Titles

February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 / Lisa / 13 Comments

What makes you pick up a new book? Usually it’s the title that catches my eye first.

Here are some titles that have resulted in the discovery of a great story: The Crossing Places (Elly Griffiths), Though Not Dead (Dana
Stabenow), Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters), She Walks These Hills (Sharon McCrumb), and many, many more. I’m sure when I blow out the kerosene lantern I’m going to remember several I should have listed. And it would be interesting to see what titles you like.

But this is more about the difficulty in catching just the right title for your own work. What an impossible thing. I’ve recently sent a story off for editing, with no title. Here are a couple failed ideas.

There’s a line in the story about a small house up against a canyon wall, with rocks scattered on its roof ‘like some weird mountain rain’. I love that line and thought ‘Mountain Rain’, great title! Until I realized that this is part of the ‘Mountain Mystery series’, which is just way too many mountains. The title and subtitle could almost form a mountain range on their own.

Then I thought about the name of some liquid libation that shows up in the story: Silver Mist. Because the liquid is distilled in a silver mining area. But honestly that title did nothing for me.

So I’m still wandering around waiting for inspiration. The right title will show up eventually. In the meantime, I’m pondering what makes a good title. Why one works and another doesn’t.

In some ways it’s obvious. A book called Encrypted won’t be picked up by me. Neither will Lady Sophia’s Rescue (but my sister will snap that one up). So the title clues me in that the book is a genre I like to read. Like I said, obvious.

Yet there are a lot of mystery titles I don’t pick up. So just as obviously, the title is simply luck of the draw. There’s something in the words that I as a reader respond to. The mystery reader standing next to me might pass up the same book I just felt an urge to read.

If it’s all so arbitrary then why is it so hard to come up with a title? Seems like it should be the easiest part. Or at least a little easier than writing the whole story to begin with.

I wonder if anyone has ever titled their book, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’

Some more titles

An Occasional Story of Snow

January 22, 2013December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 6 Comments

A friend was recently talking to me about taking their child sledding and it brought back a memory I want to share.

We have the coolest sledding spot around. We drag sleds partway up a gated logging road, to a place where it’s steep enough for speed, has some corners, and shallow ditches for crashing into brush. There’s no traffic and few people because most don’t want to go to the effort of hauling everything way up there.

But the trade-off is a spot in winter woods where you can shout and slush through snow and fly fast under the trees.

One winter my friend and I were up there with a bunch of kids. Her husband waited at the bottom of the road. He had a fire going, with hot dogs and snacks. When it started getting dark and all the hot chocolate was gone, most of the kids quit sledding and headed down to the fire.

My friend and I weren’t ready to go yet, and neither were her daughter and my son. We put the two on our sleds and hauled them up the logging road, hiking into the winter twilight. It was that deep quiet that falls under trees in snow. Just the sounds of the sleds, our breathing (some huffing and puffing as the road gets steep), cracking of branches off in the woods, and the sounds of sluggish cold water in the stream.

We hiked high in the woods until it was dark and then my friend and I sat on the sleds with the two kids, and sledded our way back out to the fire and laughter, taking our time. We wanted to prolong the magic of the winter forest as long as possible.

Those moments when we were pulling the kids behind us were beautiful. The still woods, the sense of life hibernating, the deepness of winter, and that shadowy light under the trees when it’s near dark, all made me feel as if I’d stepped into sanctuary.

I treasure that memory.

I tried to post a video of sledding in that area, but couldn’t get it to work. Instead I’ll just pop in a photo.

For a good winter book, try The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.