Don’t Judge a Series by Its First Book

Series are very common in speculative fiction, and especially in fantasy.  And even more especially in Urban Fantasy.  Normally, when you read the first book in a series and find it less than satisfying, you don’t read the rest of the books in that series.

So, when I finally put down Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts, the first book in her Downside Ghosts series, I was very disappointed.  Here was I book I had greatly been anticipating, and had recommended to me, even though I don’t usually read a lot of Urban Fantasy.  The author is also active on Absolute Write, my favorite writing forum, and I have in fact spoken to her there.

But after the first 50 pages, I found the book very slow going.  The magic system was interesting, there was a unique twist on the post-apocalyptic world, the character was a strong but flawed woman with drug issues and ties to the underworld that actually caused conflict with her everyday job.  The writing was good.  The villain was interesting.  Yet the book wasn’t.  (Keep in mind this was my first Stacia Kane book.)

I tend to finish things I start, and so I finished the book.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy books, and I felt let down.  Even though I was desparate for reading material, the other two books sat on the shelf for two or three weeks.  If I hadn’t bought all three currently available books in the series in one mass splurge of book-balancing, checker-shocking hemorrhage of cash, I would have written it off as bad luck and moved on.  I would not have picked up the sequels.  And I would have missed out big time.

Because the sequels were both page-turners, which I tore through in one day instead of studying for my finals.  I loved them.  I could see how much they benefitted from the set-up in the first book.  There was a bit much re-hashing from Unholy Ghosts, and I think the books could have still been good reads if I hadn’t slogged through the first book.  But overall, they were great, and I’m glad I bought them.

I’ve heard similar stories about Steven Erikson’s Malazan series.  Fans are constantly explaining that the series really gets started after the first book, Gardens of the Moon, which is apparently slow and boring in its overwhelming detail.  (Personally, I loved it.)  The point is, even though writers are often advised that the first whatever–sentence, paragraoh, page, chapter, novel–is what makes or breaks a sale, those criteria don’t always match up with reality.

While it’s true that there are more books out there than a single person could read in ten life-times, that you can always just move on to a series that is good from start to finish, that doesn’t mean you should never read a book by that author again.  Some authors deserve a second chance.

If you haven’t taken the hint already, Stacia Kane is one of those authors.  But this post is not about how much I now love Stacia Kane.  It’s about how no matter the amount of polish you grind into your first whatever, it won’t always be good enough to hook someone’s interest.  But that doesn’t mean it sucks, or that you should give up on further work in that direction.  So keep writing, and keep reading, and hopefully you’ll find what you’re looking for.

 

Book Review: The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron

Learn more about Rahcel Aaron by visiting her website.

Read more about The Spirit Thief on the Orbit website.

As I said the first time, I normally don’t review books.  But, having reviewed the first book in this series, The Spirit Thief, I figured why not review the second?  So, here’s my review of The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron.  And, to pack even more goodness in, I’ll use it as an example of good series structure.

There may be minor spoilers for the first book, but hopefully none for the second.

Book Two of the Legend of Eli Monpress starts out Miranda Lyonette returning to the Spiritualist Court to face charges of improper acquisition of a spirit and conspiracy with our anti-hero Eli.  Eli is of course looking for a way to replace Nico’s dampening coat to hide her presence from the spirits.

Both of these opening conflicts have fairly high levels of tension and are built strongly on the foundations laid in the first book.  While the main plotline of Spirit Thief was clearly resolved, it has lead to some very good opening subplots for Spirit Rebellion.  And while these subplots are based on the first book and follow cleanly from the events surrounding that book’s climax, they do not undo what has occurred, nor make it irrelevant.  Thus, the previous book could have served equally well as a standalone novel, and so can the second.

Now, I like long interconnected epic fantasy as much as anyone, but a good fantasy series does not require video-game style stakes elevation, and I personally prefer when it doesn’t.  if you don’t agree, the rest of the post will still be interesting and relevant, but ymmv.

