Title Search

Here's a title-and-hook-line practice game: sit in any place in your house where you're surrounded by things with words on them (garage, storage room, library, home office, etc.) Make a list of random words that you see around you (don't take titles off the spines of books.)

Here's my list of words from the garage:

Old Locks (hand-written on cardboard box)
Wonder Wind (extension cord winder; "er" from "winder" is worn off)
Running Men (shoe box)
Just for Thought (old note stuck to bulletin board)
Venezia Spell (paint chip folder)
Landmark (fan box)
Without Rain (cracked CD case with fragment of insert, Enya? maybe)
Nom 166 (Dell computer box)
Gem of Truth (one or the kids' RPG cards)
Just a Click Away (end of photo package)
To Her Desires (beginning of last line on cover copy of old novel I'm reading)

Now, take your title words and imagine a story for them -- doesn't have to be a novel, just a story idea -- and write a premise or hook line for it:

Old Locks: Grandma meets the three bears.
Wonder Wind: How fast will Timmy's new bike go?
Running Men: In this race, there is no second place.
Just for Thought: Before you leave me, let me tell you why you shouldn't.
Venezia Spell: Never cast a stone spell in a glass castle.
Landmark: What could have scorched through the corn field like that?Without Rain: Forty nights in the devil's desert.
Nom 166: 500 more days and the AntiChrist arrives.
Gem of Truth: John and Marcia must save mystic gem from murderous thief.
Just a Click Away: Falling in cyberlove.
To Her Desires: Everything must be, or else.

You can also pick up title words and phrases from the Yellow Pages or telephone directory, things you hear people say, billboards, street signs or greeting cards. Look around you right now: what words do you see that you can make into a title and hook line? Post yours in comments.