Name that Story! (Wolfgirl & IDH)
Added 2022-11-17 14:34:33 +0000 UTCWolfgirl’s Pet Witch is now a Prequel to Innocent Devil’s Harem.
This connection will not ruin either story, as they are separated by roughly 370 years, and overlap will be limited.
I want to rename the story to show that connection:
- Innocent Wolf’s…something
- (or) Innocent Wolf…something
However, I’m making this separate post, so I can explain the logic behind a title choice. One of the reasons why Innocent Devil’s Harem works as a good title is because ‘Innocent Devil’ seems like an oxymoron (or opposites, like freezing fire), and then ‘Harem’ indicates to the reader what kind of story it is.
Any title that needs the ‘context of the story’ to be understood is usually a ‘bad’ title choice, in my experience. The reason why is because the title is meant to get a reader to check out the story, and if they have to check out the story in order to understand the title, then the average person is just going to skip over it.
Most people absolutely judge a story based on Book Cover and Title, but most importantly Title, so having something that grabs their attention is important. An amazing Title with a bad book cover will do a thousand times better at getting people to check it out than an amazing book cover with an average title.
Anyway, here are some ideas, but I want to hear yours!
Please also let me know if you like any of these ideas, and perhaps even rate which is your first pick, second pick, etc. Eventually, I will do a poll for this, but I want to get some more ideas first, as well as a better grasp of what people like most.
(NOTE: Pretend as if you know absolutely nothing about the story, and randomly saw this title with zero context -- which one would be most engaging to you? Relevance to the story is ironically not the most relevant thing)
- Innocent Wolf’s Pack (‘true werewolves,’ like the Apex in IDH, but wasn’t planning on Rose becoming one, could change this -- maybe Rose does need to become a werewolf too)
- Innocent Wolf’s Trinity (context is female MC and 2 female love interests, wasn’t planning on expanding the love interests beyond the two, even though there are other female characters.)
- Innocent Wolf Shepherd (kind of like this one, more intriguing than guardian, ‘Wolf Shepherd’ is an oxymoron)
- Innocent Wolf Queen (implies gender of MC, could possibly be the most useful in setting the premise for a reader -- in fact, because this is Ariana's story, this might be the best choice for those who have read IDH, so that they understand right away that this is a female MC story, but that it might be something they'd enjoy due to it's connection with IDH, a harem story)
- Innocent Wolf’s Pride (context is emotion of pride, and pride of lions, loosely relevant)
- Innocent Wolf’s Conquest (relevance? No idea, just thought it sounded cool)
- Innocent Wolf’s Reign
- Innocent Wolf’s Home (good option, but I feel like this requires story context to work, which is not ideal)
- Innocent Wolf’s Flock (I’m concerned the average person wouldn’t recognize the meaning of flock outside of context, I’ve seen this happen with the word ‘genome’)
1) What are your ideas?
2) Which of the above are your favorites?
I created a Poll for some of the more popular picks.
Comments
Yeah, I plan to do that this weekend (mention it for the next IDH chapter). I only decided to make that connection this week. But there are some who only read the books on Amazon, and other such places. So I want to make sure those people know without me being able to directly tell them.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-18 01:15:31 +0000 UTCTo be fair, I was hooked by the original title alone. And if you're going to rename it just so people can get the connection, then not much other than "Innocent Wolf [Girl]" makes sense. But since you decided to make them connected, couldn't you theoretically get more readers by announcing it in the author notes from the IDH posts?
Axel L
2022-11-18 00:22:45 +0000 UTCIt's a good idea, but he can get away with a lot due to sheer popularity. The entire point of linking these worlds is so that people who like IDH will give this story a chance. But yeah, that's technically an option.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 23:01:24 +0000 UTCNot sure if this has been previously considered, but a pattern I have seen elsewhere. Instead of relying on the story name to link them, create a name for the story world and link them through that. Examples: Brandon Sanderson has his Mistborn and Stormlight Archive stories in the "Cosmere" setting and a completely different set of stories set in the "Cytoverse". Terry Pratchett also linked a lot of story lines with very different types of main character by setting them all on Discworld. In both cases there are often signifiers like "The Wee Free Men, a Story of Discworld" or often a page listing the previous books in the setting. Just throwing it out in case it sparks ideas.
