Yes and no. That blog title caught your attention, didn’t it?

And while most writers bemoan the fact, it’s still true that many if not most readers will indeed judge a book by its cover … and its title.

I am miserably bad at finding titles for my own work. I was young and stubborn when my first novel came out and I insisted on my version of the title—years later, I learned that the publisher had been right, but it was a little late then. My best title ever, The Illusionist, was a suggestion given by a friend. So what this all means is that I think a lot about titles.

Terri Marie has this to say about finding the right title:

The title of your book is the billboard for the words and ideas you are giving to people. Those four to seven words or so are most critical of all the words you write.

A dear friend of mine, John Harricharan, author of best-selling, “When You can Walk on Water, Take the Boat,” explained to me that the real title comes from within you, like the book. I finally understood that I did not “try” to write the book. It wrote itself. So too, will the title come from within you. What John meant, is that you must love the title you choose. Be confident with it. With that confidence, the energy of the book can come through, almost like a light shining through the window.

In other words, it does not matter so much what the actual title is. What matters is the feeling you have when you read, see or say the title. That’s the key.

Wow. Just a little pressure there. I wish I could have that upwelling of feeling about a title, but it’s never happened yet.

Fortunately for most of us, she goes on to offer some very practical advice:

1. Write down all possible titles. Anything and everything you can think of. You never know which phrase may catch and stick.
2. Pay attention to how YOU feel when you tell others your title. Do you feel proud, tentative, scared, stupid? The feeling you want is like a proud mother or father of your new little baby. Give it the best name you can. It will be called that name the rest of its life.
3. I also researched other titles on amazon. You don’t want a title that everyone has. It will get lost. You also don’t want a title so obscure or undescriptive that nothing will come up on a search.
4. It needs to have intrigue and yet be clear. “Things Your Priest Doesn’t Want You To Know,” would be intriguing. So would “Things Your (fill in the blank) Doesn’t Want You To Know.” We humans like to know what others are doing, thinking feeling etc.
5. Does your title help the reader to become a better person? We want to strive higher, yet it has to be an achievable goal without huge effort. If your title is “How to increase your IQ by 10 points, studying an extra 5 hours a day,” I’m not interested.
6. Sum up your book in one sentence. Write as many as you can of these one liners. If you get just one chance to give a message from your book to others, what would you say? That’s often all you get. Use it wisely.
7. When it all comes down to it, go with your gut.

Obviously a couple of these suggestions apply only to nonfiction books, but novelists can extrapolate what they say into the fiction realm.

Feeling better? I’m not. I currently have a novel in search of a title. While it’s true that the future publisher may change the title (and probably will), it’s still important to present something strong and compelling to the publisher. With this in mind, I narrowed my options down to two possibilities. I sent them out to my online writing community and asked for opinions, and they came back weighing in more or less equally for each of the two titles. Damn!

Over at Writing-World, John Floyd has some things to say about choosing the “right” title: it shouldn’t be dull, it should be easy to remember, it should be appropriate. Read his entire article for sources to jog your imagination.

And for a little fun, once you’ve got a title or two in mind, head over to Lulu’s title scorer to see how it might work for you!

In the meantime, I’m stuck with my title dilemma, none of my research having given me any definitive direction. I hope your quest goes better! And if you have any secrets, methods, or ideas about finding the right title, please share it here! Then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

***

Everyone’s life is busier every year. Work, family, friends, church, volunteer obligations—we’ve loaded our lives with so much stuff that writing is often neglected. Finishing three to four hundred pages in this chaos can seem impossible.

Yet the dream of holding your first book in your hands persists. You know you have to do whatever it takes to keep your dream alive.

Great!

This is written just for you, not for those who pay lip service to writing. Since none of those unsavory types are here right now, draw closer, I want to share some tips on finding a few extra minutes here and there for writing.

First, writing time isn’t found: it’s made, and you need to decide where you will make time. I don’t know your life, so I can’t tell you exactly where your writing time goes. You need to be honest with yourself about where you waste time during a day.

A friend lamented that she has very little time to write. Yet, almost every conversation we have includes the following questions: Did you watch such and such show? No. What about this show? No.

Don’t get me wrong I have my favorite shows, but DVRs and VCRs were invented so I don’t have to sit through twenty minutes of commercials. If you watch two one-hour long programs a week, you can recover forty minutes to write.

Are you a perpetual volunteer? I’ve done my share of time on boards and committees, but there comes a time when you have to say no. Volunteering is a monumental time vacuum. Practice saying this with me, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help this time.” Trust me, it gets easier each time you say those words.

