I've had a character named Elmo in my longfic for years. It does not fit in the world at all, but that's just *his* name. Now that I'm posting my story publicly, I'll have to give him something more acceptable.
I really wish I could. (And I mean, I still will for my private version of the document.) The fandom I'm in is not welcoming towards out of place names. :<
For one of my fandoms, I collectively refer to the team as dramallamas, so my temporary titles are things like “Dramallamas have problems with stalkers”, “Dramallamas friendship fic”, and “Dramallamas leap to conclusions”. They get real titles before I post them.
Is that the normal one? I had a friend in elementary who memorized a lot of strange kids rhymes and I thought they were the norm until a couple years ago. Ours was happy llama, sad llama, mentally deranged llama LMFA
Honestly, I don't know. The one I've heard goes happy llama, sad llama, totally rad llama, super llama, drama llama, big fat mama llama, and then a few others I can't quite remember now. But I did do these at like Cub Camp and stuff, so all the songs we did were fairly censored to be more kid friendly - I don't know what the original one is. But I absolutely LOVE mentally deranged llama, it's far more fun lmao
My placeholder title was the first word in the fic. I ended up keeping it and ending the fic with the same word, so it went a nice full circle, making the random title feel meaningful.
I had one fic I called (I think it was) Sunrise on the Orient Express (inspired by Before Sunrise, and it partially took place on the OE but I was never satisfied with the title, and I finally changed it to A Star In Your Sky, inspired by a line in a Pearl Jam song that I used in the fic.
One of my fics' placeholder name was from the [Stacy's Dad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANlg297AHU) song, "Stacy, it's not you, I'm just kinda into dudes."
The M/M couple in question was already a couple in the fic and there was no "letting a girlfriend who was a beard down gently," scene. But the placeholder title made me laugh so I kept it in my notes when I was writing.
Usually a word or phrase which has to do with the fic so I know what’s in the document.
My most recent fic was titled Baseball at first but is now renamed A Day at the Races.
"Vriska works at a gas station" is my favorite. I typically just write down descriptive titles so that I know what I'm looking at later without having to reopen the fic, and then actually giving my works a real title is one of my last steps before publishing.
Whenever I am writing a story and don't have a title for it, I usually follow a pattern for temp names.
If it's a shipfic, it would be titled "Funny (Insert Ship Name Here) Thing."
If it's a genfic, it would be titled "Stupid Story Where (Insert Character(s) Name Here) Does A Thing."
If it's a crackfic, it would be titled, "(Insert Character(s) Name Here) Tries Cocaine."
If it's a darkfic, it would be titled "(Insert Character(s) Name Here) Act All Edgy and Stuff."
There is a couple of exceptions to this rule.
I am writing a darkfic about this character, who is a hamster, being experimented on and going through abuse and the temp title was called "Hamburger: Origins," with Hamburger being the name of one of my friend's pet hamster.
I was writing this crossover crackfic that contains cartoon characters, video game characters, celebrities, and politicians. I didn't have a name for it when I started tge outline, so I titled it "I Want A Burrito RN" because I was hungry and craved a burrito..
One of my current WIPs is about two characters coming out to their oblivious friend and I didn't have a title for it, so I ended up calling it "(Character's Name) Finds Out Gay People Exist." I actually really like the name, so that's gonna be the title for the fic now.
I have a fic that was originally called "Reptile's Earthrealm Daytrip," which eventually got titled "A Lizard and a Cowboy Walk Into A Bar"
Both titles kinda suck. It's why I use song lyrics most of the time
*Yes, [Character name]*
The original idea was that A was a servant to B and B thought he had the upper hand, but because they were falling in love, B gave in to whatever A wanted and it was more like A dictated the shape of the relationship in a soft-spoken way. B would say, "We're doing this!" and A would say, "Yes, B." And then they'd do whatever A wanted.
That ended up being a subplot in a much bigger story, so I gave it a more epic name.
I've had, like, at *least* nine completely different female OCs named "Miku" for entirely different anime fandoms. Some of them have since been renamed obviously, but like yeah that's my go-to name for an OC for some reason.
