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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Titles

What to write about today? I'm starting the morning with a headache, crick in my neck, and a stuffy nose that's upsetting my stomach, so I'm a little bit off. I'm thinking I need to lay off the wheat and eat nothing but greens for the next week to get back into balance.

Since I was having trouble picking a title for this post, I've decided to write about titles.

Seems titles are difficult for some authors. My ideas usually come to me in title-form. The title pops up in my brain and the story follows soon after. The only title I ever had trouble picking was Star of Justice. The book was written before I realized the title was staring me in the face.

The funny part is I didn't tie the title into the blurb or synopsis in any way whatsoever for the contest. That probably isn't good.

A star of justice is a magical tattoo of rank for the Goloran knighthood. Instead of medals, Goloran knights have a six-pointed star (basically a Star of David) on their left inner forearm that is altered each time a new rank is achieved. A seventh-ranked knight's star includes all the colors of the rainbow with gold edging. Caissa is a second-ranked knight when the story begins, so her star is purple and blue with silver edges (described in the first 500 words). A knight of Golor is known colloquially as a Star of Justice.

See? Obvious title. Can't believe it took me four months to see it.

Elementals was simple. It's a story about elemental forces of good, evil, fire, water, darkness, light, etc. Past Ties was so simple its sequels (or possibly acts) followed immediately with Present Tense, Future Perfect, and the side-squel Dangling Participles that starts the events concluded in Star of Justice.

I have a file cabinet full of titles and ideas. I've just never had the follow-through to work on them. Hopefully, that is now changing.

Unfortunately, the MLS contest has halted work on Past Ties. I have 245 pages of main contest entries to read and consider in the next week. Some people are already commenting on the boards. I have to wonder how many of the posters in the contest have other jobs. Or lives :)

I have both, and I should be getting back to them.

See you on The Anomaly.

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