| Author |
Message |
    
Joy Lee Rutter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
541
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 04:16 pm: |   |
The word count is 114,418. My manuscript is done, all the pieces fit, I'm going through it word by word, page by page, and looking for anything that needs tweaking. My problem? How can I manage to type 114,418 words that make up a sizable novel, but cannot think up a title? How do you each come up with a title? Do you title it before beginning the book, during or after? What sparks the idea? If I write up the synopsis, do you think that would help? All suggestions appreciated because this is driving me nutz.  
Joy
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp |
Bill Nelson
Unity Member
Post Number:
1074
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 05:06 pm: | |
Joy,
I usually come up with a couple of ideas germane to the story line. I then go to Amazon & type it in and search. I usually find my idea is not so new, so I scratch it and go to the next. You also get new ideas by looking down the list of titles on Amazon.
There are also song lyrics that can stimulate some ideas.
114,418 words! wow. That's a lot of words, girl.Are your fingers sore?
Bill Nelson
RISEN, ISBN 1-93301616-4
Behler Publications |
Fred Dungan
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
914
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 05:50 pm: | |
If you can't think of anything, ask for suggestions from the editor/publisher. Bushwhacked's original title was Disaffected. Richard Purdue at Superior Books said that Disaffected had a negative connotation (evidently a no-no in the world of print).
http://www.fdungan.com/vigilantes.htm
P.S. I live in a city of a quater million people and I doubt our telephone book has more than a 100,000 words in it.
http://www.fdungan.com/bushwhacked.htm |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1977
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 06:41 pm: | |
one thing I was told a long time ago by another author was that the title of you book generally shows itself in the first 25 pages as a recurring group of words or a phrase or some sort of analogy.
If it were me, I would go back and re-read the first few chapters and see what grabs at you.
My title for Notes from Nobody came from something that my son's adoptive parents told him when he was young and asked about me, and who I was, etc. They answered him "Oh, she's nobody, you don't need to worry about her." Thus the title, Notes from Nobody..........
Claudia
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
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Gloria Marlow
Unity Member
Post Number:
1409
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 08:29 pm: | |
Joy, I have the same problem. I hate coming up with a title. I still hate the title for "Flowers for Megan" and if I could think of anything else, I'd change it. I do like the title "Shades of Silence" and it started out "Shades of Black" but evolved with the story into what it is. I don't care for the title "The Butterfly Game", but there really wasn't another option for it as it is what it is. I have a few titles I bat around in my head for works in progress, but who really knows if they'll stick and if I can just keep saying them over and over again.
Claudia, I never knew where you got the title for your book. That is a horrible thing for them to have told him in my opinion. My in-laws have always been very kind about my husband's biological mother and let him know she was someone who loved him but, for whatever reason, couldn't care for him at that time in her life.
Gloria
The Butterfly Game
Flowers for Megan
Shades of Silence (coming soon)
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Matt Dinniman
Hsympothai Member
Post Number:
317
Registered: 04-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 02:26 am: | |
Gloria: I really like your book titles. I don't know why, but all three seem to go together really well. My two titles don't go together at all.
I always wait until the end before I come up with the title. I tend to do the opposite of what Claudia suggested. I reread the last few chapters and see if there's something in there.
There's a vampire book by Skipp/Spencer entitled The Light at the End. The meaning of the title is actually a spoiler for the climax, but you don't realize it until after the fact. I read that book when I was twelve or thirteen, but I will never forget the name of the book because if affected me so much. I remember thinking about how cool that was for days afterwards. I've attempted that a few times with some of my titles, and I plan on trying it again with my current WIP, but I have no idea how it's going to end, so I'll have to wait and see what turns up.
Of course the editor is going to swoop in and change it anyway. |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2290
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 05:08 am: | |
I'm the opposite...I can come up with book titles all day long...it's that stuff in between the covers that troubles me...heh.
In fact, my murder-mystery novel is part of a series. I've already figured out what is going to happen in each of the first four books, and have subsequently titled them:
The Shadows Fall Silent
Goodbye, Forever, My Dear
All Good Things
An Eye for an Eye
Now, I just have to get the books written...sigh.
But as Matt said, the editor is going to change them anyway...oh well.
Mindsight Moderator
Check out Who Needs a Hero?
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Scott F. Falkner
Hunger Member
Post Number:
81
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 05:49 am: | |
"A good book title is the title of a good book."
I can't remember who said that, but it makes sense when you think about it. Sure, a title's important. It should catch the publisher's, and eventually the customer's eye, but the story itself is the important thing. I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Go with your gut instinct and pick a title. Something else that I usually do after I've selected a title is to do a search on Amazon or B&N.com and make sure there are no other books or movies with the same title, (there's no use having people confusing it with something else).
