Welcome Mat: Your Novel’s Title

When you are brainstorming titles, think of it as a welcome mat. A title’s job is to bring readers into your novel, story, or picture book. This is why the title is often changed by the marketing/publicity department: they have their fingers on the pulse of the audience and have a better idea of what will be appealing.

Improved Titles

Here are some titles, as originally proposed. Fortunately, these lame titles were changed! See if you can match them to the well-known title below. (See answers below.)

• 1. The Mute?
• 2. Private Fleming, his Various Battles
• 3. To Climb the Wall
• A. The Red Badge of Courage
• B. The Blackboard Jungle
• C. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Sol Stein, in his book, Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies, emphasizes that titles are sales tools, an invitation to the world to enter your story. He recommends finding an apt metaphor for the story, preferably one in iambic pentameter.

Titles look outward to the audience and tease. They lay a Welcome mat before the threshold of the story. Today, try writing 20 different titles for your story and then mix and match the words from the 20 until you have 20 new ones. Read them to friends and ask which title makes them want to read the book. Anytime you’re stuck on a revision, play with titles.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

My daughter suggested the title for my teacher resource book on prewriting activities for students. She was thinking about brainstorming and storms and writing with pen and paper and came up with this: Paper Lightning. The editor loved it and the title stuck.
Answers: 1C, 2A, 3B.

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Stiff Competition for These Picture Book Topics

Dial editor, Liz Waniewski (ONE–es-key) spoke at the Arkansas SCBWI 2007 conference. For a couple months before the conference, she kept track of her slush pile picture book submissions by category. This resulted in my 2007 posting 12 Picture Book Topics to Avoid, one of the more popular posting in the 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book series.

In December, 2008, I asked Liz if she might want to update the posting. She agreed and kept track of her submissions in January. The topics listed below are those which she sees over and over. She pointed out, “Just because I see these topics many times doesn’t mean you can’t write about it.” However, the competition is very stiff for picture books in these categories and your submission should really “stand out in today’s crowded marketplace.”

In comparing the 2007 and 2009 lists, you’ll see some overlap, such as . . .

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Within the picture book genre, there are certain sub-genres and I’ll cover some of these in the next few days. First, the ABC books.

How to Write a Good ABC Book

Story Oriented Alphabet Books.
If you want to write an ABC book, you should first read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, a rollicking story with the alphabet chasing around and having fun. It’s a great example of what you can do with those staid letters if you want.

TOPICAL ALPHABET PICTURE BOOKS

But usually, people think of an ABC book about a certain topic, like Dori Butler’s F is for Firefighting book. This type ABC book uses the alphabet as a way to discuss different aspects of a topic, almost as a way to organize a non-fiction topic. Remember that your audience is pre-school up to maybe second grade, or ages 3-7. Look for topics that will interest them, or can be used in classrooms to introduce a topic. To write a topical book like this, you should first apply the QXZ test. Usually, Q, X and Z are difficult letters to fill for your topic. No fair sticking X in the middle of a word: eXciting. No fair using Queen for every single topic. The words should be natural, not forced, and should be totally on-topic.

Actually, it’s not just the QXZ test. For any given topic, those may be the easy letters, but there will be some letter that is difficult to find an appropriate key word. Before you get into the exact wording too far, think of the key words for each letter. If you do find a topic and have great keywords for each letter, then it’s time to play around with the language. Again – look at Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for an example of just how far you can push it.

ALPHABET PICTURE BOOKS MARKET

ABC books are hard. The market is glutted with them and in order to stand out in “today’s crowded market” your manuscript must really shine. It’s a bit easier for illustrators, who use the ABCs as a vehicle for their artwork. But for everyone, the competition is stiff — but not impossible. Most publishers will have one or two ABC picture books a year; Sleeping Bear Press and Pelican Books both have series of ABC books that you could research and see if you can write something to fit. (Be sure to check current submission guidelines of a publisher before you write something targeted specifically for them. 2011 update: Sleeping Bear Press says they’ve done just about every topic, so they are acquiring very few ABC books now.)