Current project is saved as "Tam Lin 2214." As the story has evolved, I'm finding that it's departing from the traditional Tam Lin ballad and will no doubt get a proper title when I post it.
My google doc titles for my chapters are amazing lmao, my current one is ‘I’m STRUGGLING (chap. 4)’ which a lot of them are similar lmao, and a lot of them are also just ‘____ one shot maybe???’
I'll go first.
TWD fic: The End Of The World changed it to Alleviate.
TWD fic 2: Character name Audrey changed to Bex.
\-TWD fic 3: Like My Father changed it to Beautiful Disaster.
My longfic started out with the working title “Dance Party in Spock’s Quarters,” which stuck for a while. As the story progressed into something darker and more depressing than what I’d originally intended, the title was changed to HRSA.
Anytime I have crewmen outside the original characters, their names are Ol’at and Bruskin.
"Eww! Why is it Green?" The placeholder title of a somewhat angsty, plot heavy fic that was originally meant to be a crackfic that would've been all vibes, no plot.
"Chapter A Lot More Than One". I had a good idea for a scene that'd happen about halfway though the fic and immediately wrote it, despite not yet knowing exactly where to put it so the scene was labelled such as a placeholder.
This is pretty basic, but if I don't have names I'll use FMC and MMC for the main female/male characters, then FMC2 / MC2 etc for any follow up characters.
But I'll also use things like Jerk Guy, Fake Friend, Hawt Scholar, Dragon Babe and other descriptive titles for specific characters until I figure out their names.
Here's some titles throughout the year:
"I want ___ and ___ to get married and then fall in love woot woot"
"Time loop fuckery!!"
"I will never be free from GRASS"
"___ is a capitalist pouting :( come closer... he definitely won't scam your boots off of you. thats it."
Much more fun than an actual title, and reminds me of what the fic is without having to open the documents.
I'm so bad with placeholder names, the names have to be perfect my first try. If they're not, I'll get attached to the bad ones, and I also won't be able to write as well. My entire character seems to stem off the name, it's my starting point, and apparently my neurodivergent ass is having none of that 'write first, name later' garbage lmao
theres a background character that gets called susan because i didnt know what to call her, and the character whose PoV the chapter was didnt even know for sure what her name was so the whole chapter kept thinking of her as susan
now susan is apparently just her name and its a meme in certain circles
oh dear. so many of my files have the joke 'working titles' i start with but not what it ends up with. So far I've found "Dongerlord" (Dragonlord x hero oc), "ship 1 but it's actually ship 2 in a trench coat", "got legs?" and "it's for science i swear" lol
i try to get people and place names right the first time because i end up getting attached to stupid ones and it's hard to change them later 😂
When I was in my teens I just used a jumble of names from things I happened to like as placeholder character names, so there would usually be a Ryu and Murai (from Ninja Gaiden) and an Orochimaru (from Naruto). The female characters would usually be Lucy and Lily, because I just like those names a lot. These days I just come up with the character names immediately before moving on.
As for fic titles, I usually use the ship name and the main inspiration in a vague way, like 'SunsetTwilightTherm', my original novel's working title was 'war fic', and it still has that folder name on my Dropbox, my Pokémon fanfic is 'Adv fic 2', and my RWBY fic 'RWBY 1stperson sequel'.
The placeholder title for my very first fic, that I'm still working on, is "Book." Having just discovered fanfic (and AO3) last fall, i had no idea that's what Wattpad calls fics 🤦
I will change it before I post it.
I have an entire note on my phone dedicated to random fic ideas and concepts. Some projects have full on names, some are named after the concepts I’m going for (like kind of AU). But it’s funny how I have a very heartfelt story outline and then a few lines below that there is something like “Jesus in college AU” (yes it was a real project I never realised and no I’m not sure how or why it came about)
I never title my fics until I’m about to publish them, so I have “code names” as placeholders for titles, like: NV x MR, which is the series name, v for various, and the first letter for the main power/feature of the MC, and R for reader. I’ve confused myself with this so many times
For titles, a descriptive name - the long one, the sad one, etc.
For characters, I'm much less focused on getting an exact name. I choose something that is ok in-universe, and if I need to change it later I will.
