Exciting News: A Title for My Debut Novel

I've just finished a trip to attend my twenty-year high school reunion. During this fun, jam-packed week, I received some news about my novel.

IT HAS A TITLE!

Last week, my editor asked me to forward her a list of potential titles. She passed on some general comments from the TN staff about what kinds of titles would best represent my work.

I was happy about their suggested guidelines. I thought my editor was very perceptive about the nature of my writing.

My next step was to sit down and generate titles. LOTS of titles. The best post I've ever seen on title brainstorming is from my own agent, Rachelle Gardner. If you need a title for your own novel, check it out.)

I narrowed my list down to seven sets of three titles each. (Each novel in the trilogy needs its own title.)

Next, I sent the title trios to my agent to get her input.

She liked the wide selection, and she named her favorite of the sets. Rachelle then encouraged me to send them on to my editor.

My editor and the Thoman Nelson staff unanimously chose the same set of titles that my agent favored.

I wasn't overly attached to any single set of titles, so I was pleased that they liked ANY of them!.

Even more important was the confidence I gained from the fact that both my agent and my editor independently selected the same set of titles as the best. These people know what they are doing. They are very experienced, and if they both advise the same course of action, I'm going to bet it's correct!

So the title for my debut novel will be:

Fairer than Morning


What do you think? Do you have a title for your work in progress? Are you very attached to it, or are you still looking for better options?

A Brief Break

Hi everybody,

I am smack in the middle of two very busy weeks, so I'm going to take a break from posting this week. See you next Monday.

Enjoy the spring weather!

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Does writing ever feel like this?

















Sometimes mine does.

As I've mentioned, I'm revising my second novel (1855) right now.

The first chapters were heavy going, as I rearranged my mental map of the plot.

But when it feels like I'm hauling a ton of concrete every time I sit down at the computer, here's what's really happening:

Writing is hard work. Preparing the ground for a story sometimes feels like an endless drag, pushing that iron spike through the soil by force, constantly struggling to keep those horses in line. Sometimes the plow jumps the furrow and starts plowing the wrong track, and I have to go back and start that pass again.



But I've now revised eight chapters of this 1855 novel. That's eighty pages. My writerly intuition tells me that my plowing is finished. Here comes Sunday.

I get to put away the draft horses and get dressed in my nice clothes.

Time to take the fancy horses for a spin.

I usually find that somewhere between chapters five and ten, the real fun starts. The world of the novel has become solid, and I no longer need the heavy draft horses of analysis, character building, and structural thinking. The lighter, faster steeds of the imagination get to harness up for a race through the park.

Is this how it works for you? Is there a point when it gets easier? Or do you start with the fast fun horses, and switch to the draft haulers later?

This post is dedicated to Charmaine, because of her love for extended writing analogies. :-)

When Writing Books Mess with Your Head

Books about the craft of writing can be very helpful. If you use a good craft book you plan out your novel, you can save yourself a lot of frustration by developing characters and plot before you actually write. Jody Hedlund has compiled a great list of writers' favorite writing books.

But those books can also be a trap.

A writer I know recently showed me a new draft of a few chapters.

"What happened to Character A?" I asked. "I liked him when he was hardhearted and more interesting. He's all soft now. You already have enough sympathetic characters. You need a few harder ones for balance."

My friend told me that he had recently looked back over a writing book and made all kinds of notes about what his characters would or would not do, based on the principles in the writing book. Those notes changed his perceptions of his characters. And that was what led to my dissatisfaction with Character A's transformation into a sensitive New Age man.

"But you already knew your characters," I said. "You didn't need to think about them in a developmental way anymore. You can't let those writing books mess with your head. They're best at the beginning of the process, or as an emergency backup in the middle if your novel starts to fall apart. But yours wasn't falling apart. It was good!"

He agreed with me that he had been led astray by over-thinking, both in that change and in a subplot twist that grew way too big for its britches. He told me that he had had that funny feeling that all writers get when we know that something is not quite right, but we need an objective reader to help us identify the problem.

One of the things I love about this friend is that he also can tell ME when I've pushed something too far in a novel. That's what writing friends are for!

Have you ever been led astray by a writing book that you read at the wrong point in your writing process?