So, we’ve  established that each book has its own personal conflicts but that the second book builds on the first.  I’ll also note that the main plot of the second book is very similar to the first.  It is first and foremost a caper, in which Eli runs around stealing fantastic things from their less than fantastic owners. 

That said, the series is not episodic, as many urban fantasy series tend to be.  The two main plots still rely on one another.  In fact, the main event of the first novel is key to solving the conflict of the second.  While avoiding the common fantasy trope of “plot coupons”, where the character runs around exchanging one valuable artifact for another, Aaron manages to incorporate previous material into the solution of the present conflict.  And all this is accomplished while widening the readers understanding of setting and character.

We’ll start with the first.  In Spirit Rebellion, we learn a lot more of the functioning of the spirit world and the Spirit Court.  Both have their important figures and inconvenient politics.  The politics of the Court are an obstacle to Miranda, while the politics of the spirit realm serve to frustrate Eli’s attempts to steal the thing which will absolve him of a rather large debt to a rather dangerous person. 

What really makes these believable conflicts is that they cannot be easily solved with the skills and powers that got the characters through the last story.  Eli finds out that all the charisma in the world won’t help when no one will talk to you.  And of course, Miranda’s strong belief in the difference between right and wrong gets her in a great deal of trouble.  There’s no black and white in politics.

We also learn a great deal more about Nico’s part of the story.  There are several hints and clues as to the nature of demonseeds and how they grant their hosts their powers, as well as some revelations into their true nature and their relationship to the spirit realm.  Fascinating stuff, but I won’t be going into it here.  You’ll just have to read the book.

As for Josef, I learned that even publishers get confused by names, unless there’s an identical twin named “Joseph” somewhere that we have yet to meet.  Anyway, while we get basically zilch in terms of character backstory, there some lovely character-building scenes and a lecture from my newest favorite talking sword that do a good job of making him more than just Nico’s bodyguard.

Finally, there are relatively few minor characters cluttering up the pages, but those that are there are well-portrayed within their limits and move the plot along without being obvious plot-bots.

Okay, now for the bad part.  I’ve seen this mentioned in other reviews, most notably the one of the Spirit Thief over at booksmugglers, so I know it’s not just me.  While the books are fun and the plots competently constructed, the main characters tend to be a bit flat.  They’re fairly archetypal, I suppose you could say.  Eli is the charming rogue, Miranda the feisty female mage, Josef the stolid swordsman, and the Nico the quiet girl with a mysterious past and incredible powrs.  I like to compare Eli to David Eddings’ Althalus, and Miranda reminds me of Jordan’s Morianne, or possibly Siuan Sanche.  I could make many more comparisons, but this is fantasy, so I’m sure everyone has some character they find a bit similar to every other.  The point is, while there are three books left in the series, a little bit more info wouldn’t have hurt.

And now for the MCs.  Miranda is not so bad.  Things tend to go in her favor, but she’s a fantasy heroine, so it’s neither surprising nor especially damaging to the plot.  But, Eli is another story.  While he’s certainly powerful on his own, he would never have gotten so far without the backing of a powerful patron.  As Mellinor remarks in the climax of the Spirit Thief, how could any spirit be allowed to bring Eli to harm?  This backing has many positive and almost no negative effects on Eli.  While it’s impressive of him to refuse direct help in tight situations—it’s typical of Marty Stus in that he doesn’t really seem to need it.  It’s an empty refusal.  He doesn’t lose anything precious that could have been saved, and he gets to keep his pride.

Of course, I appreciate the unique approach to making Eli special.  Using a third and difficult method of encouraging the help of the spirits.  But he seems to do little enough of it after the first book, preferring to rely upon his inner “light” to do the trick.  Unlike the rest of the magic, this part seems little integrated into the story.

Overall, I liked the second book.  It’s a good build-up and there has been some writing improvement.  It’s not my favorite style of fantasy, being a lighter, more humorous take on the genre, but good writing and a good story make it one of the nicer additions to the new fantasy canon.  I am looking forward to the rest of this series.