ACTION POINTS

Read a selection of ABC picture books, both topical and story kinds.
Locate information on several publisher who might publish an ABC picture book.

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Scene Cuts Help Quicken Your Novel’s Pace

Readers today like fast-paced novels. Yet, too fast a pace confuses the reader. When you revise your novel, you can solve this by paying attention to transitions.

• Where are we? The most important thing to do in a transition from one scene to the next is to re-orient the reader. Where are we? TV and movies do this easily with the visual details. In writing, we often need to put in indications of time (three hours later), setting (Later, in the living room), relationship to plot elements (after the argument), and emotion (Weeping at the loss of her dog).

  I especially find that chapter beginnings need better orientation. For the writer, the scene follows logically from the previous. But the reader may have put the book down, gone to school, studied for a test, attended a football game and finally gets back to your story. Make sure they are oriented at each chapter opening.

• Rapid Scene Cuts. TV and movies practice rapid scene cuts. For example, watch the TV drama “CSI” for great scene cuts. Often, a detective will find a clue that could have important ramifications, depending how the lab results turn out. Instead of tediously showing the lab work taking place each time, the writers make the assumption that the reader will understand that the lab work did indeed occur. So, the next scene shows the detective questioning the suspect.

  In your story look for places where you can leave out tedious details and safely assume the audience will understand what happened between scenes.

• Time for Reflection. Sometimes the transition between scenes is a perfect place for the character to take time and give their emotional reaction to the story events. The emotional reaction can be while they are alone, or it can include dialogue with someone else. The emotional section can be short: Angrily, he left the room and. . . (next scene). Or, it can take several pages in which the character considers many options for action. Keep the tension as high as possible and if the reflection is long, follow with an action-packed scene. Either way, the reflection should lead to a new decision about what to do next, which leads into a new scene and new action.

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Match Emotional Structure to the Novel’s Settings

Always try to matching the setting to the emotional layers of your story.

For example, the setting of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a New England coastal village, appropriate for several reasons. It’s built on a solid cliff, like Turner’s life is built on the solid foundation of family and church. Lizzie is physically separated from Turner’s life because she lives on an island. And the coast is a place where a boy might row out far enough to come face to face with a whale, a place where a boy might look into the eye of a whale. It speaks of foundations and separations and inspiration and growth.

Generic School Settings. My particular pet peeve is school settings while are all generic. Yes, to an extent, if you’ve been in one school, you’ve been in them all. But teachers–and characterization of teachers is important–can create a micro-environment within a school. Do they have family pictures on their desk, or awards, or vacation pictures, or just generic posters?

What is the emotional environment of your story? When you choose a setting, make it echo that emotional environment! This could include the time period, the geographic location, the buildings, the clothing, the time of year, the weather, and the bit characters who populate this setting. Evaluate all these in light of the emotional journey your character is taking

Does this sound too much like your English class trying to analyze a story? Well, it is. Another book I like that provokes me to think about this is How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster.   When is the weather not just the weather?  When is a meal not just a meal?

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Character Names Help Characterize

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but do you really WANT to smell a swamp lily? Doesn’t the name itself just put you off? Or consider that in early drafts Margaret Mitchell is supposed to have named her famous heroine Pansy, instead of Scarlett O’Hara. Do you believe that Pansy would have done the things that Scarlett did? Never!

Naming characters is important! Here are some things to consider:

1. Can you pronounce the name? Especially for fantasies, beware of invented names which no one can pronounce. Remember how hard–and frustrating–it is to read all the begats of the Bible–and don’t do that to your reader.
2. Appropriate for the story? If you’re writing a contemporary or a modern history story, use appropriate names for that time period. Try looking at the Social Security Administration’s list of popular baby names by year.
3. What does it mean? Think about the meaning of the names. Look for baby name books that explain the meaning behind a name. Often when I’m in the early stages of writing a story, I am more worried about the meanings, because I want it to represent something about the character. By the time the final draft is done, I’m often forgotten what the name means, but the extra layer of meaning is still there.