I usually have a "working" title while writing a book. This is just a title that first comes to mind, and it gives me something to save the file under on my computer. Sometimes that working title stays, and sometimes something better pops into my head as I'm writing. Joy, if I were you, I'd make a list of VERBS that represent what happens in your book. That list will help you to brainstorm what your book is REALLY about... and hopefully an appropriate, clever and ingenious title will sift to the surface. Good luck! 
S.F. Falkner
www.scottfalkner.com |
Snarzler
Wandering Member
Post Number:
122
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 08:30 am: | |
My apologies to whomever wrote the original article. I copy and paste segments I like into big wordpad files and print them out into my own writer's manual. This is one of my favorite parts about finding a title:
"This prospect is so frightening that I've gotten really neurotic about titles. Surveying my bookshelves I have sorted fiction titles into some broad categories. These are:
Characters. These would include not only those titles which are actually names (David Copperfield, Hamlet) but also titles which describe main characters or their attributes (A Wizard of Earthsea, Ringworld Engineers).
Objects. Everything from real items (The Beasts of Tarzan, The Sword in the Stone) to the conceptual (Foundation, A Wrinkle in Time, The Languages of Pao).
Events. Rendezvous With Rama, Star Wars, When Worlds Collide.
Places. Red Mars, Islandia, Lord Valentine's Castle.
Times. 2001, The Day After Judgment, 1984.
Themes. The most perfect theme title in the industry is Stranger in a Strange Land. Also Pride and Prejudice, The Iron Dream and The Wind in the Willows.
Gobbet Titles. These are distinguished from theme titles because they are small gobbets of text. A well-chosen gobbet title has an incomparable vigor: "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" is a perfect example. Consider also I See By My Outfit or The King Must Die or Expecting Someone Taller. And in a moment I'll discuss the gobbet title's evil twin, the reverse gobbet.
Miscellaneous Titles is the oddball category, into which I've lumped relatively rare items like twist titles (The Idylls of the Queen), pun titles (many of Piers Anthony's works), and "explanations" ("Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers" comes to mind). And where else could we put Fahrenheit 451, one of the exceedingly rare temperature titles?
With these broad categories in hand, a writer can sit down with her manuscript and try to attack the title problem in a systematic way."
I am more like Todd (whose emails I will answer one of these mornings), I get a title first and then plot and character pieces. Its getting it all together in some form of sense that is the tricky part.
Internal Memo: "You'd better learn proper grammar. You'll need it when you apply for parole." |
LaurieAnne
Unity Member
Post Number:
1830
Registered: 12-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 09:51 am: | |
The title comes to me within the first few pages of writing. And, like Todd, I have a huge file somewhere that is crammed with just titles that I would like to build tales around. THE UNKNOWN SOLDIERS almost got kicked in the butt when DNA started giving them names. I was already agitated that I couldn't fictionalize the Unabomber since Kozinski(sp) went and got himself caught--not the way I had him written, I should add. KNIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN--I had the title picked out because 1)I love the song, and 2) I already knew that the song was going to play a part at the end of the novel, and that the leading man would "play the part". AN ANGEL IN THE SKIES--again, that one plays on the text of the story. DARKNESS AND DREAMS started out with a different (read: stupid) title. It evolved to this because it just makes more sense and fits the books because it is in darkness and in the characters' dreams that the events begin.
Gloria doesn't like the title of THE BUTTERFLY GAME but there really isn't anything else that seems to fit that novel right. SHADES OF SILENCE--it just makes TONS more sense than Shades of Black would (for deeper explanation, you'll have to wait until Mid-May and buy it). FLOWERS FOR MEGAN could not have a more perfect title. It's one of those that you don't fully recognize the impact of the title until you reach the end, but when you do, you know it's perfect.
Just play around a little bit. You know what's in there, so don't worry that the first few you come up with will just seem unbelievably stupid. You may alter one or find a different one that will just hit you as being "it". (Or, your publisher/editor will tell you what they think it should be.)
LA
www.authorsinkbooks.com
OPEN SUBMISSIONS: Random Acts of Kindness
Available now:
THE BUTTERFLY GAME, Gloria Davidson Marlow ISBN 0-9722385-4-9 |
Fred Dungan
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
915
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 11:36 am: | |
If it comes down to the wire and you don't have a title, try this one: Atlanta Nights - The Sequel. This particular title will garner you better-than-average sales. Moreover, the individuals who purchase your book will be amazed by its quality. Who knows? You could become a best-selling author simply by selecting the right title.
Someone once said "you can't tell a book by its cover." However, a reader should be able to tell a book by its title. Ask yourself this: if you had to come up with a synopsis of under 5 words for your manuscript, what would it be? The answer to this question just could be the best possible descriptive title for your book.
