It's the first Wednesday of November so it's time for the Insecure Writers' Support Group.
Thanks to the awesome co-hosts this month, Kim Lajevardi, Victoria Marie Lees, Joylene Nowell Butler, Erika Beebe, and Lee Lowery.
This moth's question is an interesting one:
What's harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?Titles are the bane of my life, so I definitely find coming up with a title harder than writing a blurb. I don't outline much, so I usually write the blurb for the book I think I'm going to write pretty early on. Not usually before I start writing, but once I have a feel for my characters and the journey I think they might be taking. Of course that often changes as I write which means the blurb also gets changed a few times along the way.
Titles are a whole other thing. My books usually spend most of their genesis being called either by the MC's name (my hard drive is littered with files called "Chris" or "Liz and Vic") or some kind of loose description like "juvvielesbian" or "junkieballerina". I usually find something better before I start sending out queries, but it's not always the title the book ends up with.
The one time I came up with a title early on was a book called "The Boyfriend Plague". It's the only time I ever wrote a book to fit the title. And by the time the book was finished and accepted by a publisher, the title no longer fit and ended up becoming An Unstill Life.
My newest WIP has spent its whole genesis being called Juliet and Juliet because it started off being a lesbian re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, but kind of moved into something else as I wrote and revised. And the two girls aren't both called Juliet... One of them is Iris. But since I haven't come up with a better title yet (I'm thinking something along the lines of Guide Us, but there's still so much revising that needs to be done, it might change again before I finish) it's just going to stay Juliet x 2 until I come up with something better.
What do you find harder? Blurbs or titles?
I'm going with blurbs. They're the worst. At least titles can be just one word.
ReplyDeleteI have to go with blurbs, too. Most of my WIPs go through a few different titles until I find one that fits/sticks, but the blurb...that's a whole other set of challenges for me.
ReplyDeleteI do like my working titles. They're usually the most accurate description of what I'm writing.
Your process for writing blurbs is interesting. And I can certainly see where it works. I'm adopting your advice, Kate. Unless you would like to write my blurb on me? Just kiddin. LOL
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