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What's in a name?

8/27/2021

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Why can I write an 80-110,000 word book with (relatively) little pain, but when I have to come up with a title?? I think I'd rather have to edit by candlelight. I like some of my book names. Lord Worthing's Wallflower is a good one because it tells the reader that it's a historical and that the heroine is that ever-popular trope of the overlooked woman. My most recent book, The Daring Mrs. Kent is another favorite title, but not as effective at conveying exactly what the book is. But then there is The Dishonorable Knight. <sigh> I actually love this story and don't know what I was thinking with this title.  I mean, our knight hero does defect from Richard III's service and goes and helps the future Henry VII, so technically he "dishonored" his vow to his king. But ... yeah. I wouldn't have made that choice again.

I also have a lot of difficulty coming up with blurbs and hooks (those paragraph and one-line descriptors to tell people what the books is about). HOW can you convey an entire book's meaning in one sentence?? Well, there are professional copywriters who can do just that, but I am certainly not one of them!

Well, wait...I just looked up The Scarlet Letter on Amazon and here's the hook:
"An 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and thought to be his best work." Ok, clearly I'm not the only one who has difficulty writing a gripping hook!

And oooh, there are lists and lists of the worst book titles ever!  Like
  • Truth, Dare, or Handcuffs, or Threeway
  • Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What To Do With My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab
  • I Heart you, You Haunt Me
  • How to Poo at Work
  • Managing a Dental Practice: The Ghengis Kahn Way
Hey, I'm not feeling so bad about the Dishonorable Knight!

Essentially, writing "short" is a completely different skill set than writing a novel and one I need to work on!
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