 

Review: “The Spirit Thief” by Rachel Aaron

Read more about The Spirit Thief on the Orbit website.

Buy The Spirit Thief on Amazon.

Learn more about Rahcel Aaron by visiting her website.

It took me about four hours to tear through my signed copy of Rachel Aaron’s new fantasy caper, The Spirit Theif.  Starring Eli Monpress, the world’s greatest wizard thief, Aaron’s book will put you in mind of David Edding’s Redemption of Althalus and Scott Lynch’s atmospheric The Lies of Locke Lamorra.

Eli, his sword-swinging comrade Josef, and the shadow-stalking demonseed Nico, conspire to kidnap the King of Mellinor, an old kingdom well known for its hatred of wizrds.  With a bounty on his head of 20,000 gold standards, Eli is one of the most wanted criminals among the Council Kingdoms.  And he has hatched his daring plot not for the ransom he will be paid, but to raise that bounty even more.  In order to reach his goal of 1,000,000 gold standards, kidnapping a king may be the pettiest of the crimes he plans to commit.

Opposing Eli is the formidable Spiritualist, Miranda Lyonette, assigned by the Spirit Court to hunt down and bring to justice this rogue mage, before he brings a bad name to all wizards.  With her ghosthound mount and her rings full of servant spirits, she sets out to rescue the king and capture Monpress before the kingdom of Mellinor collapses in shambles.

Rachel Aaron weaves these two sides together with a deep, dark secret, and a clever twist on the idea of the anti-magic kingdom.  You’ll have to read the book to find out what the twist is, but I promise you it’s worth it.

Now, on to the specifics:

All fantasies are made up of four components: the characters, the plot, the world, and the magic system.

1.  Magic:  Rachel Aaron’s magic system is a unique blend of elemental magic and the idea that everything in nature is possessed of its own soul.  Think Japanese kami, elemental magic, and contract spirits all rolled into one.  Now, contract magic is one of my favorite systems , and I liked that even within that strict framework, Aaron left room for various paths to power.  While the powerful Spirit Court emphasises fair exchange, and duty to spirit and human alike, there are other ways to control this power, and most of them aren’t very nice.

2.   Plot:  If you’ve read any capers before, fantasy or otherwise, you pretty much know how this goes.  The clever thief arrives in town with a carefully crafted plan and a desire to thumb his nose at authority whenever possible.  Of course, no plan is perfect, and even the best strategies rarely survive the first engagement.  But that’s okay.  If everything went according to plan, there wouldn’t be much of a story, would there?  Well, both Eli and Miranda’s plans go drastically wrong and the most exciting part of this book is discovering how they clean up the mess.  No one makes it through unscathed.

3.  Characters:  I mentioned Locke Lamorra and Althallus earlier.  I’d say this book leans much closer to Althalus, with a light heart and a willingness to play around with the cliches of the genre.  Monpress is witty and charismatic, and frequently takes time out to joke with boulders and whisper sweet nothings in the ears of nearby trees.  There’s a fine line between magnificent bastard and mary sue, and Eli keeps a foot planted firmly on either side of it.  On the bright side, you get the clear feeling that these characters existed before the book began and will still be gallivanting through the lands long after it ends.

4.  World-building:  Now we get to the only real disappointment I had with the book.  I’ve heard it said that fantasies live or die by their world-building, and while I appreciate Aaron’s desire to keep the story moving, I felt the novel lacked the weight of history that really brings a fantasy together for me.  The characters may have existed before this story began, but I can’t quite be sure that the world did.  Aaron does bring up historical events, and one of them is even integral to the progression of plot.  But I felt she relied a little too much on the generic tropes of fantasy, and this means the world didn’t have the living, breathing indivdualism you find in many works.  Before you say, well, it’s light fantasy, I’d like to point out that Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and  Lynch’s Locke Lamorra have very similar stories, but I get a strong sense of the past and present and the way things are outside of the protagonists tiny little section of the world.