9/11 Vigilantes - a work-in-progress http://www.fdungan.com/vigilantes.htm |
Joy Lee Rutter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
543
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 12:50 pm: | |
You have all offered so much helpful advice and I think I'm close now. Thank you! Coming with a title for my first book "A Disturbing Presence" was easy. That just came to me. The second book's setting was a neuro-rehab for brain injured patients. Working in one, I had so much material, research was minimal. Getting the title proved to be a bit harder, but there's a really cool story behind how it came to me. One of the brain injured clients where I worked, Paul, is a favorite amongst staff and clients alike. The man although severely impaired, is just a sweet lovable and usually non-sensical guy. Also, very forgetful. Poor Paul may or may not remember your name from one day to the next. Or from one minute to the next. He can sometimes remember the name of the facility, other times not. One day, while trying to remember where he was, decided to describe it instead. He said, and I'll try to quote word for word: "Yeah, uh, this place, I can't remember but it's yeah, it's just a flamboyant disarray of dreams..." Unbeknownst to Paul, he had just come up with the title. And what better way of doing it than using a client's colorful phrase (although twisted)?
Joy
Joy
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp |
Joy Lee Rutter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
544
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 12:56 pm: | |
"if you had to come up with a synopsis of under 5 words for your manuscript, what would it be?"
That's it, isn't it? When you put it that simple, it sounds easy. 4 words that come to me right away are:
"Live Free or Die"
guess it needs some more thought, eh?
Joy
Joy
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp |
Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1979
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 01:53 pm: | |
Joy,
Here is an article that just came up it WritersWeekly
[Naming Your Baby: How to Choose a Selling Title
by Carolyn Campbell
Your book title is very important. It encapsulates the
essence of your book in just a few words. Like choosing a
name for your child, selecting a title for your book is a
critical decision. Just as your child is known by his name
for a lifetime, your book will be known by its title for its
entire publishing history. Even before you sell your book,
its future title can help attract the interest of a literary
agent or publisher when you include it in query letters. It
will also appear on the first page of your book proposal.
It's never too soon to start creating a possible title for
your book...
Read the entire article here:
http://www.writersweekly.com/article.html]
You might want to take a look at the article and see if there are any clues in there to follow, and that will lead you to the title. This publication comes out every week and I think it is by Angela Hoy of Booklocker.
Claudia
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
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Fred Dungan
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
917
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 06:27 pm: | |
Why can't we just package our novels in plain wrap generic covers with numbers on them to designate the order in which they were written. Thus, the five books which form the Torah would be #1 - 5, respectively, by Moses. Think how much simpler this would make life for writers. There's a few bugs, however, which I have yet to work out such as what number to assign the telephone directory and other works of a collaborative nature. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
http://www.dunganbooks.com |
Joy Lee Rutter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
545
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2005 - 07:00 pm: | |
Claudia, I think we both subscribe to the same newsletter thingy. Thank you for pasting that here. And yes I read it. Lots of good advice. The article suggests a subtitle; something I've never considered. It might work.
Fred, your idea is interesting. Do you have more like it?
Joy
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp |
Fred Dungan
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
923
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 12:59 am: | |
My idea wasn't worth the electrons that it took to compose it. If you go with your instincts, the title of your latest book is bound be a humdinger.
9/11 Vigilantes, a work-in-progress. http://www.fdungan.com/vigilantes.htm |
Joy Lee Rutter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
546
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 06:45 am: | |
Fred, I was being factesious (I can't ever spell that right). You're right about instincts. I'm just waiting for them to happen. I do have a list of possibles. My next book will have a title before I start the outline. No way do I want to go through this again. 
Joy
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp |
Dennis Collins
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1486
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 12:36 pm: | |
My titles are derived from divine inspiration, or sometimes from the walls of a public restroom.
"The Unreal McCoy" came to me long before the thought of writing a book. And like Scott, I used a working title (Monica) for the second book and didn't have a clue what I might really call it. A friend of mine read the manuscript and pulled "Turn Left at September" out of my dialogue. It was nothing more than a throwaway line in some meaningless banter between two of my main characters.
I had a nice long discussion on the subject of titles with successful mystery author Denise Dietz who has some great titles. She feels that they play a significant role in catching the attention of potential fans.
Since then, I've worked pretty hard on my titles, searching my text as well as the public bathrooms.
The next three books are: "For Thine is the Power," "The Price of Rain," and "Five minute Gun." |
cora morace
Hunger Member
Post Number:
89
Registered: 11-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 04:23 pm: | |
This is a very interesting thread. And titles certainly are worth a good bit of consideration. Ever notice how certain authors are aligned with similar titles? Not just Sue Grafton and her alphabet hang-up, but one word authors or The ....of ...." authors and how about the series..."The Cat Who... The Case of...(has to be Ellery Queen or a unconscienable plagarist!). A form of promotion, isn't it?
I have one word titles for my books based on their location. I really like the way Behler's creative team wrote a lead in to appear on the cover of Appalachia. It added immensely to my simple title, without changing it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0974896233/ref=dp_primary-product-display_0/103-6815090-0587860?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
Isn't that clever?
CJ |
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