The Elusive Obvious

And some tips on choosing cover art for your online writing.

An improv teacher I had in Chicago once told my class an interesting story.

This teacher was performing an improv set to a packed, sold-out crowd.

He walks on the middle of the stage to initiate a scene, and he doesn’t have much of anything in mind. There’s no one else on stage. The crowd is waiting with bated breath to see how he’ll initiate the scene.

“I’m in a kitchen,” he says out loud.

The crowd erupts in laughter. What a stupidly obvious things to say. And yet funny.

Here’s another story. Once, I was writing a short comedy story, and in this story one of the characters gives another character a sword. 

I wanted a name for this sword. In the context of this story, the sword just sort of needed a name. Because this is a comedic story and because it’s a sword, the sword’s name is inherently comedic. 

(Side note: Giving your human characters funny-sounding names can work, but it can also be kind of annoying or groan-inducing. That’s a whole other topic for another day.)

Anyway, I tried to think of a good name for the sword…

“The Avenger”?

“The Blade of Truth”?

“Robert the Sword”?

Ummm… Hmmm.

I was struggling to name the sword. So I asked myself this: “What’s the literally most obvious sword name?”