All that said, if you enjoy light fantasy and grand capers that move all over the world, I’d definitely recommend reading this book, and I plan to read the rest of the series, too, if I can get my hands on it.  It’s very clear to me why this novel got published, and even though I think the author is still maturing, I look forward to her future work.

 

I Don’t Normally Do Book Reviews, but…

Whenever you make a rule for yourself, there’s always going to be a “,but…”  No matter if it’s word count, books a year, limiting your research.  It doesn’t matter.  You can be the most organized, planned-out person in the world, and there will still be times when you come across an oppurtunity that is too good to pas up.

For this post, the rule in question is that I don’t do book reviews.  I have written a very few reviews of things, books and otherwise, and while some of them may have been good, it’s just not something I’m good at.  Also, I have so many other things to do, or even to just write, that doing any sort of regular book reviewing would be an enormous dissruption to my schedule.  And of course, I only buy paperbacks, and I make a small number of large buys a year.  I don’t have time to officially work my way into being an arc reviewer, either.  Finally, I’m terrible at not giving spoilers, because I don’t mind them all that much myself.  I’d prefer not to see them, but it doesn’t destroy the story for me if I do. 

So, I try to avoid the temptation to review things.

But, then one of those oppurtunities came along:  Rachel Aaron was having a giveaway to celebrate the release of her book, The Spirit Thief over on The Magic District.  I read the blog all the time, so of course I wanted to read the book, and support Rachel.  I’ve just recently caught up with the last 400 posts of my blog reading, and I was lucky enough to catch up just in time for this giveaway.  Twenty people were going to come away with a free, autographed copy of this book, and I haven’t read any books for the past two months.  (I love my college, but it’s in the middle of nowhere, and I hate Amazon.)  So I threw my name in the hat, and out of 28 entries, I was one of those picked.  Not tough really, since there was about a 75% chance of winning.

One of the caveats of this giveaway was that it wwas promotional.  In order to enter, I had to promise to post a review of the book somewhere online.  Now, I don’t use Amazon(though I have an account), LibraryThing, or GoodReads, so that just left my blog.  So, sometime in the next week or so, I’m going to be posting a review of this book.  I anticipate a fantastic read, and I’ll try not to give away too much in the throes of my enthusiasm.

Other days,

Atsiko

 

Revised Comments Policy–Please Read and Complay. kkthanksbi

I’ve revised the comments policy.  No big changes, mostly to incorporate some elaboration on inline links.  Please read and comply.  Thank you.

 

The Tragedy of the Titles

 Awhile back, I did a post on possible ways to create a title for a book. Now I’m going to revisit the subject of titles, but from a slightly different perspective.

One of the most popular questions among writers, published and un-published alike, is how can I come up with a title for my book? That’s the question I tried to address in my last post on the topic. But lets go a little deeper. Why is this question so important? There’s a lot more to a book than the title after all. (Same for short stories and poems, but I’m going to focus on novels here.) About 400 pages of text for one. Why then are we so worried about titles? Why the endless debates and the tales of publishers annexing another bit of creative control? It’s pretty simple.

Most of you already know the answer. The title sells a book. It’s not the only thing. Covers, copy, and the afore-mention content are all important. For word-of-mouth, content is king. But when a reader is trudging down the aisles of their local bookstore, two things stand out: the title and the cover. The title is how you look a book up online or in a catalog. It gives you your first idea of what a book is about. “The Romancing of Ms. Elisia Keen”? Probably not for the 15-year-old science fictionist in your family. (Or is it?!)

Titles can convey story, theme, character and much more. When we google “SFF with spaceships”, the most likely thing to draw us to one book result over another is the title. It’s the first thing that pops up. Looking at an author’s wiki page? Their bibliography has titles and dates. Guess which one is going to draw our attention. All that effort and suffering for the perfect title? Totally worth it.

