I follow Dean Wesley Smith's blog. It is an amazing trove of writerly information. He's had several posts over the years where he mentions one of his methods for coming up with ideas.

He has lists of half titles—book and story titles cut in half. He'll take a list and scan the beginnings until something jumps out at him. Then he'll take a list of endings and scan for something different and come up with a unique title for a story.

The title is used as a starting point for his story creation. The title may change over the course of creating the story, but it's the seed that starts the process.

So here I compiled every nomination from the Hugo Awards and the Bram Stoker Awards. I cut the titles of each nominated work in half and used that as the data to power this generator.

Pretty cool, huh?

How To Use ...

Scan the list of title beginnings and check the ones that appeal to you for some reason. Don't think too much about it and definitely don't think what type of story you could generate from the title. Just pick 2 or 3 titles that "feel" interesting.

Then click the Next button and do the same with endings. Again, don't consciously try to think what endings will go with the beginnings you've picked. Try to pick 4 or 5 endings before pressing Next.

Then you'll be prompted for each possible combination. With this step you want to eliminate everything that doesn't jump out to you as a cool title.

Finally, you'll be presented with a list of possible titles to use. Pick one and use it as the trigger to start your story.