Binuvyen
2022-11-17 22:48:07 +0000 UTCThat may be. Maybe this title is truly the best one. Can you evaluate how you'd feel about some of these variations? Would you have been just as interested? Apex Wolf's Pet Witch | Apex Wolfgirl's Pet Witch Innocent Wolf's Pet Witch | Innocent Wolfgirl's Pet Witch Innocent Wolfgirl's Witch Are any of those equally as intriguing? Like, if I took away the wolfgirl, would your interest drop a ton? Would you still check out 'Apex Wolf's Pet Witch?' Or 'Innocent Wolf's Pet Witch?' Would those have stirred equivalent interest, or would you have put off checking them out?
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 22:36:19 +0000 UTCJust like Jarrod said earlier, the title "Wolfgirl's Pet Witch" made me check out the story. I think it's a good fit for this story. "Innocent devil" is also a good title, but renaming this story to "Innocent wolf(girl)" doesn't seem to do the story justice. Makes it look more like a byproduct of IDH. And if you have other stories you want to connect with IDH in the future, you'll be having a slew of "Innocent whatever" stories next to each other, making it look like it's all more of the same and covering up the difference and uniqueness of the stories with the repetitive title system...
BlackPhoenix
2022-11-17 22:25:11 +0000 UTCMe personally I'm one of those readers that just the wolfgirl name not even knowing it had an idh connection I have wanted to read it. But to hook me it's that first chapter or two for me if you don't have me hooked by then the story is lost to me. On lite I will give authors that I like a bit more time if it's a slow take off series but pure new authors to me have to 1 grab my attention with the title 2 length and 3 above. Even in my audio books I listen too commercially I have authors I like but some of there series I avoid as I didn't get hooked.
David A Franden
2022-11-17 17:11:22 +0000 UTCYeah, I was leaning away from Wolfgirl, but I think both of you are right. It kind of distinguishes it from a more generic title.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 17:06:52 +0000 UTCThat's alright! And actually, getting the opinion of someone who hasn't read the story might end up being more useful, simply because the goal of the title is to lure people to try it out. Which is why I'm trying to avoid titles that require context of the story to be understood.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 16:59:19 +0000 UTCHonestly I need to read them to give you a good opinion and sadly work has been a killer this last week so need some time
David A Franden
2022-11-17 16:48:24 +0000 UTCDuce uses 'Wolfgirl' instead of wolf and I also thought that wolfgirl describes the situation better than just wolf. It lets you know you are dealing with a femail MC plus there is the werewolf aspect. I tried to find a word that related to leader, protector, community builder, etc, but Pack still seems the best fit. Her 'pack' it is more than just werewolves, so something to describe the diversity of the pack with a witch and actually the whole town too, so 'Motley'. Put all that together and my suggested title is: Innocent Wolfgirl's Motley Pack
StarRanger
2022-11-17 16:38:41 +0000 UTCSome really good points. So then, one option is to do something like Wolfgirl's Pet Witch: an Innocent Devil's Harem Prequel (kind of clunky) Or, another option, Innocent Werewolf...something. Do you like any of the listed options more with 'werewolf' instead of wolf?
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 16:14:21 +0000 UTC"Pretend as if you know absolutely nothing about the story, and randomly saw this title with zero context which one would be most engaging to you?" None of the suggested titles are particularly engaging for me. "Wolfgirl's Pet Witch" is really engaging because "how do you keep a witch as a pet?" This is a novel concept and I want to know how it works. If I saw a title like this on literotica, I'd read the first chapter for sure. None of the rest pull me on their own, but your byline does pull me in so I'd at least try anything with your byline. I'm not sure if "Innocent X's Y" is a good pattern overall. It only works for "Innocent Devil" because the words are clearly in opposition i.e. "how can a devil possibly be innocent?". "Wolf" is a "neutral hungry" animal and even if a wolf pack killed and ate a child, they're still "innocent". "Werewolf" on the other hand has more "evil" connotations, so "Innocent Werewolf's Y" is more engaging than "Innocent Wolf's Y" (but even that isn't very strong because there's a lot of media with friendly werewolves nowadays).
Jarrod Lombardo (he-him)
2022-11-17 16:09:43 +0000 UTCI definitely agree, but the problem is that a title that 'best describes' the story isn't always necessarily the best title. Innocent Wolf Protector make me personally think of a different kind of story, maybe about a guardian wolf who chooses to be in that role, which is very different than Ariana's situation. At that point, might be better to go with Innocent Werewolf Protector, but even still I feel like the story I would imagine (if I had zero idea what the story was about ) is very different from this one.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 15:44:29 +0000 UTC“Innocent Wolf Protector/Defender” seems to describe the direction of the tale so far.
