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Monthly Archives: July 2010
- by Tara Maya
Roses By Many Other Names – Finding the Right Title
An agent once told me, “I dismissed your book based on the title. It was so trite, I expected the writing to be bad too.”
Fortunately, she went on to say that the writing was much better than she expected, and she requested a partial. I still felt aghast that I had almost shot myself in the foot with a lousy title.
Interestingly, the other agent at the same session said that the title hadn’t struck her as trite at all — quite the opposite. It had intrigued her. The problem: she didn’t rep my genre. Her area was literary fiction. So if I had been pushing lit fic under the same title, maybe it would have worked.
Not to be coy, the book in question was Dindi Book 1, and the title I was trying out at that time was, “The Secret Society of Warrior Dancers. Book 1: The Initiate.”
When you are naming a series, you have the added difficulty that you ought to have a pattern for the series. I would have moved on to Book 2: The Serving Maid, Book 3: The Warrior; Book 4: The Vaedi. (By Book 4, readers would hopefully know what Vaedi meant.)
Anyhoo.
I now need a title for my present fantasy wip. I don’t know about you, but it bothers me working on a book with no title.
Have you noticed that a terrific title compels you to buy a book even if you know nothing else about it? (Please tell me I’m not the only one with this disorder.)
Some of you, my blogging writer friends, have come up with compelling titles.
Tell me that’s not made of awesome. Anthony Pacheco is working on a space opera with this title.
Although, I realize I remembered it wrong, as BLOWING STUFF UP IN SPACE. Huh. Either way, great title.
This works perfectly to let you know this novella is a retake on the story of Cinderella. At the same time, it makes me think of something burnt to cinders, which is slightly ominous, and fits the theme of questioning what happens after “happily ever after.”
Btw, I think Michelle’s contest is still open. Go join it if you haven’t already.
I love this title. I hope Scott uses it.
A kickass title (A) forces you, will you or nill you, to buy the book, (B) tells you something about the story, (C) works on more than one level.
Not all books have, or need, kickass titles. FIRESTARTER gives you a good idea what the book is about. CARRIE could have been a gentle coming-of-middle-age story about a divorced woman struggling to keep her small town apothecary in business.
A lot of fantasy books have trite titles because it’s more important to convey the book’s genre than anything too specific. If you title your book, A BOY GROWS UP, even if that’s what it’s about, it may attract a literary crowd who will be disgusted with the actual content. If you title it, DRAGONS FIGHT ELVES, the right readers will find it.
I have a book about gladiators and pirates. With more emphasis on gladiators. There’s also an island, a contest that takes place every hundred years, and the fact that our hero is planning to throw the match. What should I call the book? I considered the obvious (believe me).
GLADIATORS FIGHT PIRATES (Not unless I can fit in such a scene. Which, I admit, would rock.)
ARENA
THE PIRATE AND THE GLADIATOR
PIRATE SEAS, GLADIATOR ISLAND
THE FALSE CHAMPION
ARENA OF THE DRAGONS (Did I mention there are dragons? Of course there are.)
Turning to my husband for help, I received a lot of tongue-in-cheek suggestions. Alas, my book is not comedy.
SAIL AND SWORD
MUSCLE AND MAGIC
HERE THERE BE WENCHES (my husband’s fave, but really not relevant, sorry, sweetie!)
Or I could go for something a bit more obscure and high-brow.
THE MOUNTAIN IS NOT MOVED
WORTHLESS
FOR THE GLORY
WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE (I like this, but is the phrase too tied to historic Rome? My story is fantasy, not historic fiction)
I’m open to suggestions.
How do you come up with titles? What titles are you using? Do you love your title or just tolerate it? Would you change it if an agent or publisher asked you to?
- by Tara Maya
Excerpt
Here’s an excerpt, with the the flashback scene included. Does it work? Do I need to separate the flashback from previous and following scenes with asterisks, or does it make sense simply flowing from the the current action to the past and back?
