Wrote the first 700 words of Gods' Seeds yesterday. I'm thinking of a new name for it, given that I'm cutting the plot line that necessitates that title.
Writing titles is my second least favorite thing about writing, with getting rejections in first place. Why? Because titles are challenging. You have to capture the essence of the novel in four words or fewer while capturing the reader's eye and imagination.
In addition, titles go through fashions and fads. An earlier convention in titling required a short comment to edify the reader on the contents concealed by the catchy title. The most familiar example of this is the 1851 classic Moby Dick or, The Whale. Did you know about the rest of this title before I mentioned it? Did you notice the oddly placed comma? Let me try this: Voyageurs or, The Time Traveling Assassin. No, sounds like Jules Verne. I rather like Jules Verne, and a comparison to him would be flattering, but...
Meanwhile, in the late Seventies/early Eighties, Marion Zimmer Bradley named two novels Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress! Yes, the exclamation points are part of the titles. It makes me wonder if I should have named that one novel Apocalypse! No, maybe not.
In the late Eighties, at least in academic circles, the joke was that one's article would be more likely to be published if it had a colon. Let me see: Reclaiming the Balance: A Study of Race Relations in a Pacifistic Ecocollective. Um, no.
So I'm left on my own when coming up with a title, unless a publisher looks at my writing seriously and asks, "Have you considered putting a colon in?" Then I'll have to give in.
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