My Name

My mother tells me, by the way, that the year I was born, Pet Evaporated Milk put out a book of baby names. That’s where she found the name, Darcy. (It was years before I ever heard of Mr. Darcy.) Together with my maiden name, my name means Dark Fortress. My husband’s name means Blond Warrior. Dark Fortress meets Blond Warrior. Sounds like a marriage made in heaven!

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Voice Friday: Word Choices
Voice Friday: Word Connotations
Voice Friday: Word Sounds

A professional writer must be a lover of words. It is the basis of their craft. We know about the definition of words, what words mean. Today, I want to talk about connotations of words.

Connotations Speaking to Connotations

John Ciardi and Miller Williams in How Does a Poem Mean? (Out of print; look for it at places like abebooks.com), talk about connotations speaking to connotations. If a story is a context for making choices, then part of the word choices is connotations. Example: fire, inferno, blaze?these all mean roughly the same thing, but within the context of a story, one may make more sense than another. What are some of the factors that determine which is best?

• Word Derivations. Fire comes from the Old English (before 900), fyr. Inferno comes Italian/Latin (1825-35) meaning hell and implies a furnace or oven. Blaze comes from Old English (before 1000) meaning a torch or flame. Do you want a Latin based word or the Anglo-saxon based words? Which derivation comes closer to what you want?
• Syllables. Fire and blaze only have one syllable. Inferno has three. Which better fits the rhythm of the voice you?ve set up?
• Sound. Fire begins with a harsh sound, but tapers off with the r sound. Blaze has strong sounds at the beginning (bl) and ending (z). Inferno is smoother at the beginning and end, but has the harsher f sound in the middle. What are the connotations of each of these? For example, depending on the needs of your story?inferno seems to go on and on, while fire seems more finite.

The Wonderful World of Words

Marsteller, Inc. an advertising company, wrote the following fascinating piece on connotations. Because it’s copyrighted, I’m only posting an excerpt. This should make you think about the use of words in different ways.

“There are tall, skinny words, and short, fat ones, and strong ones and weak ones, and boy words and girl words. For instance, title, lattice, latitude, lily, tattle, Illinois, and intellect are all lean and lanky. While these words get their height partly out of t’s, and l’s and I’s, other words are tall and skinny without a lot of ascenders and descenders. Take, for example, Abraham, peninsula and ellipsis, all tall. Here are some nice short-fat words: hog, yogurt, bomb, pot, bon-bon, acne, plump, sop and slobber.”

The advertising company is talking about connotations of words.

Abraham, because of Abraham Lincoln, has the connotation of tall. Words pick up connotations from the way it looks, sounds, derivations, culture, experiences, and more. “The Wonderful World of Words” talks about words in terms of gender, age, strength, color (San Francisco is a red city; Cleveland is beige, Asheville is green and Buffalo is black.), shape, speed (Raid, rocket, piccolo, hound, bee and rob are fast words. Guard, drizzle, lard, cow, sloth, much and damp are slow words.) and more.

It can be confusing to think about words in terms of height and speed, for example. But this is connotation at work within a story.

Connotations Exercise

As an exercise, I have groups of writers choose a topic, for example, famous actresses. Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, Dame Judy Dench Then, choose several categories of things that they’ll use to describe the women, thinking about the connotations of the descriptive words.

For example, the categories might be cookies, trees and cars. If you think about the connotations–what kind of cookie describes each actress? Remember that you are thinking about connotations (gender, age, strength, color, shape, speed, how the words sound, how the words look, how many syllables are in each word, etc.) Depending on your experience, this might seem a profound or a silly exercise. But it’s one that points the direction toward thinking about words more carefully, based on their connotations. Voice comes when you use the right choice of words within the context of a story. How would you fill in the table to describe each actress? Share your answers to the comments below, so we can see what others think!

 		cookie 		tree 		car

Halle Berry

Julia Roberts

Judi Dench

Voice Friday: How Words affect Voice?3 days Word Choices Word Connotations Word Sounds

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

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