nichepoetryandprose

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So the poet has decided to write a novel…

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Title: unknown

Working Title: unknown

Setting: an abandoned church (in part)

Characters: main character a writer

Plot: unknown

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This is a first in my experience.  I have no working title for my book!

At the top of the first page of my text are the words ‘Chapter One’.  The file on my computer is called ‘Chapter One’.

Always, when I started a book in the past, I had the title firmly in my head, right from the start.  The title drove the book.  My previous books (not published, although I intend to dust them off someday) were called:

No Stone Unturned

Something the Sundial Said

How Her Garden Grew

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Today, it is harder than ever to select a book title.  I challenge you to think of a simple title and then type it into Google.  Probably it has been used before.  The authoritative source for book titles already in use, of course, is Books in Print ®   (www.booksinprint.com).

A working title is useful.  A good working title frames the book in your mind and keeps the central idea firmly planted.   So far, I have written 24,000 words toward my novel and somewhere in there, I am sure a working title can be found.  I could tentatively call my book ‘saving the abandoned church’.  It won’t do for the final title since it sounds a little like a ‘how to’ book.

There are several approaches for selecting a final title for a book.

Some people choose part of a quote from a literary work.  Favorites of mine are: Ring of Bright Water (Gavin Maxwell) from The Marriage of Psyche by Kathleen Raine; Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy) from Elegy in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray; The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (Agatha Christie) from The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) from To a Mouse by Robert Burns.

Thomas Hardy, ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’, 1967 Edition, Airmont Publishing Company, Inc.

Some titles are from an important central idea in the book.  Blue Castle (L. M. Montgomery) is the name for the main character’s dreamworld, and in the end, she manages to find her fantasy world in real life.  Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier) is the name of a ‘first wife’,  whose memory haunts the protagonist (who is herself un-named).  The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) is a reference to the enduring music of the river environment where Rat and Mole have their adventures.

Daphne du Maurier, ‘Rebecca’, 1938, Pocket Books, of Canada, Ltd.

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Rachel Gardner, a literary agent, has some excellent advice on choosing a title for a book (http://www.rachellegardner.com/2010/03/how-to-title-your-book/).  She begins by asking a writer to identify the genre of the book and then suggests working with a list of verbs, nouns and other words associated with the book’s theme, setting or characters.

I will follow her advice and see what titles suggest themselves.  I will be sure to let you know when I have chosen a final title!!!

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Copyright Jane Tims 2012