by Frank Zafiro
For
all you readers out there....how important is a book's title to you? Do
you grab it off the [virtual] shelf because of a cool title? Or are you
more interested in the author, and if you like him/her, then the title
really doesn't matter? See, I'm thinking that a title is hugely
important, if you're dealing with an author you've never heard of, or
never read before. A title is like the hook in a pop song -- it gets ya
listening. Am I right? But if you already like a writer, my guess is the
title could be Next Book, and you'd read it because you dig that author. Also right?
I think so, but hell, I've been wrong about other things.
For you writers out there...how important is the book's title to you?
Can you work on a project for a long time with it being called NEXT
BOOK or some other generic title, or does having a title make it more
real, and does it set the tone, and spark the creative juices? I think
it does, at least for me. I love having a title as early as possible in a
book idea. Hell, I have titles for books that I don't even have a
plot outline for yet. For one, titles are fun. But having a title in
place for a book I probably won't write until next year makes that title
seem more...I don't know...inevitable, I guess. It's not whether I'm
going to write another Sandy Banks novel to follow up The Last Horseman or not. It's that I am going to write Some Kind of Hell in 2013, and A Hard Favored Death in 2014. It's happening. It's on the schedule. Do I know the plots yet, though?
Kinda.
But I know they're going to be written. And that's a nice bit of knowledge.
Maybe
it's a little bit like telling everyone in your family you're on a diet
or a workout regime. Could be that, I suppose. Or maybe it is me
telling myself "Hey, man, you're for real. You've got books in the
hopper." I dunno. But I like doing it.
For
you writers out there, when does your title make its appearance? Is it
like what I just said -- way in advance, you know the title? Or during
the first or second draft? Or are you scrambling sometimes with a
finished work called Next Book?
Jim Wilsky and I had a pretty easy time coming up with the title for Blood on Blood.
It's about two half-brothers going after some stolen loot left behind
by their convict father. Think Hardy Boys meets Cain and Abel in
Chicago, and you're close. So since it's about brothers and family, I
got to thinking about a Springsteen song (of course, I can do this about
just about any topic, since the Boss is so prolific and I'm such a deep
rooted, long time fan). I told Jim about the song "Highway Patrolman,"
which is a brothers song, and how the chorus has a line about how
"nothin' feels better than blood on blood." Jim replied that Springsteen
was a liberal twit whom he despised. I asked him for something better,
and so we had our title. Score one for the Italian.
The sequel to Blood on Blood takes place in Vegas, and prominently features
a siren of a woman, so Jim took about seven seconds to come up with a
poker reference that fit perfectly. Who was I to argue with that, so
score one for the Texan.
The
third and final in the series, which is in first draft stage right now,
is currently called "#3". Nope, no title, and no clue from either of us
yet. So a swing and miss for both. A far cry from the Sandy Banks
trilogy, named two years out, huh?
But
I'm not worried. As much as I like titles, as much as I jot them down
when they occur to me, as much as I love to pick a title in advance of
even writing page one, as much as all that...sometimes, titles come when
they come. Just like every work seems to have its correct, natural
length -- short story, novella, novel, or opus -- I think titles make
themselves known when the time is right. If that's up front, great. If
not, oh well. It'll come.
It better, right? Because you are for real, man. You've got books in the hopper.
3 comments:
A good title is the first line of the story.
A bad title feels like some crap an ad man came up with to sell bumwad.
I love titles. Tom Wolfe had some of the best way back when. I don't think I ever got over "The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test."
Well, it appears my writing partner has had his bit of fun here. I have no idea how a simple comment of me not being a big fan of Springsteen's music somehow turned into me calling him a 'liberal twit'. The political arena is not my bag - I could give a rats ass anymore about politics. Frank is just mad because I don't happen to care for the boss's music.
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