If you're doing a series, it's nice to be able to give each story its own theme. More amusing than "part 1" and "part four thousand six hundred and eleven." (Admittedly, if the latter is the second part, you've subverted the system in your favor ...).

Again, if it's a series, then a unifying title for the series, with each series then playing on that, is nice. For a cheerleader story, for instance, you might research traditional cheers, then use one particularly apt one as a series title, with other excerpts as episode titles. There's someone posting here with musicians as the protag; both series and episode titles are taken from the vocabulary of musicians.

Or you might want to separate your characters from the initial story situation, feeling that forcing everything into "cheerleader" related stuff is too limiting (it would be, if you have plans or even merely hopes to broaden the story beyond joining the cheer squad). In that case, you might think about the characters, or even just the protag, pick out something "characteristic", and play the changes on that.

I happen to like using song titles or lyrics as story tags (at least for the most interesting thing I've done), so titles of episode are either the titles of the song, or phrases taken from the verses (generally highly recognizable, in any event), and each story has a short, supposedly-apropos bit of lyrics to start with. On the other hand, the series title has nothing to do with anything in particular; it's just evocative, for me.

Another pattern: puns (check with Erin for that!). The idea is to get a double-entendre (that readers are unlikely to catch, just reading the title) into the title of the episode.

In most cases, if you want to have *fun* with titles, though, the rule is to do something that's almost a game. It *does* mean that you'll sometimes find yourself asking, "what the *hell* am I going to call this one?" but that sort of challenge can be stimulating (you might find yourself coming up with a title, and then making the story match).

In the end, though ... do what you like, and that feels right.

Amy!