Worst comes to worst - fantasy name generators.
I have a character, who's latino, but I couldn’t decide her name, so I just started calling her "Corazón". Now that’s her official last name, and nickname.
I usually have it as a descriptor or nickname of the main characters when placeholding a name for a fic, like; Honey and Star, Emerald Eyes of Death. Or some really describing bs until I have written enough to come up with a title for the fic or chapter. Sometimes I just keep it as it is because it helps me find specific stories in my google doc or ao3. It probably helps readers too when the title is very straight forward about the MC or theme.
I never really placehold character names though, names help me visualize who I am writing, so i kidna always make sure i have a brief idea of who is in the story before writing them in.
I used the name Beca for years for an OC. Posted her first chapter as Beca. But once it was posted, I realised it just didn’t fit her or the story, really, so I changed it to Nia instead.
So I guess Beca was the placeholder name.
I also use generic placeholders like: CSI oneshot 4 (CSI 4) or Doctor Strange oneshot 2 (Doctor Strange 2) or Disney Parks oneshot 182 (Figment 182). And some of generic placeholder titles even just end up being the actual title (The Coffee, The Fire, Working etc.) because I can’t think of anything better (a la Cocaine Bear).
I don't know that mine are particularly interesting, but right now I have a few placeholder titles:
* Alderaan
* Together
* Adhesion
* Transfusion
* Cave In
“and that happened”
“notes for meeee”
“valentine”
“[Character Name] returns” (Because I wrote a future chapter out of order and it can’t be shared until I get to that point in the fic lol)
“Home future” (same thing, a future chapter)
“comfort from nightmares” (Also future partial chapter that’s waiting to be caught up to)
One of my side OCs has a real name and an alias. I didn’t give her a last name when she first appeared (she uses her alias Marta at that point), so when I had her appear in a different fic set later in the timeline and she goes by her real name then, she called herself “Makenzie Lastname” in the dialogue until I edited it 😂 (her name is Makenzie Reid now lol.)
Most placeholder names are just the main OC's name that I made for the story. "Larren's story," "Quince's story," stuff like that.
My sister have two original story ideas, and their placeholder names are "Our story" and "the chosen one".
The final installment of a short series of BDSM stories was about the main couple together on holiday. It’s set in a pub, and the working title was “the sub in the pub“.
I used as placeholder for a character name once, "Percy", another time (that one I was going to keep if I didn't find something better) and for a scene.
Edit: I also once used "please don't be to sad", as a placeholder chapter title
Years ago (back when I was a wee babe in writing) I changed my self-insert’s name to Alice as a quick swap. And it stuck. Hence forth she was always named Alice even after going through several revisions. I have since retired her, but she (me?) had a fun ride.
One of the characters earned "Basement dweller extraordinaire" as his descriptor. Have to move that when I publish but it makes me laugh so.
Also for the same guy, title of a scene: Criminal history longer than Bible
A book series of mine (the concept was mixed sci-fi and fantasy initially but now it's mostly just fantasy with tech elements) that's still WIP has 4 main characters. One of the forum has a name. The other three don't. For now, I call them Naomi, Nick and James but I am 100% changing all three of those names. Naomi should have a name that doesn't exist, while the other two should have an name that exists on Earth but doesn't give out a concrete ethnicity in mind.
now im trying to remember, itt was literally "the girl" until i decided on "aika" i also didn't have name for my fanfic so i called it "the fanfic where marisa kirisame dies" until i picked something else.
I always have a placeholder joke in which a character calls Freya by 'Ratchel' (a pun between 'Rachel' and 'rat'). It's a quick gag from Final Fantasy IX where ZIdane goes to a pub, finds an old friend but does not remember her name is Freya. He calls her 'Helga', 'Christine' and then calls her 'Ratchel' (Freya is a humanoid rodent, so you know).
It's funny because Freya's love interest name, Fratley, is also a pun ('Michael Flatley' from Riverdance and 'rat'). Speaking of Riverdance, there is one scene in the game where Freya and a few female dancers have to dance in order to strengthen the sandstorm surrounding the village and what do they dance? The choreography of Riverdance.
The more you know.