* * *
Jivad learned nothing of Hoxja’s plans for more than a week. He slept in a small barred cell at Hoxja’s mansion during that time, a prisoner, but not maltreated. Slaves from the kitchen brought him generous meals. No one tortured him. He did not see Hoxja or the Archons. In fact, he saw almost no one. This suited him. The little Bhia’ing boy he had saved – if he had a chance to do it over again, would he? Probably the boy had been caught and killed anyway, and his rescue had been futile from the start.
What would the old blacksmith have advised? Jivad thought of him frequently during the eventless days in the cell. The waves crash; the mountain is not moved. A Great Soul does good because it must be done, expecting no reward, disappointed by no punishment. The mountain does not fight the sea. A Great Soul does not seek to change what cannot be changed. Thedrosian rule could not be changed. In ten thousand years, the sea grinds the strongest rock to sand. A Great Soul accepts his death.
He practiced stillness and movement, as the old blacksmith had taught. Whether he sat cross-legged or exercised, the lashes on his back ached, and he acknowledged the dull pain as one more sensation in his awareness, neither more nor less important than the calls of parrots in the trees beyond his cell, the damp clay floor under his feet or the scent of the afternoon rain shower. If he wrapped a rag around his eyes to practice blindfolded as he used to, he could imagine the rasp of the old blacksmith’s breath in the corner, watching him practice.
Jivad is ten years old. Pa doesn’t want to bring him to the blacksmith, nor does the blacksmith want to teach him. The Overseers have orders from Hoxja to apprentice a new boy to the smith, and that is that. The opinions of the slaves don’t matter.
The first day, Jivad doesn’t want to be there either. He can tell he is not wanted. The blacksmith ignores him most of the morning. Jivad crouches in a corner of the smithery. Piled around him, half hiding him, are the fruits of the forge, curious grommets and cringles and latches for shipbuilding, some quite intricate. The smoke from the furnace smarts and chokes, and the clanging rings in his ears until his whole head throbs. The blacksmith notices his scowl, his hands pressed against his ears.
“I expect you’ll be as useless as your father,” says the blacksmith.
With that statement, Jivad realizes he and the blacksmith have a common enemy.
The blacksmith turns back to his forge, unaware of the secret alliance. Over the following days, Jivad begins to note all the ways the blacksmith differs from Pa. The blacksmith works steadily and silently. He doesn’t try to sneak away from his tasks. Even the Overseers respect him. He does not bribe them for booze. Though gruff and stingy with smiles, he doesn’t yell at Jivad, or anyone. Other slaves, even Overseers, come to him with problems. He listens quietly before he offers a word or two of advice, always sound. He is full of strange proverbs. He says things like, “An Emperor is as shackled as a slave, a slave is as free as an Emperor,” and means it.
Jivad begins to suspect the old blacksmith is more, much more, than he appears.
The splendid isolation could not last. Hoxja turned up one morning, flashing a toothy smile.
“I have a treat for you, Jivad.”
- by Tara Maya
Flashbacks
Right around chapter three, I succumbed to the uncontrollable urge to insert flashbacks into my wip. Four of ’em. About 300 words each, italicized.
I decided to make my hero, if not actually an anti-hero, at least conflicted. To wit, he’s working as a snitch for the tyrants, and then agrees to their scheme to pretend to be the predestined liberator of the slaves, so as to expose and deliver any potential rebels to their oppressors. Since this is less than laudable, I wanted to show the reader how he came to do this, and how he justifies it.
It’s possible I didn’t need to use flashbacks. I think they work. I actually prefer to have a scene that shows us the past as if it is unfolding now rather than read dreary paragraphs of “he had thought” “he had said,” etc. If it were a tv show, it would be the piece where suddenly the film turns a slightly different hue. I love those scenes. If integrated right, they add a richness to the storyline.
In a sense, they aren’t flashbacks so much as an independent chronology. This is a much stronger feature of my Dindi books, which each has several different interwoven chronologies. For this WIP, I don’t plan to employ multiple chronologies much — they will probably only appear in this chapter.