Now the big question, how do we get that perfect title? A title is like a beautiful young maiden (or a MILF, if you’re into that sort of thing, but I think the former makes a better analogy). An unnamed book is like her ardent pursuer. This book could be the reincarnation of Romeo, or it could be a Casanova. Or, even worse, it could be an abusive boyfriend in the making. He might be nice for the courting, and maybe he’s perfect for making the other ladies jealous, but you wouldn’t want to marry him. But, once the book is published, the deal is done. That ring’s not coming off.

Now, say another book comes along. He’s like Edward Cullen, except not a freaky, abusive stalker. He’s smokin’ hot, he’s sweet, and he cooks a mean rhubarb pie. But he’s from a rich family, and has his reputation to consider. (Now, keep in mind, titles cannot be copyrighted. Two books, or poems, or songs can have the same title. )  So along comes Edward 2.0, and our young lady decides to run away with him. But wait, it’ll be a scandal. Even if she divorces Casanova, everyone knows how he treated her: running around with other titles(some less than flattering), verbally abusing her in front of readers. Her reputation is ruined.

Even if Edward agrees to take her, he’ll be disowned by his family, and abandoned by his friends. Nobody will read him, because she connects him to Casanova, who everyone despises. Our young title has already proven her bad taste; you know Edward’s going to turn out the same way. And there we are, a beautiful title tarnished by a terrible book. All her promise, her possibility for attracting readers is gone. She’ll forever be associated with that terrible book. Her life is over.

As an example, let’s look at Pat Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind”. I picked this book up entirely on the strength of the title. If it had been called “Kvothe Goes to Magic School and Plays the Lute and is Tota-fucking-lly Awesome Because Pat Says So”, which is what it’s really about, I would never have even read the reviews, or the cover copy. Which, to be fair, were not terrible. There were some interesting premises beneath the narrative. Musician heroes are fun and rare in fantasy, at least compared to the mercs and farmboys and spoiled noble girls.

So, here we are, with this fantastic title, and Rothfuss has ruined her with a mediocre book. If a wonderful, incredible novel were to be written, which this title would fit perfectly, and which this title would hurl from the shelves into the arms of a legion of readers… well, it couldn’t use it.

Before anyone calls me out on the ridiculousness of such a scenario, remember there’s a reason that new authors are advised to google their prospective titles. I cannot count how many times I’ve arrived at what I’d thought was a perfect title, only to see it had already been claimed—twice. Now, sometimes it was by a wonderful book, which I subsequently loved and enjoyed, and even forgave for stealing away the love of my book’s life. But often–maybe even mostly–it’s been by rather average stories, and also some mediocre or even terrible ones.

So, remember, when you set up your book with his dream title, make sure it fits—and that your book deserves her more than all the other drooling slobs out there. (Which it will, of course. After all, you worked your ass off writing and revising and editing that story, ‘til it shone with the avariciousness of a thousand starving ferrets spying a mouse scurry out of the wall.)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled rant on cultural ideals in fiction.  (A domani!)

 

Amazon and Macmillan and Internet Books

One the Amazon/Macmillan fracas:

Thank the Goddess for bookstores. If you needed a good reason why print books and bookstores are still viable models, you’e got it. I’d like to Borders(insertfavoritechainbookstorehere) pull a stunt like this. Bet they couldn’t.

Imagine if all we had were e-books. This sort of thing could close down a much bigger portion of the market.

This is why the only things I buy on line are computer-related.

 

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I don’t normally do book reviews.  In fact, this is barely a book review at all, for all it’s marked with that tag.  Suffice to say that if you have not read Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”, you ought to get right to it.  I know I’m woefully out of date, the book being published in 2004, but I can only say it’s the best historical fantasy (or possibly fantasy in general) that I have had the fortune to read.  Damn long, though.  But worth it.

 

Genre of the Week: Urban Fantasy

This week’s Genre is Urban Fantasy, commonly abbreviated UF.  A general description of a UF novel is “any novel taking place on Earth in modern times (no earlier than the 1900’s, but more commonly between the 1960’s and the present) which involves some type of paranormal or supernatural element and portrays its interactions with an urban environment.” 

