Dragon Slayer Chapter 2 is completely done, as promised. It’s arriving either on Monday or Tuesday at some time throughout the day. After that, I’ll keep hammering away at the rest of the story, and post it as I do. But… will it still be called Dragon Slayer?

Names are a tricky thing for any story, and they get trickier still when you’re writing a serialized story. If you post a first chapter of a story, you have to give it a name, but on the other hand, what happens when the point of the story only comes into clear focus when you’re writing the fourth chapter? Is it okay to change the name, or do you have to commit to it? That goes double for posting a story online, where a hyperlink or even just a memorable name becomes your key to a reader coming back to a story.

I haven’t posted anything to an exterior site in a while – and wow, is that ever a privilege for an online erotica writer to say – but I will work on posting my backlog to other websites soon. Part of the reason I took a break was because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to change the names of certain stories, because for some websites, editing a posted chapter is next to impossible. If I posted a story to one of those websites, the commitment would have been more set-in-stone. And sometimes, it’s better to wait.

Want a fun fact? Mutual Benefits was originally called A Deal’s A Deal, which is, in my opinion, an absolutely horrible name in hindsight. At least, it’s a lot worse than Mutual Benefits. Similarly, Follow the Leader was originally called something like Let the Robyn Fly. Oof. Terrible. The benefit of refusing to work on them until my other stories were done was that I got the chance to daydream about their plots and meanings for a long time and really reflect on what the name should do for the story. In both cases, the name I ended up going with reflected both the themes and the story so much better, and just sounded snappier to boot. Honestly, if I had more time, maybe The Good, The Bad and the Molly might have a better name. Food for thought. Either way, stories I write of my own accord have this advantage, where I can think and reflect.

Enter the weird world of commissions. I really lucked out with Final Answer (and yes, Chapter 12 is slowly coming) because its name works well for a lot of reasons too. Thanks to the fact that I’m slow with outputting a second chapter of Sweet Chaos, Dragon Slayer is effectively my second longform commission story (and even then, only the first three or so chapters are “commissioned,” but that’s a topic for another time). Is it a good title for the story? I don’t know. Because the plot of the story centers on the MMORPG Runescape, I wanted to make the title harken to something iconic within the game. Dragon Slayer is perhaps the most famous quest of the free-to-play version of the game, and also, it clearly has some kind of symbolic meaning to the story in some way… sort of. I’m not 100% on it yet, and to be fully honest, as the story unfolds, I would warmly welcome thoughts on the title. I’m one of those annoying authors that thinks titles hold a lot of sway and power, and I want to get it right for the stories I’m more proud of.

Maybe I should just sit in a room and brood about the plot of Dragon Slayer and it’ll come to me, but also, if that happens, it’ll be slower to come out, and at that point, I think you all will have a legal right to come after me with pitchforks at that point. I like the idea of barreling forward, making mistakes, and reflecting and changing, rather than hesitating and not making anything at all – my writing process reflects this in a lot of ways, and I think we all like the spontaneous and human nature of this kind of writing. It goes without saying that it’s a lot of fun to write, and I’m glad I get to share all of it with you. I just want to make sure I clinch it with the title, and I welcome all thoughts along the way. I’ll talk to you all soon – very soon.

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