silas's estate. But as his lawyer read the will, the room was filled with cries and curses: Silas had already given his billions to the Shelter for Stray Cats, and all that remained was a steel drum containing the old man's urine.

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Matera the Mad · Dec 29, 2011

A Last Moon In Sorcery

The Wizards of Alyseyvn have vanished. Not overnight, to be sure, but they have all gradually and unremarkably disappeared. No one knows how or where to find any of them, and hardly anyone even believes in magic any more. But now, though its people deny it, the land is under a threat that only high magic can ward off. An orphaned child unwittingly holds the key. Ranelly knows that his parents were killed by the evil Shadowmen; they did not die in an accident, as he has been repeatedly told. Fearful for his own life, he runs away. After a hair-raising narrow escape that leaves him lost in the Forest of Hingrethed, he stumbles across the home of the Moonwitch Galincia. Together, they find and unite all of the lost Wizards.

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Nymtoc · Dec 29, 2011

The Invisible Tombstone

In an ancient manuscript, young Toby finds a map marking the grave of Merlin the Magician. If he can find the grave and repeat a certain magic spell, he will have unlimited powers for the rest of his life. However, Merlin's tombstone will remain invisible except to one who will swear to follow Merlin's commandments, no matter how twisted they may seem. Once he has sworn such an oath, the tombstone will appear...

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Matera the Mad · Dec 30, 2011

Alexander the Great of the Strange Galvanic Circle

Alex is a boy who loves to invent things -- or at least get into trouble making messes. But one day he has a lucky(?) accident. When he throws the switch on peculiarly intertwined mass of wires, an electromagnetic field warps the small area of spacetime into a gateway to an alternate universe. Alex is delighted. Now, if only his mother doesn't find out....

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Nymtoc · Dec 30, 2011

The Ghostlands of the Hideous Blue Worm

Janet and Jim were lost. They must have walked miles since their car broke down. Mist was rising from the moors. Where were they? How stupid were they to have left their cell phones behind?

Then they heard a sound, something between a hiss and a groan. They turned and saw it--huge, blue and covered with slime. It was crawling toward them, its enormous size blotting out the sun....

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

alexaherself · Aug 4, 2012

"The Red Einstein"

In the depths of the Patent Office of North Ossetia lurks the world's most perceptive, profound, mathematically gifted genius. Uneducated, badly dressed, semi-literate and with only his violin to keep him company, how will he resolve the planet's energy crisis, pending climatic disasters and financial meltdown in only about a dozen pages? ...

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Niniva · Sep 3, 2012

The Parlor that Should Not Embrace

I don't know what to do with it, but I like it. It's kind of creepy and erotic at the same time with a touch of a historical twist...

alexaherself · Sep 4, 2012

"Blue Slab"

The monolith that spawned a generation of science fiction from Arthur C. Clarke is back ... and now it's blue.

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Matera the Mad · Sep 5, 2012

The Trees that Forgot the Place

Anthony wasn't lost; the forest was.
(I'm not up to more than a first line tonight lol)

Get Your Random Story Title Here!

Writing Prompt Short Story Title Generator

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