Urban fantasy has been said to include elements of fantasy, horror and romance.  A lot of the more popular UF today has a larger romance component, and also a larger horror component than you might have seen previously.  Without suggesting that Girls in Fantasy^TM only write romance, I think this is attributable to the a certain degree to the number of female authors in the modern incarnation of UF.  And there are a lot. 

And there’s also more crossover with the Paranormal Romance(PR) genre, the title of which might hint to you that there’s a lot more romance than in your typical UF novel.  Even more than in your typical Kick-Ass Heroine UF novel, which is literally becoming more and more “typical” of the genre in general.  And you know what?  That’s great.  It’s wonderful to see more female fantasy authors getting the attention they deserve.  And they do deserve it.

You may notice I’m having a bit of trouble keeping the gender issues out of this post.  Because Urban Fantasy has a much more conspicuous and overt female writer-/reader-ship, it’s gotten a lot of attention from the gender pundits.  Now, I don’t want to digress into a long lecture about the history or status of women in Spec Fic, so I think we’ll leave this discussion at that.  (Feel free to talk about it in comments, however, if you’d like to.)

One of the things that really differentiates UF from other sub-genres of fantasy is that it is often set both in a high-magic world, and yet a world that is recognizably, or even blatantly in-your-face, Earth.  Whether or not the supernatural or fantastic elements is out in the open, or hidden behind layers of secrets and vast under-world conspiracies, it is there, it is active, and it has a great deal of influence on the world, or at least on the world most of its protagonists move in.  Oh, and it has a lot of kick-ass female leads, too–but that’s veering back towards the gender issues debate.  We’ll leave that for a later post.

Another thing that sets this genre apart is it’s crossover ability.  Much like steampunk, urban fantasy gets along well with many related sub-genres.  Like, for instance, steampunk!  But it also blurs the edges of it’s parent category “contemporary” fantasy, which is generally a reference specifically to the time period a story is set in.  Earlier, I mentioned the fuzzy borders between YF and PR.  It also has close ties to Horror, and the Horror/Fantasy (kind of) mix that makes up the sub-genre of “Dark Fantasy”.  Urban fantasy is often also shoved into another larger category called “low fantasy”, which—in contrast to High Fantasy and it’s many elaborate secondary-worlds—is generally set on earth and has less mythical overtones in terms of its structure.  Naturally, it borrows quite a few non-human species/races from mythology.  Even Gods.

Finally, Urban fantasy crosses over with slightly more distant relatives in the mystery area, such as noir, police procedurals, and thrillers.  This is primarily because—as inhabitants of a modern, industrialized world—UF protagonists have one of the widest arrays of professions in the genre.  The most common include Spy, Detective, PI (there’s a difference), Medical Examiner/Coroner, Hired Muscle, and occasionally Stock Broker or business magnate.  All of those jobs that allow for fights in dirty alleys, investigating crimes, and waging shadow wars throughout the criminal underground.  Of course, some have more normal jobs as well, especially those who don’t begin the story aware of these strange and powerful supernatural menaces. (More on that later.)

Currently, UF is one of the most popular sub-genres, topping best-seller charts and being snapped up by agents and editors like priceless jewels.  Urban fantasy authors are some of the most visible author presences on the net, as the link list lower in the post will display.  A great deal of UF comes in the form of series of inter-connected but standalone books, and then tend to run rather long.  The Dresden Files must be in the teens or twenties by now, and newer series are gaining ground fast.  Now, why don’t you have a gander at a few prime examples of what this genre has to offer?

1.  The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
2. The Weather Warden Series by Rachel Caine
3. Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding
4. The Demons Series by Stacia Kane
5. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
6. The Newford Series by Charles de Lint
7. The Marla Mason Series by Tim Pratt
8. The Kitty Norville Series by Carrie Vaughn
9. The Shifters Series by Rachel Vincent
10. The Walker Papers Series by C E Murphy
11. The Allie Beckstrom Series by Devon Monk
12. The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs

All of these books are good Urban Fantasy.  You may not see some names you expected to see, and I will explain that in a later post.  Suffice it to say that there are a few different directions UF is going in, and this list contains series and authors from the first and currently most popular direction.

