Stealing titles

One of the things I struggle with in my writing is creating a good title. The stories I've written in the past few months have had simple titles that don't always work with the story: No Place Like Home, Body Double, The Last Wizard, The Mechamancer. I asked my carpool mates about titles and they gave me a few good suggestions: First, be willing to abandon a working title (and make sure you change it in the manuscript); Second, read the text for the themes of the story, it is possible that a phrase in the text leads to a much better title.

One of the stories that we read last night had an odd title, and one of the reviewers thought a phrase right on page 2 of the MS was the perfect title, or at least a really good title. The writer who wrote the line might not use the title, but the reviewer might use it. I already did. When I got home at midnight I couldn't sleep and sat down and wrote a 1,650 word drafty by 1 a.m. The title attached itself to a story that I have been trying to write for the past ten years or so.

So I've stolen a title. It's probably not a big sin in the writing world. After all, how many book and movie titles come from Shakespeare?