Maybe neither of these is you. Like I said, I don’t have a crystal ball into your life. Think long and hard about the activities you participate in, and ask yourself, do I want this more than I want a career as a writer? Then scale back the activities you can’t live without, so you can fit a few more minutes of writing into your day.

At the very least, schedule a half an hour of your day to write. It shouldn’t be too hard I just saved you forty minutes, but if you’re not a TV watcher then, wake up a half an hour early, stay awake a half an hour later, or sit in your car at lunch, whatever it takes to get that half hour. Your family can live without you for thirty minutes. Shocking I know. I was mortified to find out my husband didn’t sit in stasis when I’m not around, waiting for me to come home and plugged him in again. So use that time for writing, the world will keep revolving even if you’re not supervising.

Stop telling yourself, “I can’t write because …” You CAN accomplish anything you want. When you say, I am going to do x-y-z, then x-y-z gets done. Make writing a daily activity like changing your underwear.

The only way to get to THE END is to sit down, begin, stay seated, and keep working. Writing is hard work. Writers who succeed make a commitment to their work. You can too.

Stacy Verdick Case carves her half-hour out every morning, and guards it like a lioness. She is the author of the Catherine O’Brien mystery series. The first book in the series A Grand Murder is available in paperback, ebook, and now audio from Before the Fall Books. Visit Stacy on her blog, for more information on her writing—and general musings.

Check out her book and blog, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Compelling characters are characters that play a lot of roles inside their own role. They’re entertaining and engaging, those two overused words that actually work in this case: compelling characters are people that we want to see more of, learn more about, see interacting with others, watch as they navigate the situations into which they’re plunged.

To be seriously compelling, however, characters have to go beyond mere entertainment. Compelling characters are characters that teach us something beyond the storyline in which they find themselves. They force us to look at something—themselves, the world, a given issue or situation—and learn something about it.

At their very best, they force us to learn something about ourselves. The lack of limits Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) acknowledges may make me envy her … but she reminds me in the process of the fact that my own limits are pretty firmly entrenched. Almost every character in Steinbeck’s novels is a fundamentally lonely person … and as I read about them I’m reminded of my own extremely high loneliness threshold, my desire for solitude, even as I sympathize with their need for conenction.

Phil Rickman writes novels in which the characters move fluidly from one story to another, to the point where they become very real to the reader. I’ve caught myself wondering how Moira Cairns would respond to something that happens in my own life and have to remind myself that she really only exists on the pages of his books. The recent popularity of Downton Abbey indicates that compelling characters don’t know historic or cultural boundaries, as continents of people find themselves enthralled by the joys and problems encountered by Lord and Lady Grantham, by Mr. Bates and Anna.

And how can they not hold a mirror up to us, even as we watch them live out their stories? Just as Nietzche said about the abyss, we look into the characters … and they look into us. Compelling characters create a connection between who they are and who we are, so that in a sense we can feel what they feel, imagine being them, maybe bring a slightly different sort of insight back with us into our own lives and dramas.

So … what do you think? What creates a compelling character? I’d love to hear it. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

To some writers, writing a novel can seem like a long, and sometimes, terrifying journey. If the journey is overwhelming, simplify it by doing the following few tasks.

• Know why and where the story is going by creating a quick pitch, writing a short synopsis, and identifying the protagonist’s stakes (or goals) in the story.
• Create a roadmap by building the spine of the story.
• Whittle the size of the journey down by breaking it into manageable short trips.

The better prepared you are, the more likely you will conclude your journey successfully. These tasks can save hours of writing and editing along that journey.

The quick pitch. This is your 25-word TV Guide story synopsis. It’s okay if it changes, even daily. It helps sharpen your vision of the story. Who, what, where, when, and why make up the story’s quick pitch, even if some information is only implied. Having a ready quick pitch may just be what gets an agent’s attention in the future. For example, from my novel, One Promise Too Many, the pitch is: An unsolved murder, enigmatic partner, and elusive suspect complicate a Marshfield detective’s first case—finding a kidnapped child within two days.

A short synopsis. This is a 100-word story synopsis includes the protagonist’s motivation and major plot twists and turns. Again, don’t worry if it changes often. It’s also the next layer of information an agent wants to hear.
The stakes. What is the protagonist’s goal; that is, what is at stake, privately and publicly for him? Private stakes are personal and only knowable to others if the protagonist chooses to tell them. Public stakes are visible to all. Everyone is actively involved in ensuring the protagonist does (ally) or doesn’t (irritant) achieve his public goal. Don’t forget the antagonist’s stakes.

The story spine. To outline or not to outline is an old argument amongst writers. If you can write a saleable story without outlining, you are truly blessed. Most writers only think they can. For most, outlining on some level is necessary to avoid spending countless hours writing aimlessly. Identifying the story spine is a simplified way of ensuring a story roadmap.

