From the End of the World Pool thread on www.hatrack.com:

What about the story title? I know there are some stories I probably would never have picked up, except they were recommended by other, because the title just didn’t in any way grab me, appeal to me, or prick my interest into reading the jacket cover.

For instance in your example above of the captain of the starship story — how did you decide on the name Fingers and why? For many stories, you can’t seem to understand the title until after you’re read the story. 

You’ve found one of my hidden weaknesses– titles. I am AWFUL with titles, as End of the World Pool demonstrates. Originally, it was called SlimeKing; it was submitted to the Codex contest as Three Minutes, Forty-Two Seconds With Annabel Lee, that sounded like a really cheap, scuzzy porno. When I sub’d to IGMS, it went under Horseplay In the End of the World Pool. Edmund thought that didn’t set the right tone, and asked me to drop ‘horseplay.’ I agreed.

Fingers was originally Fingers of the Gas Giant, because it was about the gas giant’s gravitational pull dragging my character’s starship down. As the story evolved, he was able to get off his starship, onto the enemy one– and found almost everyone there dead from a virus. He contracts the virus as well. One of its effects is that when he hears a noise, he feels fingers sliding along his skin. So the gas giant’s fingers and the virus’ fingers are working to kill him, or drive him insane.

You know who’s really good at titles? Ken Scholes. That guy crafts titles like fine china. It must be something about the Pacific Northwest, because Jay Lake is able to do the same thing.

The one story of mine whose title I absolutely LOVE is a psychological/supernatural (surprise, surprise…) drama called Out of the Deep Have I Howled Unto Thee. The title is taken from the Latin de profundis clamo ad te domine— Out of the depths I call unto thee, Lord. It’s about a religious man struggling with lycanthropy and self-imposed loneliness, and a werewolf-possessed 1942 Indian Sport Scout motorcycle.

I don’t generally title my stories until after they’re finished. (Out of the Deep is an exception to that.) When I start a short story, after I’ve written up the plot, I give it a preliminary title. This is really just a file name, like ‘Blue Harvest.’ 🙂 As the story evolves, and themes or recurring images begin to float to the top, my subconscious massages the title a bit, and I begin to get an idea for what I want to call it.

Sometimes, it works out; sometimes not. There’s an art to title-making that I just seem to lack the skill for. Alas! I shall persevere and eventually get it.