Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 4

[MattL86]

does that sound OK? Problematic? I'm on the fence here and kind of worried that the explanation is both forestalled for too long and maybe too subtly implied when perhaps I should just come out and say it.

Kind of sounds a lot like The Eye of the World, when Rand...

Channels and destroys the iron bars on his inn window with lightning to escape. The reader is left to assume it was a natural lightning strike as Rand as of then has no idea he can channel. Only by the end of the book is it explained. Although I knew what was going on at the time as do most, I imagine some people don't catch it until the end.

So yeah, I'd say it's fine. Maybe make sure the reader is suspicious of how the avalanche happened.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

Been a while since I visited this thread.

Yesterday I finished the first chapter in the second part of my epic fantasy tetralogy. Feels great, I must admit. Haven't been so excited in quite some time.

Now, I'm thinking a lot about chapter two, for obvious reasons.

It's a constant source of inspiration, this thread. You should all know that.

Good luck with all your hard work now. Fight with your plots, passages and words. Fight - and win a chapter, a story, a ... novel. :fencing:

[Zoë Sumra]

Amen to that. :fencing:

Ten pages to go, pp17-26. Almost... there...

[Starkess]

Football season will be the death of my writing!! Maybe get something done later...

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

Word count of TSB is down to 126,400. Three short chapters still need tweaking, then I can embark on line editing and searching-and-destroying excess adverbs and the like. Beginning of the end here (or end of the beginning, or something)! :fencing:

[MattL86]

When do most of you come up with your novel's title? I've been making a very hack attempt at a novel for several months now and have no idea what to call it. It's just been 'the book' for as long as I've been thinking of it. :P

[Starkess]

When do most of you come up with your novel's title? I've been making a very hack attempt at a novel for several months now and have no idea what to call it. It's just been 'the book' for as long as I've been thinking of it. :P

Wish I had an answer for that. I suck at coming up with titles. I usually will give my WIPs a short descriptive title so I know which one they are, but it would never be a good title for an actual book. IE, my current WIP I refer to as "Eyes" due to the fact that the eye colors of the characters are an important world-building/plot component, but what an awful name for a book! So and so forth for all the rest. It's extremely frustrating, but I console myself with the fact that if I ever DO get an agent/editor/publisher, they'll likely change my title if it sucks. Just got to make the writing inside good.

[Ebenstone]

When do most of you come up with your novel's title? I've been making a very hack attempt at a novel for several months now and have no idea what to call it. It's just been 'the book' for as long as I've been thinking of it. :P

I almost have to come up with a title before I write a book. Without the title, the project doesn't feel "real." I try to keep them thematically related. Winter's Discord is part of a whole seasonal motif I have going on. Jaiman Zarachek and Sisters of Khoda was the name of the group one of the MCs belongs to combined with the name of the series MC.

It's funny you talk about titles because I say that Ser's book is named The Space Between and I was wondering Ser...is it at all inspired by the Dave Matthews Band song? If so, you and I have something in common. One of my trunk novels is titled The Falling Dark, based on DMB lyrics.

[Zoë Sumra]

Also no specific tricks to share. I was planning to write four big books, but am now considering a larger number of smaller ones in order to sell the first volume. I'd three titles for the first three of the four books; was always stuck on the fourth, and now I'm totally stuck for what to call book 1 part 2...

The longer a book hangs around the more likely it is to develop a title by fiat. My first book's called Rough Diamond thanks to the number of times diamonds crop up in it for different reasons (people mining diamonds, and mafiosi selling them; an object that looks at first glance like a normal diamond but... isn't; symbolism of excellence repeatedly referenced by the characters; someone's nickname (related to the previous point), via a bilingual pun; and the normal meaning of the phrase "rough diamond". It just happened.

But Nora's right; if you've given it a bad title and get somewhere with the book, that title'll get changed.

[Arthmail]

The title, for me, is as important as the prologue. I work very hard at both, because it gives me a strong idea for the flow and feel of the work. It might change as the book goes along, or as some new idea comes to me, but i have to have it established before i set out.

My epic series, which i have finished the first two books of but am taking a break because i'm not sure a five book series with over 200k words in each book is the best way to break into the industry, grew organically, at least in terms of the title. It was initially, and has remained, the Darker Wars...but thats the name of the series. Each book was always going to have an individual book title, and that has changed over time, but the Darker Wars has remained the same for along time now.

(And by long time i mean a decade. The amount of time it has taken me to find my own voice while writing - Say one thing about University, say it tought me how to emulate other works and writing styles really well.)

