A Perfect Title
I decided to try to revive my blog, and hope to post weekly or biweekly. Should I admit to being skeptical that this will succeed? But since each journey begins with a single step...
Titles have been on my mind. Back when I was writing fanfiction, titles flowed as effortlessly as a stream in summer. Hidden Agendas, Night Watch, The Moment, Defy Not - each leaped from the pages of the stories and I couldn't imagine a more appropriate moniker. Titles are so easy, I thought.
When I migrated to original fiction, that first fantasy, written after too many viewings of Fellowship of the Ring, had a solid if cliched high fantasy title. But then came that overly-long time travel story that still languishes in the computer files with the enigmatic title of PAS-8. After my publisher kept my first book's title - Run Like Jäger - I decided that time travel title was nothing but a glitch.
Famous last words thoughts. Right around then my titling stream froze up, the way a real stream does in northern Alberta in the winter. (As I write this it's -30°C, -38°C with the windchill. Believe me, streams are solid ice at these temperatures.) So what's a writer to do?
With the manuscript I'm ready to start revising, I renamed that file so many times I couldn't remember what it was called so I referred to it as "The Leipzig Story". Every title I tried was too boring, too cliched or already belonged to 20+ books on Amazon. One day when we were driving to the city, I asked my husband to brainstorm the problem with me. It didn't take long before he came up with a title I really liked. That old adage is true: sometimes two heads are better than one.
If you're having problems coming up with a title, I highly recommend brainstorming with someone. How do you come up with titles? When in the process (before, during, after) do you title your manuscript?
Titles have been on my mind. Back when I was writing fanfiction, titles flowed as effortlessly as a stream in summer. Hidden Agendas, Night Watch, The Moment, Defy Not - each leaped from the pages of the stories and I couldn't imagine a more appropriate moniker. Titles are so easy, I thought.
When I migrated to original fiction, that first fantasy, written after too many viewings of Fellowship of the Ring, had a solid if cliched high fantasy title. But then came that overly-long time travel story that still languishes in the computer files with the enigmatic title of PAS-8. After my publisher kept my first book's title - Run Like Jäger - I decided that time travel title was nothing but a glitch.
Famous last words thoughts. Right around then my titling stream froze up, the way a real stream does in northern Alberta in the winter. (As I write this it's -30°C, -38°C with the windchill. Believe me, streams are solid ice at these temperatures.) So what's a writer to do?
With the manuscript I'm ready to start revising, I renamed that file so many times I couldn't remember what it was called so I referred to it as "The Leipzig Story". Every title I tried was too boring, too cliched or already belonged to 20+ books on Amazon. One day when we were driving to the city, I asked my husband to brainstorm the problem with me. It didn't take long before he came up with a title I really liked. That old adage is true: sometimes two heads are better than one.
If you're having problems coming up with a title, I highly recommend brainstorming with someone. How do you come up with titles? When in the process (before, during, after) do you title your manuscript?