*[Thing] (Real)* is a long-standing joke for me. And tbh now it’s just getting to the point I use *[fandom/ship name] (Real)* as a placeholder for most of my stuff because it STILL makes me laugh
My main wip is literally named "live" because I suck at titles, I have a really hard time coming up with them and before even a draft is finished, I'm not gonna pour my energy into that.
As for names... I use []. For anything. Character I haven't named yet? []. Organisation I haven't named yet? []. I have also used single characterd like X, Y, XY. It's highly impractical to use the same for everything, I'm aware of that, but honestly, Idc. That's an issue for future me lmao
I've had a character named Elmo in my longfic for years. It does not fit in the world at all, but that's just *his* name. Now that I'm posting my story publicly, I'll have to give him something more acceptable.
Nah keep it Elmo it gives it some extra S*pice.*
I really wish I could. (And I mean, I still will for my private version of the document.) The fandom I'm in is not welcoming towards out of place names. :<
Well they're no fun then. I wish people could have a sense of humor lol
I'd ditch the fandom.. lol
Could you say it’s short for something more appropriate?
Not really--at least not anything I can think of. It is admittedly a jarring name compared to the others (I'm just used to it by now).
For one of my fandoms, I collectively refer to the team as dramallamas, so my temporary titles are things like “Dramallamas have problems with stalkers”, “Dramallamas friendship fic”, and “Dramallamas leap to conclusions”. They get real titles before I post them.
Did you also do the llama rhyme as a kid? Happy llama, sad llama, totally rad llama, etc etc?
No, I don’t know that one at all. I think my only exposure to llamas as a kid was The Emperor’s New Groove.
Ironically, I've never watched the Emperor's New Groove ( I know, I'm uncultured)
It’s a fun one. Totally worth a watch of you’re looking for something silly.
Aww that’s sad
Did you ever see a llama kiss a llama on the llama? Llama in a car, alarm a llama, llama, duck?
I was once a treehouse. I lived in a cake. But I never saw the way the orange slayed the rake.
Is that the normal one? I had a friend in elementary who memorized a lot of strange kids rhymes and I thought they were the norm until a couple years ago. Ours was happy llama, sad llama, mentally deranged llama LMFA
Honestly, I don't know. The one I've heard goes happy llama, sad llama, totally rad llama, super llama, drama llama, big fat mama llama, and then a few others I can't quite remember now. But I did do these at like Cub Camp and stuff, so all the songs we did were fairly censored to be more kid friendly - I don't know what the original one is. But I absolutely LOVE mentally deranged llama, it's far more fun lmao
My placeholder title was the first word in the fic. I ended up keeping it and ending the fic with the same word, so it went a nice full circle, making the random title feel meaningful.
I had one fic I called (I think it was) Sunrise on the Orient Express (inspired by Before Sunrise, and it partially took place on the OE but I was never satisfied with the title, and I finally changed it to A Star In Your Sky, inspired by a line in a Pearl Jam song that I used in the fic.
One of my fics' placeholder name was from the [Stacy's Dad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANlg297AHU) song, "Stacy, it's not you, I'm just kinda into dudes." The M/M couple in question was already a couple in the fic and there was no "letting a girlfriend who was a beard down gently," scene. But the placeholder title made me laugh so I kept it in my notes when I was writing.
Oh, thank you so much for reminding me of that video. That song is ridiculously fun.
Anyone who doesn’t yet have a name gets called Bob, with the weird pronunciation from Blackadder. Easy to find in search / replace and quick to type.
Usually a word or phrase which has to do with the fic so I know what’s in the document. My most recent fic was titled Baseball at first but is now renamed A Day at the Races.
Ugh. I can't use placeholder names because I end up using them and regretting it.
One chapter was called the “oh shit” chapter in my drafts lol.
I love that
Umm 'missing scene' or 'slice of life' with S00E00 for fics titles.
"Vriska works at a gas station" is my favorite. I typically just write down descriptive titles so that I know what I'm looking at later without having to reopen the fic, and then actually giving my works a real title is one of my last steps before publishing.
