And The Title Is…

I’m happy to report that my editors and I have decided on a title for my current work-in-progress!

If you positively cannot wait, then just scroll down a little and you’ll see the final decision. I’ve even put it in bold for you to easily find. But as I write this, I’m going to draw the news out as I do with scenes, chapters, and books. It’s just the way I think when I write, following my old adage to make ‘em wait.

Titles are so important, and for that reason alone they’re often difficult to finalize. They must be appealing, of course, with either a catchy rhythm or good use of a memorable word. A title should in some way capture the tone of the book, almost instantly tag it as romantic, comedic, suspenseful, mysterious, or whatever it is. A fitting title might even inspire some sort of cover theme, or at least not counter anything on that end of things. I’m sure there are a number of other points marketing people consider when they vote thumbs up or down on titles authors come up with. All I know is they’re often hard to create. It’s the first thing (and potentially also the last) that a reader sees—the name of the book on the spine, either in the bookstore or on the library shelves.

I’ve always considered myself title-challenged. I just don’t think in short sound bytes. I can’t even play Scrabble well, much as I love words. Titles I’ve chosen in the past have often come out of books I’ve used in my research, or a quote I found that somehow matches the theme that revealed itself during the course of creating the characters and their stories. Pieces of Silver was my first Inspirational, which went well with the feeling of betrayal the heroine experienced—on both sides of the coin, so to speak. 🙂 It wasn’t especially clever, though, since it’s such a well known phrase and used in the traditional sense, so I can’t say I’m especially proud to have come up with that one.

Remember Me was its sequel, a title my publisher actually chose because it fit closely with the aspect of the hero’s memory loss. My original title for that one was Wings of the Dawn, based on a Psalm where we cannot be hidden from God, as the hero from that book tried to do at one time in his life.

For The Oak Leaves I had help from a friend in a local writer’s group. She told me about a Spanish custom regarding images of family trees where male names are placed on the trunk and branches, female names on the leaves. Since my story was so closely tied with one family’s genetics, and was about only the women in that family, the name The Oak Leaves seemed especially fitting. (Thank you again, Sherri!) My original title for that book was Dragons Live Forever based on the line from Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff The Magic Dragon” in which he alludes to the sad fact that little boys grow up but dragons live forever and are left behind in childhood. But while the little boy in my story might grow physically he would never grow up cognitively, because of his disability, and so it was a play on that idea. Almost from the beginning, though, experts in the publishing world told me anything with a dragon in the title would automatically be assumed a fantasy—a far different genre than what I’d written. So of course the title had to be changed. I did what I often do with titles, being as I said, title-challenged. I asked my peers for input.

On Sparrow Hill was my editor’s idea, and I loved it from the beginning. One of the characters draws a picture of a sparrow that inspires the name of a Victorian school for the “gentle feebleminded,” around which so much of the story revolves.

I’m glad to say My Sister Dilly was mine, which seemed an easy fit because of the character’s catchy name and that the story needed to be told in first person.

And now…imagine a drum roll, please. Look To The East will be the title of this book that we’ve been calling Brother’s All. It’s actually from an anonymous quote I found a while back in a book of Inspirational quotes:

“…Look to the east, where up the lucid sky
The morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair.” — Anonymous

The message is a definite contrast to what happens in the story, since of course the Germans come from the east and wreak havoc on the land and the people. No fair days ahead for my characters, at least not for a while.

My editor and I both thought it a fitting title for the start of the series, which begins only days before the Germans arrive. It also has a romantic ring and a nice rhythm, which make it appealing. A friend of mine also pointed out that an underlying advantage is that we look to the east for Jesus’ return—something anyone in an occupied territory might do.

So, what do you think?