Inflicting my amusements
I like careful, clever random generators of concepts and titles. Mostly, the random generators on the web tend towards the silly, so I’ve constructed my own at various points: one for fantasy weapon names, one for exotic constellation names, other toys. Yesterday I spent about 5 hours in Excel working on a new one. Technically it’s a fantasy title generator, although what it produces can be used for many fantastic purposes…
When I spend that much time staring at and tweaking the output of a random generator, my brain always ends up hurting, as if I’ve stuffed it full of new ideas. But I can’t help it! I love all the interesting little hooks produced. Because it’s random most of them aren’t what I’m looking for and may not even make obvious sense, but I work hard to make sure they’re at least interesting most of the time. I’m going to provide some samples below so you can see.
I mostly relied on existing title grammar constructions for the phrases, which I’m not entirely happy with because I think eventually too much ‘Blank of Blank’ loses a good portion of its impact and memorability just because of the familiarity with the construction.
Whirling Maiden
Mask and Dream
Sun’s Yesterday
Cube of Heaven
Mote of Perfect Reason
First Radiance
Blindness of Iron
The Gold Lament
With Tides
The Celestial Bride’s Knight
The Fire That Walks
Vault of Ashen Briars
Time’s Whisper
Devil’s Twilight
Prism of Dawn
The Shepherd of Rain and Light
Daughter of Sparrows
The Indigo Name
Hunter’s Wrought Cage
Windwarden
Messenger of Stone
Judge of the Avenging Path
Velvet Burned
I need more words for my ‘Role’ substitution, and the whole thing can still use some tweaking, but I’m also pretty happy with it.
It hasn’t given me an actual title for my actual novel, yet. Of course. So it’s utterly useless, except as a random inspiration prompt. But I like it anyhow!