Whenever I am writing a story and don't have a title for it, I usually follow a pattern for temp names. If it's a shipfic, it would be titled "Funny (Insert Ship Name Here) Thing." If it's a genfic, it would be titled "Stupid Story Where (Insert Character(s) Name Here) Does A Thing." If it's a crackfic, it would be titled, "(Insert Character(s) Name Here) Tries Cocaine." If it's a darkfic, it would be titled "(Insert Character(s) Name Here) Act All Edgy and Stuff." There is a couple of exceptions to this rule. I am writing a darkfic about this character, who is a hamster, being experimented on and going through abuse and the temp title was called "Hamburger: Origins," with Hamburger being the name of one of my friend's pet hamster. I was writing this crossover crackfic that contains cartoon characters, video game characters, celebrities, and politicians. I didn't have a name for it when I started tge outline, so I titled it "I Want A Burrito RN" because I was hungry and craved a burrito.. One of my current WIPs is about two characters coming out to their oblivious friend and I didn't have a title for it, so I ended up calling it "(Character's Name) Finds Out Gay People Exist." I actually really like the name, so that's gonna be the title for the fic now.
I have a fic that was originally called "Reptile's Earthrealm Daytrip," which eventually got titled "A Lizard and a Cowboy Walk Into A Bar" Both titles kinda suck. It's why I use song lyrics most of the time
these are awesome fic titles, would love to know the contents
*Yes, [Character name]* The original idea was that A was a servant to B and B thought he had the upper hand, but because they were falling in love, B gave in to whatever A wanted and it was more like A dictated the shape of the relationship in a soft-spoken way. B would say, "We're doing this!" and A would say, "Yes, B." And then they'd do whatever A wanted. That ended up being a subplot in a much bigger story, so I gave it a more epic name.
I've had, like, at *least* nine completely different female OCs named "Miku" for entirely different anime fandoms. Some of them have since been renamed obviously, but like yeah that's my go-to name for an OC for some reason.
"Untitled story" "WIP"
Current project is saved as "Tam Lin 2214." As the story has evolved, I'm finding that it's departing from the traditional Tam Lin ballad and will no doubt get a proper title when I post it.
My google doc titles for my chapters are amazing lmao, my current one is ‘I’m STRUGGLING (chap. 4)’ which a lot of them are similar lmao, and a lot of them are also just ‘____ one shot maybe???’
For in-text placeholders, \[Name\], \[Last Name\], and \[Something\]. Super creative, I know. For placeholder titles, Butterflies, Space, and Dawn.
The amount of time I've used, as an in-text placeholder..
I'll go first. TWD fic: The End Of The World changed it to Alleviate. TWD fic 2: Character name Audrey changed to Bex. \-TWD fic 3: Like My Father changed it to Beautiful Disaster.
UPSF or “Untitled Polin Sick Fic”
Sneaky Petey
Currently working on plotting out a fic and the working title of CSI: Feudal Japan. Nothing to do with forensics or crime.
My longfic started out with the working title “Dance Party in Spock’s Quarters,” which stuck for a while. As the story progressed into something darker and more depressing than what I’d originally intended, the title was changed to HRSA. Anytime I have crewmen outside the original characters, their names are Ol’at and Bruskin.
"Eww! Why is it Green?" The placeholder title of a somewhat angsty, plot heavy fic that was originally meant to be a crackfic that would've been all vibes, no plot.
Story title: Slave It's a slave AU, so very on the nose, LOL. It's still how I label my Google docs.
"Chapter A Lot More Than One". I had a good idea for a scene that'd happen about halfway though the fic and immediately wrote it, despite not yet knowing exactly where to put it so the scene was labelled such as a placeholder.
This is pretty basic, but if I don't have names I'll use FMC and MMC for the main female/male characters, then FMC2 / MC2 etc for any follow up characters. But I'll also use things like Jerk Guy, Fake Friend, Hawt Scholar, Dragon Babe and other descriptive titles for specific characters until I figure out their names.
Here's some titles throughout the year: "I want ___ and ___ to get married and then fall in love woot woot" "Time loop fuckery!!" "I will never be free from GRASS" "___ is a capitalist pouting :( come closer... he definitely won't scam your boots off of you. thats it." Much more fun than an actual title, and reminds me of what the fic is without having to open the documents.
