Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Title This

Right now, while waiting for the page proofs of Breathe (page proofs! ), I'm in the middle of a first draft of a new novel, which has no title. Sigh.  I am notoriously bad with titles.  My first novel had a title from the short story, Meeting Rozzy Halfway.  It just fit. Then, being ridiculously superstitious, I had a spate of three word titles, Into Thin Air, Living Other Lives.  Some titles came because of associations.  Family was from a really old television show of the same name. Coming Back to Me was a loving nod to my husband, whose book on the 60s and the Jefferson Airplane (Got a Revolution) had just won a prize.

For the longest time, I wanted to call Breathe, Traveling Angels.  Traveling angels is a screenwriting term I got from story guru John Truby.  It means a person who comes into the midst, does some good--or so they think--and then vanishes.  I thought it would be perfect! The title carried me.  I loved telling people that was the name of my new novel!  But then, my editor told me no one at Algonquin loved it.  It didn't have anything to do with the novel, it was not a strong or evocative enough title. Luckily, Breathe, the title of a story that gave birth to this novel, was. (I really love that title.  Just saying it makes me relax because I instinctively take a deep breath.)

But this new novel is still stretching its legs.  I'm not sure of the real meaning of my story yet because I am still in draft one. But I will say, I am newly in love with single verb titles.

How does anyone else figure out their titles?

6 comments:

  1. Hello Caroline,

    Enjoyed your panel at Backspace tremendously. I have changed my title at least five times so I am glad to hear this is not unheard of.

    Loved GIRLS IN TROUBLE and can't wait to read your new book.

    Jacqui

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  2. Hello Caroline,

    Enjoyed your panel at Backspace tremendously. I have changed my title at least five times so I am glad to hear this is not unheard of.

    Loved GIRLS IN TROUBLE and can't wait to read your new book.

    Jacqui

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  3. PAGE PROOFS!! WOO HOO!!!!


    Titles,though, phew those are hard. For my last Theda mystery, I'd run out of cat/literature puns so I held a contest. That won't work for you, though. (And both "Shades of Grey" and my new/old/revived w-in-progress "Dogs Don't Lie" both came to me, so clearly it doesn't always happen that way for me, either.)

    Hmm... one word, verb... what is the movement of the book? If the upcoming one BREATHES, does this one stride, fall, fly? Maybe you just have to wait until it tells you, somewhere in the second draft...

    PAGE PROOFS!! WOO HOOO!

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  4. I've gotta' say, Caroline, speaking strictly from this reader's/browser's point of view, I am IMMEDIATELY drawn to one-word (preferably verb) titles. I practically gasped at your chosen title of BREATHE the first time you mentioned it and, sight unseen, there's no question that I am already hopelessly in love with this upcoming novel of yours!

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  5. I have always found the titles for my novels early in the process, but with time I have really regretted that I called my third novel The Little Women, because I think it was like putting a label on the cover that men should not even think of reading it, and I desperately wish I had used Louisa May Alcott's working title for The Little Women, which was The Pathetic Family.

    My forthcoming novel had the working title of Temper (which signified for many reasons, from chocolate, which the novel is about, to anger) but the marketing people at my publisher objected, and after much brainstorming of many titles containing the word "chocolate," my wonderful editor John Glusman proposed the perfect title, TRUE CONFECTIONS. It's the first time someone else titled a novel of mine, and it is, I think, a brilliant choice.

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  6. Katharine, I love the title The Pathetic Family.. It puts a whole different spin on the novel, doesn't it?--and True Confections is genius.
    And thank you Jacqui and Mary for such kind words!

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