Way Back Wednesday: My Kingdom for a Title

Yesterday, a project I'd put a lot of time and heart into got rejected. While rejection is always disappointing, it's a part of the writing life. Like most writers, I have other projects in the works, so I'm choosing to look at this as found time that I can spend on those other books....

Like the ones about Marita, Angel, and Charli. 

I wrote the original version of the post below just shy of three years ago, which means that's how long I've been working on the final book. In the meantime, I think I've ironed out the tech issues I was having with the re-release of Casting the First Stone, which means it should be out soon (for real!), making the final book -- the one that inspired this post -- next in line and it, too, is close. 

This is MAC year -- time for Marita, Angel and Charli to come out and play again. There's only one problem....

Photo: Prawny via Pixabay

If creating a character is my favorite part of a writing project, coming up with a title is my least favorite.

Creating a character is a process that's expansive and full of promise. People on the page can be anyone I want them to be: someone just like me or my polar opposite. Young, old, short, tall, professional, down-to-earth, obnoxious, kind, male female.

Or all of the above, because few stories contain just one character.

A good title is just the opposite. In just a few words, it encapsulates everything the work -- whether blog post, article, novel or something altogether different -- has to offer. It's a teaser, a grabber, or, dare I say, "click bait," designed to bring the reader into the piece.

No pressure there.

I don't spend a lot of time on blog post titles. In fact, when I first started blogging, I didn't title my posts at all. Then I read about the importance of the title, so I grudgingly succumbed. In that same spirit, I should work a little harder at finding the "just right" title for each of my posts, but this is one place where I abandon perfectionism and settle for "good enough," hoping that the law of averages is in my favor, since I write four or more posts each week.

I'm a little pickier about creating titles for my magazine pieces, but here I'm content with "good enough" because I know an editor has the right to change anything I come up with. When I'm getting paid for a piece, I give the title my best shot, but I also don't obsess over it because creating a title I love makes it that much harder to accept a change if the editor has something else in mind.

Tumisu via Pixabay

And then there are books. Currently, I'm contemplating the title of my next Marita/Angel/Charli novel and that is much, much harder. Casting the First Stone came to me immediately, but coming up with Chasing a Second Chance was a much more laborious process, consisting of multiple lists and also-rans, with numerous contenders rejected along the way.

For this third (and last) one, I came up with a title I loved -- two, in fact -- but one didn't fit the pattern, and I was told that's a bad idea. The other was fun, but didn't meet my goal of encapsulating the themes and journeys of the characters in the book.

So, I kept writing, figuring I'd come up with something. Perhaps my characters would help me out.

But then the book was finished. The revisions were nearly finished.

Still no title. Until...

I found my mystery c-word -- the one to go with "casting" and "chasing" -- and then the rest was obvious.

So, I give you the title for the final book: Courting the Final Verdict.

Unless I change my mind again. You know how authors are.