Binuvyen
2022-11-17 15:39:45 +0000 UTCSomething like, “Innocent Devils: A Wolf’s Tail” yes, the tale homophone was intended
Teylin
2022-11-17 15:23:36 +0000 UTCI'm not planning on renaming Innocent Devil's Harem, and this Wolfgirl story is only on Patreon right now, so a title change wouldn't be difficult at all. I do want people to make the association, but I'm a little concerned that naming it Innocent Devil would cause people to think that it was too closely associated. That maybe this was a story for a side-character who shows up in IDH, as opposed to being it's own story that is only loosely connected. Plus, I don't want people to expect that the MC will be the same or similar, which is why I'm not sure I'd want to go with Innocent Devil...something.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 15:16:20 +0000 UTCI also like Tylin's idea of retroactively renaming the whole series. So something like "Innocent Devil: A Wolf's Pride" I don't know how feasible that is given how you already have published titles for sale. I guess it would be much like how people kinda rename their stuff on second editions, but I haven't seen it done with novels.
Axel L
2022-11-17 15:07:47 +0000 UTCTrolling for Love? LOL, I'm dying laughing here. Also, I do want people to make the association, but I'm a little concerned that naming it Innocent Devil would cause people to think that it was too closely associated. That maybe this was a story for a side-character who shows up in IDH, as opposed to being it's own story that is only loosely connected. Plus, I don't want people to expect that the MC will be the same or similar, which is why I'm not sure I'd want to go with Innocent Devil...something.
Author Kaizer Wolf
2022-11-17 15:00:14 +0000 UTCI like Innocent Wolf's Pride. Given how much of the story so far has been about Ariana struggling to maintain her humility. And I don't think Rose needs to become a wolf.
Axel L
2022-11-17 14:59:51 +0000 UTCI think that you could go with Innocent Wolf's Coven, as that would allow the pet witch to form a group around the wolf and establish a known structure for characters to come and go from season to season doing ritual magic and ceremonies to initiate and punish members within the coven.
Jon Van Meter
2022-11-17 14:56:05 +0000 UTCI like the shepard and flock ideas. I don't share the concern about flock not being recognized; triteness such as " birds of a feather flock together" keeps it in common usage. I'd like to suggest that you'd want to go a bit further in the association and make the tie "Innocent DevilWolf..." because iIt strengthens the fantasy element expected - this is not merely an anamorphic wolf story. I also like the idea of a pronoun in there so you're aware of the protagonist gender - a female devilwolf is go to be expected to bring a whole other level of angst to their self-knowledge. So, my final suggestion would be something like Innocent DevilWolf: Gathering Her Flock But, you could also consider having the whole franchise modded a bit, to "Innocent Devils"; e.g.: Innocent Devils: Wolfgirl's Pet Witch Innocent Devils: Demon Harem Innocent Devils: Trolling for Love etc...
Toodles McGhee
2022-11-17 14:55:29 +0000 UTCOf the options above Innocent Wolfgirl’s Pack makes most sense to me.
Duce
2022-11-17 14:43:02 +0000 UTCAlso, “Innocent Wolf’s Ascension” might be an interesting title choice
Teylin
2022-11-17 14:42:46 +0000 UTCI see a glaring issue in connecting this to IDH. Werewolves aren’t wolves in IDH they are hideous creatures that have no thought or semblance of control over themselves outside the alpha who is still hideously disfigured and doesn’t look like a wolf in the story. So hopefully that gets addressed in some chapter of IDH or Wolfgirl. As for the name Innocent Wolfgirl’s Love is an interesting choice maybe. Or innocent Wolfgirl’s Coven would tie in the witch aspects.
Duce
2022-11-17 14:42:07 +0000 UTCI know I’m biased, but I like Innocent Wolf’s Pack. Also, just because she is forming a back, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be populated by just other wolves, given the duality of her own existence and the malleability of what constitutes a pack or family in today’s society. I like the fact that Rose isn’t a wolf and I imagine that her being a witch could afford ways and means to form just as meaningful and deep bonds with the pack members as those who are wolves. You could always write a companion piece from Rose’s perspective, “Innocent Witch’s Coven”
Teylin
2022-11-17 14:41:57 +0000 UTC
