Aloha,
I’m
passing the Buick to an English blogger friend, Martin Willoughby, over at
From Sand to Glass.
Martin, whose Friday Fun posts are *hilarious,* is celebrating the release of his first book, Tempers Fugit.
The
lanai is all yours, Martin :)
###
Creating A Title For Your Book
The
process of creating a book title is a pain in the neck, though some people have
a lower opinion of it. But there are ways round the problem and some secrets I
can share...providing you promise not to tell anyone else.
Secret
Number 1: Steal someone else’s. As long as the
title you use is relevant to your own, you can use any title someone else has
used, though I don’t recommend it. What you can do is use that title as the
starting point for your own search for a title. Take, for instance, a famous
book such as Great Expectations. If your book is about a person with TB trying
to achieve his life’s goal before he dies, you could change it to Great
Expectorations.
Secret
Number 2: Brainstorm. Get a piece of paper
and write down any title that’s even remotely relevant, however idiotic it may
seem at the time. When I came to re-title A Stitch In Time I went through
various ideas based on film titles starting with The Good, The Bad and The One
With the Pet Robot through to 2381: A Space Oddity and various other
embarrassing titles in between. It was only when I got together with a friend
that we came with Tempers Fugit. The inspiration for that title came from Terry
Pratchett’s book Carpe Jugulum, which is based in the Latin Carpe Diem (seize
the day). As it’s about vampires, the title is very apt indeed. My novel
Tempers Fugit is based on the Latin Tempus Fugit (time flies) to become Tempers
Flying.
Secret
Number 3: Use an important phrase from the book.
What does your main character repeat often? How does the book end? Where is it
set? Write a comprehensive list, then start discarding the ones that you hate.
Pass them around friends and relatives and see which one makes the biggest
impact. Then ignore them all and plump for the one you like. Back to Terry
Pratchett here and his first book, The Colour of Magic. In the novel magic does
have a colour, but there is also a link to the film The Colour Of Money,
thereby reusing a well known phrase but changing it to suit the book.
Secret
Number 4: Use the main characters name and add what he’s going to face.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. You could do the same for the world
you’ve created, such as Dune or use the theme of the story, as with Fat by Rob
Grant.
Secret
Number 5: Get weird. Salmon Fishing the
Yemen, A History Of Tractors in the Ukraine, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of
the Apocalypse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and so on and
so forth.
Secret
Number 6: (This
entry has been censored by the Publishing Industry as it reveals our innermost
secrets. The author has been placed under protective custody in Area 51...which
doesn’t exist so forget we mentioned it)
In
short, get creative. Pay as much attention to the title as you do to the story,
as it’s the first thing that people will see, at least until you become famous
and can have your name as the selling point.
...................................................................
MartinWilloughby is an author of some repute and a legend in his own lunchtime. When
not writing he fixes computers, raises teenage children and acts in an amateur
theatre group where he’s always cast as the baddy. He’s won many awards in his
lifetime, including an Oscar for best actor which he received from his mother
as a Christmas present many years ago. Tempers Fugit is his first book, his second, Apollo
The Thirteenth, will be released later this year to even more fanfare and
approval. You can stalk him on twitter or via his blog, From Sand to Glass.
Links
Amazon
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In other news, (I've always wanted to say that:)
Sarah's Reviews is offering a giveaway of three books by the wonderful
C. Lee McKenzie.
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