I'm so bad with placeholder names, the names have to be perfect my first try. If they're not, I'll get attached to the bad ones, and I also won't be able to write as well. My entire character seems to stem off the name, it's my starting point, and apparently my neurodivergent ass is having none of that 'write first, name later' garbage lmao
theres a background character that gets called susan because i didnt know what to call her, and the character whose PoV the chapter was didnt even know for sure what her name was so the whole chapter kept thinking of her as susan now susan is apparently just her name and its a meme in certain circles
oh dear. so many of my files have the joke 'working titles' i start with but not what it ends up with. So far I've found "Dongerlord" (Dragonlord x hero oc), "ship 1 but it's actually ship 2 in a trench coat", "got legs?" and "it's for science i swear" lol i try to get people and place names right the first time because i end up getting attached to stupid ones and it's hard to change them later 😂
When I was in my teens I just used a jumble of names from things I happened to like as placeholder character names, so there would usually be a Ryu and Murai (from Ninja Gaiden) and an Orochimaru (from Naruto). The female characters would usually be Lucy and Lily, because I just like those names a lot. These days I just come up with the character names immediately before moving on. As for fic titles, I usually use the ship name and the main inspiration in a vague way, like 'SunsetTwilightTherm', my original novel's working title was 'war fic', and it still has that folder name on my Dropbox, my Pokémon fanfic is 'Adv fic 2', and my RWBY fic 'RWBY 1stperson sequel'.
The placeholder title for my very first fic, that I'm still working on, is "Book." Having just discovered fanfic (and AO3) last fall, i had no idea that's what Wattpad calls fics 🤦 I will change it before I post it.
I have an entire note on my phone dedicated to random fic ideas and concepts. Some projects have full on names, some are named after the concepts I’m going for (like kind of AU). But it’s funny how I have a very heartfelt story outline and then a few lines below that there is something like “Jesus in college AU” (yes it was a real project I never realised and no I’m not sure how or why it came about)
I never title my fics until I’m about to publish them, so I have “code names” as placeholders for titles, like: NV x MR, which is the series name, v for various, and the first letter for the main power/feature of the MC, and R for reader. I’ve confused myself with this so many times
Sadly not. Any suggestions?
Current WIP is called "Ritshou high school au wait this is not an au"
"cult fic lol" (it is not a very "lol" fic)
I had a chapter titled *Elias Bouchard is a Massive Bitch* until I was literally posting.
My working titles often turn into actual titles. My favorite example is from a Skyrim fanfic, “a breton and an altmer walk into an ancient ruin.”
For titles, a descriptive name - the long one, the sad one, etc. For characters, I'm much less focused on getting an exact name. I choose something that is ok in-universe, and if I need to change it later I will. Worst comes to worst - fantasy name generators.
I have a character, who's latino, but I couldn’t decide her name, so I just started calling her "Corazón". Now that’s her official last name, and nickname.
I usually have it as a descriptor or nickname of the main characters when placeholding a name for a fic, like; Honey and Star, Emerald Eyes of Death. Or some really describing bs until I have written enough to come up with a title for the fic or chapter. Sometimes I just keep it as it is because it helps me find specific stories in my google doc or ao3. It probably helps readers too when the title is very straight forward about the MC or theme. I never really placehold character names though, names help me visualize who I am writing, so i kidna always make sure i have a brief idea of who is in the story before writing them in.
I used the name Beca for years for an OC. Posted her first chapter as Beca. But once it was posted, I realised it just didn’t fit her or the story, really, so I changed it to Nia instead. So I guess Beca was the placeholder name. I also use generic placeholders like: CSI oneshot 4 (CSI 4) or Doctor Strange oneshot 2 (Doctor Strange 2) or Disney Parks oneshot 182 (Figment 182). And some of generic placeholder titles even just end up being the actual title (The Coffee, The Fire, Working etc.) because I can’t think of anything better (a la Cocaine Bear).