The new book will be a stand alone, and it likely represents a far better chance of getting published, and has changed names once already. But variations of the same theme are all that likely to arise, now that the main plotting of the book has been roughly worked out.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

When do most of you come up with your novel's title? I've been making a very hack attempt at a novel for several months now and have no idea what to call it. It's just been 'the book' for as long as I've been thinking of it. :P

I tend to come up with titles all the time. That is, I write down the title only to fill in the words of the actual novel/story/tale later. Or not. I have a bunch of really cool titles and no stories for them.

My big one, though, that is my long, epic as of yet still unpublished fantasy tetralogy obviously has five titles. The title for the entire series, and, of course, the titles for each volume.

So, the series is called A Saga of Sorrow, and that name was revealed to me by the speaker voice in one of the Conan-movies. Yes, the ones with Arnold Sch himself. The voice said the words, and I listened - and nicked them. Just like that.

The names for each volume have been a lot harder to come up with, I guess. Probably had like five-seven suggestions to each part, changed them from time to time, while writing the first part, and so on.

Then I had my brilliant moment, and it solved the puzzle of titles for me. I had this theme, or themes, for each part, so I simply used colours in the titles. From there, the brainstorming process went a lot easier.

My first part in the series is called The Golden Peace (which sounds a lot cooler in Swedish, I must confess, since it is a reference to one of Sweden's oldest pubs, Gyldene Freden).

There is always room for improvement, though, I'm not against changing a name if I come up with something better.

But yeah, the title is important. Spend some time with it, make it snappy or cool or correct, but give it some hard thinking. It's worth it.

Working titles part II-IV:

(A Saga of Sorrow) The Red Dawn

(A Saga of Sorrow) The White Season

(A Saga of Sorrow) The Black Mercy

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

The title, for me, is as important as the prologue.

I agree with you, Arthmail. Completely. :bowdown:

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

I almost have to come up with a title before I write a book. Without the title, the project doesn't feel "real." I try to keep them thematically related. Winter's Discord is part of a whole seasonal motif I have going on. Jaiman Zarachek and Sisters of Khoda was the name of the group one of the MCs belongs to combined with the name of the series MC.

It's funny you talk about titles because I say that Ser's book is named The Space Between and I was wondering Ser...is it at all inspired by the Dave Matthews Band song? If so, you and I have something in common. One of my trunk novels is titled The Falling Dark, based on DMB lyrics.

No, actually, I had no idea there was a song with that title. Crap. I thought I was being all original. :( I do get a lot of inspiration from songs, but I'm not really a DMB fan. Oh, well, I'm going to stick with it for now—it's a working title.

When do most of you come up with your novel's title? I've been making a very hack attempt at a novel for several months now and have no idea what to call it. It's just been 'the book' for as long as I've been thinking of it. :P

For the longest time, my trilogy was intended to be one standalone and was simply referred to as "Book II." Yes. Book II. Why Book II?—what was intended to be Book I got relegated to backstory, but I was already devoted to the format.

My current working titles came about as follows (in this order):

Epic trilogy, book III: The Architects of Nature - a combination of The Sign of Prime Creation and Architecture of a Genocidal Nature, two song titles I dug up while perusing my iTunes library.

Epic trilogy, book II: Reversing the Currents - same as before, but this time I just went with the song title wholesale since it's exactly what happens when one of the characters causes a change in the basics of the world's magic system.

Epic trilogy, book I: The Space Between - a recurring line in dialogue that refers to a fundamental concept underlying the world's magic system. Also apparently (whaddaya know?) a song title.

Urban/comic fantasy standalone: Hard Bound - I think I was driving somewhere and just sort of came out of nowhere. It works because books, especially old books, play a huge part in the story.

NaNoWriMo piece: Light the Torch - I haven't even started this one yet, but the basic idea is inspired by a CGI music video to a song of the same name.

Often when I come up with one title, many others come along. I have a title of The Uncertainty Paradox and no book to go with it yet. :P

I agree with you, Arthmail. Completely. :bowdown:

Agreed. The title has to be just right, so I'm usually well into the writing before coming up with anything resembling a title. A good title both stands out on the shelves and captures the spirit of the book, but I know enough published authors to know that much of the time the publisher unilaterally changes the title, so it's good not to become too attached to it.

[Arthmail]

I won't lie, i'd almost be willing to change MY name to get published, so if they change the title, i could probably handle it. But the name that i have established sets the book in my mind, so thats what it remains.

My only gripe is if they use cover art like Robert Jordan's books. Those are just sweaty balls wrapped up in sweaty gym socks.