Now, this list will direct you to some cool articles and blogs on the subject of UF.  These are all places I’ve been to and enjoyed.

1. The Magic District
2. Deadline Dames
3. Fangs, Fur, and Fey
4. The League of Reluctant Adults

Now, have fun and can’t wait ‘til the next post.

 

On Titles

Titles are one of my favorite parts of writing. Can’t get enough of them. I get ideas for titles all the time, and I often grab a book based on the title. Sure, I check the cover art, and read the blurb, maybe even scan the first few pages. But what gets my attention first is the title. I’ve developed a strong ability to pick books I will like based on title alone. Sometimes I fail, as it’s the writing and not the story that is the problem. But usually, I’m very successful.

First, here’s an open secret: As a lot of writers will tell you, we have a love/hate relationship with our own titles. I’m not talking about the final title of a given book, that’s a whole other discussion. I’m talking about the first title or the working title or the “I love this title so much and the damn editor* better not change it” title—published authors may chuckle at that last, and with good reason. But again, whole different discussion. “Titles” is an oft-occurring subject for blog posts and forum threads on the topic of writing. No matter how many threads there have been on a given writing forum, the subject of “titles” never dies. You could link the poster to a thousand other great discussions, and the new thread would still keep on running. I’m counting on this fact to keep my own little title post here afloat.

Now, I am not other writers, and they are not me. I can only speculate and infer how they deal with the title struggle. But what I can discuss with surety is my own experience with titles. Titles and I have more love than hate. This is because I belong to the first type of writer: the writer whose title usually comes first or very early on in the process. Other writers can go all the way to the end of the first draft and beyond before they even think about what to title their book. Many writers struggle with titles. I’ve been fortunate in that this only happens one out of ten. I’ve only had trouble once or twice. All writers fall somewhere on this continuum running from “before I even have a story” to “only after I finish the last draft”. The closer you are to the middle, the more writers you are likely find. And honestly, even individual titles vary.

Another way to analyze titles is by type. That is, what elements are used in the title, and how do they relate to the story. For me, titles come in several types:

1.  The “seed” title. That’s where I come up with a title, and build a story around it. Can’t really give an example here, as this title is of a different sort than the others. You’d probably never know whether this title or that fell into this category.

2.  The “plot” title. That’s where the title describes the basic plot of the story. Example: Return of the King  The story ends with the Steward of Gondor dead, and a new King on the throne.  Pretty self-explanatory. 

3.  The “device” title. It describes a story device, usually a macguffin, and is especially common in fantasy and sci-fi titles. Example: Forging the Darksword  The story is about the creation of a specific artifact, the “Darksword” of the title.

4. The “character” title. Basically, it includes the name of a character. Example: Lord Foul’s Bane  “Lord Foul” is the antagonist of the series.

5. The “heart” title.  Somehow, someway, it describes the heart of the story. These are often the hardest ones to figure out. Example: Nor Crystal Tears   I won’t spoil the story, but this is an ironic statement by a main character at the very end of the book.  It succintly packages the real heart of the story.  These titles tend to express emotion.

6.  The “character” title.  Self-explanatory.  example:  The Time Traveler’s Wife

7.  The “place” title.  Also self-explanatory.  Example to come.

There are many ways to create a title, and no one can teach you what will work best for you. Different people think and work differently. It’s really all up to the writer to experiment with each type and discover what works best for them.

*Editors are often wonderful people. Don’t hate.

Now, the above list is not exhaustive. Some books are named after central themes. Many titles include some snippet of dialogue. Some are ripped from poetry. Some involve locations, and event names, and so on. I have used all of these types of titles. And they can often be combined. But to describe and analyze every single type of title is beyond the scope of this post.  There may be a series in the future where I will pick a type of title and do a post on it.  Perhaps after the Subgenre of the Week Series runs its course.