When It Is Right

In my journey of self-discovery as a writer (that’s a nicer way of saying “my feeble attempts to write”), I am amazed at the emotional roller coaster ride. I am discovering an entire plethora of emotions while performing the simple act of “writing”.

Fear – every writer feels this. I found this the easiest to overcome with one simple statement: what is the worse I can do, write a crappy story? Surprisingly, fear is the simplest emotion for a writer to conquer once you realize a simple fact about humanity: haters are gonna hate. There will be more people displeased with your writing than those who like it. Accept that and your fear will vanish. You aren’t writing for those people. You are writing for yourself and for those who enjoy the way you write.

Confusion – yes, writing can be confusing. Grammar and spelling confuse the hell out of me. The English language is the least logical concept ever developed by mankind.

Anxiety – wait, what? Yes, anxiety. The feeling that is born of fear, but I am not referring to the fear of writing. Anxiety sets in when you don’t know what words to put down next. Planning and outlining resolve this emotion.

Obsessiveness – OCD waiting in the corners of your brain. All it takes is one small, seemingly insignificant, unresolved detail that will turn the sanest person into a completely neurotic obsessive compulsive freak. In my case it was the title for my first book. Every time I sat down to write the fact that the title I had chosen was wrong would cloud my thoughts.

Exhilaration – complete and utter bliss. This normally occurs after you conquered one of emotions above or achieved one of your goals.

The original title for my book, Duality, was born from a scene I envisioned between the protagonist and one of the antagonists.  After completing the outline, the antagonist in the envisioned scene wound up being a minor character and the scene that occurs actually is a minor event.

For three weeks I agonized about the title. I needed something dark as that is the theme of the entire series. Book two is titled The Dark Legions and book three is The War for False Hope. Those titles are set in stone. Both of those titles describe a character or an event. The title for book one needed to describe a concept.

I believe that there should only be three types of titles: an event, a person or group of people (or even an organization), or a concept that the story conveys, such as a motivation. It’s the third type that is tricky. If the concept is described too thoroughly by the title, then the reader will not experience the ride associated with learning of the concept through the story. If the concept is not thoroughly described through the title then the reader will not understand why the title is what it is.

The concept title should be completely revealed near the end of the book and articulated fully for the reader. It could be a phrase used in one of the final conversations, preferably right before the final climax of the novel.

This is what makes the concept title so difficult. Easy to do for the names of individual chapters, but for the whole novel it is difficult.

But when it hits, you will know it. You will know it because it is right. Then you will experience exhilaration.

The title for my first book is The Gods That Punish. The full title is The Arkkaim Prophecies Book 1: The Gods That Punish.

It is right because, in retrospect, that is the only title it could be.