The story spine has eight main story events. Use the elements of fiction writing (description, setting, characterization, subplots, symbolism, etc.) to create the scenes to move the story from one main event to the next. Remember, there are many ways to structure your novel; however, these eight main events are nearly universal.

• Set-up. This is normal life for the protagonist before the inciting incident occurs. This should be as succinct as possible giving the reader a sense of the protagonist.
• Inciting Incident (II). What event starts the protagonist off on his quest, ensuring his life has been changed? This almost always occurs by the end of Chapter 1.
• Plot Point One (PP1). What makes the protagonist realize a previous truth (or goal) is wrong, sending the story in another direction? The movie Legally Blonde has a great PP1. The protagonist is at a party trying to win back her boyfriend when she realizes, “I’m never going to be good enough for you.” Devastating! It changes plot direction by challenging her “perceived” story goal, her truth.
• Mid-Point (MP). What event turns the story ninety degrees in another direction? Who dies unexpectedly? What friend is revealed as a foe? Does the protagonist walk away from the quest? From MP to PP2, the protagonist finds the tools necessary to defeat the antagonist, even if he doesn’t recognize them at the time.
• Plot Point Two (PP2). What event occurs to make the protagonist realize the attainment of his goal is solely in his hands?
• Dark Moment (DM). What occurs right before the climax to make the goal seem unattainable? What rallies the protagonist?
• Climax. What reserve strength (or tool) does the protagonist use to overcome the antagonist’s Achilles Heel? The public stakes goal should be resolved here, and if you’re really good, so is the private stakes.
• Resolution. What has the protagonist learned? Are there loose ends to resolve?

In some stories the dark moment, climax, and resolution come crashing together at the end, leaving the reader breathless. In other stories, they are distinct, allowing the reader to soak up the impact. The resolution can also be a sequel tease, raising more questions for the reader.

Manageable short trips. After these tasks are done, break the journey into short trips. Take those short trips between the eight main story events and write with the allotted words as a goal.

In the following example, the 80,000 word story is broken into fourths, each being 20,000 words long—beginning to PP1, PP1 to MP, MP to PP2, and PP2 to the resolution. Have the black moment end halfway between PP2 and the resolution. Make the climax end halfway between the black moment and the resolution. Have chapter one contain the set-up and inciting incident. Now, write the short trips between the main events using the elements of fiction in scenes and chapters as appropriate.

Word Count at the end of each Main Event
Set-up II PP1 MP PP2 BM Climax Resolution
1,000 2,000 20,000 40,000 60,000 70,000 75,000 80,000

By knowing where you are going and how you are going to get there, you can create the story’s spine. With the spine and the short trips, the journey is not as intimidating. Simplifying the journey in this manner can give the story focus, tighten it, and prevent characters from hijacking the story unnecessarily. And remember the only rule: writers write! Everything else is a guideline.

—
Inspiration for this article came from: Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, Scene and Structure by Jack Bickham, Story by Robert McGee, Plot by Ansen Dibell, Goal, Motivation and Conflict by Debra Dixon, and participation in NANOWRIMO.
—
Rick Bylina is a writer living in Apex, North Carolina. More at http://rickbylina.blogspot.com/

]]> http://beyond.customline.com/2012/01/12/the-novel-a-long-journey-simplified/feed/ 0 http://beyond.customline.com/2012/01/05/call-for-submissions/ http://beyond.customline.com/2012/01/05/call-for-submissions/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:06:04 +0000 Jeannette http://beyond.customline.com/?p=1420 Before the holiday spirit has left you entirely, it’s time to think about using some of that joie de vivre and capturing that enthusiasm by writing a short story!

Here’s the full call for submissions:

Imagine your favorite holiday stories. Chances are good the protagonists are a man and a woman, possibly even with children. But where are the stories that feature men together, or women together, that will also warm our hearts at this special season? Are there no gay Christmas tales?

That’s where you come in. We’re collecting holiday stories for two anthologies, one featuring male protagonists/couples/families, the other featuring female protagonists/couples/families, and we’d like to hear from you!

Your story should run between 2,000 and 4,000 words, contain no erotica, and be in a winter holiday setting. The only requirement is that it be historical fiction. We’re looking for tomorrow’s classics in time for next year’s holiday season!

Pay will depend on securing a publisher and will be negotiated at that time for accepted stories. Deadline is June 15, 2012, but the earlier, the better. Send Word docs to Jeannine Allard at jeannine@jeannineallard.com.

So there it is. If you’re gay, you know that the community needs more of these stories. If you’re not gay, then see how you can stretch your imagination … being able to put oneself in someone else’s experience is at the core of great fiction!

Try it out today, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

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