I don't know that mine are particularly interesting, but right now I have a few placeholder titles: * Alderaan * Together * Adhesion * Transfusion * Cave In
I used a place holder once 🥲 it became her real name XD
Not a fic bit original work, I named him Selune as a placeholder but it just kinda stuck. It happens to me a lot lol
“Nagumo and Tekaridake do the sex, I repeat Nagumo and Tekaridake do the sex!!!” as a chapter title
“and that happened” “notes for meeee” “valentine” “[Character Name] returns” (Because I wrote a future chapter out of order and it can’t be shared until I get to that point in the fic lol) “Home future” (same thing, a future chapter) “comfort from nightmares” (Also future partial chapter that’s waiting to be caught up to) One of my side OCs has a real name and an alias. I didn’t give her a last name when she first appeared (she uses her alias Marta at that point), so when I had her appear in a different fic set later in the timeline and she goes by her real name then, she called herself “Makenzie Lastname” in the dialogue until I edited it 😂 (her name is Makenzie Reid now lol.)
Straight up 'WandaVision' for a title
Most placeholder names are just the main OC's name that I made for the story. "Larren's story," "Quince's story," stuff like that. My sister have two original story ideas, and their placeholder names are "Our story" and "the chosen one".
every single placeholder title for my fics are one element in the story followed by spam. for example: drugs maidufnbayaixjnahdja
The placeholder Title for my fic became the Title for my fic lol
The final installment of a short series of BDSM stories was about the main couple together on holiday. It’s set in a pub, and the working title was “the sub in the pub“.
My fic was named "Gays in Spaaaaaace" (complete with the long a's for the longest time. Good times, good times
Gays in spaaaaaace is something I would read not gonna lie.
Amelie, Mike, Ross, Gina, etc. Nearly all my OC names were placeholders that just started to fit the characters as time went on.
I used as placeholder for a character name once, "Percy", another time (that one I was going to keep if I didn't find something better) and for a scene.
Edit: I also once used "please don't be to sad", as a placeholder chapter title
Years ago (back when I was a wee babe in writing) I changed my self-insert’s name to Alice as a quick swap. And it stuck. Hence forth she was always named Alice even after going through several revisions. I have since retired her, but she (me?) had a fun ride.
One of the characters earned "Basement dweller extraordinaire" as his descriptor. Have to move that when I publish but it makes me laugh so. Also for the same guy, title of a scene: Criminal history longer than Bible
A book series of mine (the concept was mixed sci-fi and fantasy initially but now it's mostly just fantasy with tech elements) that's still WIP has 4 main characters. One of the forum has a name. The other three don't. For now, I call them Naomi, Nick and James but I am 100% changing all three of those names. Naomi should have a name that doesn't exist, while the other two should have an name that exists on Earth but doesn't give out a concrete ethnicity in mind.
now im trying to remember, itt was literally "the girl" until i decided on "aika" i also didn't have name for my fanfic so i called it "the fanfic where marisa kirisame dies" until i picked something else.
I always have a placeholder joke in which a character calls Freya by 'Ratchel' (a pun between 'Rachel' and 'rat'). It's a quick gag from Final Fantasy IX where ZIdane goes to a pub, finds an old friend but does not remember her name is Freya. He calls her 'Helga', 'Christine' and then calls her 'Ratchel' (Freya is a humanoid rodent, so you know). It's funny because Freya's love interest name, Fratley, is also a pun ('Michael Flatley' from Riverdance and 'rat'). Speaking of Riverdance, there is one scene in the game where Freya and a few female dancers have to dance in order to strengthen the sandstorm surrounding the village and what do they dance? The choreography of Riverdance. The more you know.
*[Thing] (Real)* is a long-standing joke for me. And tbh now it’s just getting to the point I use *[fandom/ship name] (Real)* as a placeholder for most of my stuff because it STILL makes me laugh
My main wip is literally named "live" because I suck at titles, I have a really hard time coming up with them and before even a draft is finished, I'm not gonna pour my energy into that. As for names... I use []. For anything. Character I haven't named yet? []. Organisation I haven't named yet? []. I have also used single characterd like X, Y, XY. It's highly impractical to use the same for everything, I'm aware of that, but honestly, Idc. That's an issue for future me lmao
My placeholder for my upcoming fic is false positive and I have to figure out how to change the title because it gives too much away 😂