How often do you guys rewrite your prologue? I find the prologue is the single chapter most often changed, and not just revisions, but completely changed, with different characters and location. No more than three times, but i never get it on the first try.

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

I won't lie, i'd almost be willing to change MY name to get published, so if they change the title, i could probably handle it. But the name that i have established sets the book in my mind, so thats what it remains.

My only gripe is if they use cover art like Robert Jordan's books. Those are just sweaty balls wrapped up in sweaty gym socks.

How often do you guys rewrite your prologue? I find the prologue is the single chapter most often changed, and not just revisions, but completely changed, with different characters and location. No more than three times, but i never get it on the first try.

It's kind of crappy to point this out, but I feel I have to: I often fear that my real name is very likely too "ethnic" to be taken seriously as an American SF author (seriously, most SF authors in the US have really WASPy names, even if they're not white), so yeah, I get that.

My prologue... my epic fantasy is the only thing that has a prologue, and I think this is only the second rewrite. I pulled a GRRM and had the POV character die at the end, but the prologue also serves to establish the main protagonist, a secondary character, and the prime cause of acrimony between the two.

My first chapter proper, on the other hand, went through about six rewrites, the last of which was a complete overhaul of the situation.

[Zoë Sumra]

I've pulled my prologue and shifted it to immediately after chapter 3. Chapter 1 has had complete rewrites to set it from each of two characters' points of view; it's currently from both their points of view...

What I hate is when I worry about chapter 1s so much that I overdo them and they end up being much worse than the rest of the book. :P

ETA: Oh, names. At some point I may write a general fiction book set in a football club, for which I'd almost certainly use a male pseudonym. My maiden surname is WASP, but my married surname (in six months-ish) will be Indian, and I'm wondering which is preferable to use as a writing name, given that a tiny fraction of my books' cast is WASP.

[Arthmail]

I'm okay for my own name. My true name is Scotty McWhiteypants. No, really, it is. But my friends just call me Scotty McNotethnic.

Ha. My names not even Scotty.

[awesome possum]

I'm absolutely terrible with titles. I feel my series has a decent name, but only because I've been thinking about it off and on (mostly on) for the better part of 13 years now. The short stories and essays I write always have a bad, very very very bad title though because I just can't come up with something.

A short story of mine was recently accepted to a magazine, under the condition that I either come up with a new title or allow them to because it was that bad.

As for names, I agree, having an ethnic name doesn't seem like it's in your favor in the American market at least. My first name is very Caucasian but different and old fashioned while my last name is distinctly ethnic. I've put serious thought into using my middle name and dropping the "S" at the end of my last name should my series ever get picked up.

[Myrddin]

From what I understand, many editors change book titles with imput from marketing, so don't get too attached. ;) What's between the covers is what they buy, more than what's on the outside.

I started my first book under the title The Forgotten Truth, the title of the first short story I wrote in college that became the kernal my series would become. Then years ago, I realized there was a fantasy book published back in 2003 with that name.

SO, I started searching for another title that had the same feel. Instead, I found a better title: Echoes of Truth. I already had a sort of "echoes" theme in the book, with the idea that the best lies have an echoe of truth in them. I then quickly found title for books two and three with that same structure.

Book 1: Echoes of Truth

Book 2: Mists of Memory

Book 3: Shades of Myth

(Book 2 was going to be called Shards of Memory, but my brother pointed out that in the day and age of Internet abbreviations, it'd be bad to have two SoM's in my series :) )

[SerNotAppearingOnThisBoard]

I've kept this thread open all morning, trying find something to say. Now, I do.

Oh my god, TSB is done!! At least, the second draft is done, but...it's coherent, and not totally crap! Well, OK, this is only the first third of the entire story, which is only one out of many that I'd like to write in this world, and the basic idea/worldbuilding's been bouncing around in my head for about a decade, but so much of that changed during the writing process that it's really its own thing by now!

11 months of writing; 31 chapters, a prologue, and six unnumbered 1000-words-or-less interludes; 4 POVs (well, 3.5); 447 pages (MS word, double spaced, Times New Roman); 125,897 words (I'll get the last 6000 in line editing). And, it's pretty good, I think. :) It needs work for sure, but I'll allow myself to be proud for the moment. I just finished a novel.

Now what? Might take a shot at writing a practice query letter for this, but I'd like to complete the whole trilogy before submitting any of it for publication. More likely, I'm going to put this away for a month (making a backup copy now), continue working on Hard Bound, my urban comic fantasy standalone, and gearing up for NaNoWriMo.

:cheers: