Name Your Baby, or pick a title
A working title.
You may already have one. Great. Why that name? Is it a recurring theme in the book? Is it a character’s name? Have you done an Internet search? Are there already books with this title?
Maybe you are just calling it “A Book.” As in, “I’m writing A Book.” Okay. That’s fine.
But think of it like you’re an expectant parent. Your baby is coming. It will need a name. You know what it’s going to be…romance, mystery…western or sci-fi.
Name it.
What’s in a title?
When you stop calling it “A Book” and start calling it by its title, you become more accountable. You could stop work on “a book,” and no one would care. But something with a title becomes more real. It’s an incentive to press on. And on.
Moving forward
Me? I used a play on words: Justice. (rightfulness or lawfulness & character’s name)
Choosing:
-Ike chooses Justice…finally
-we want society to choose Justice over a very unpleasant person when they vote
-Justice must choose justice (lower case j ) at one point, despite the benefits of lying
-we hope Justice’s wife chooses him
and so on.
I also liked the structure for titling series books: verb+”ing” noun
The sequel’s title is Ringing Bells – and it has several layers of meaning as well. And the final book of the trilogy is Taking Liberty with the same layers.
You? Your template today is simple. Michael Hyatt, in writing on developing titles for blog posts, challenges a blogger to write 35 titles for each post. Well, your novel will take significantly longer to write than a blog post. Let’s put in some time on that title, too.
Please share if you already have a title selected. I need to know what to look for at my favorite bookstore in a few months!
Remember:
My FREE novel planning templates are available beginning June 14, 2021 from my Novel Planning page here, along with links to the brief blog posts that explain them. You will also find links to posts describing my additional planning templates that are available here in my Shop.
In case you having figured this out, I’m a planner by nature. So this is one of my favorite Bible passages: Jeremiah 29:11-12.
It comforts me to know that God is a planner, too.
Well, yes, I still want a GPS or roadmap, but even then I’d be asking, “Are we there yet?”
“Am I there yet?” Am I where I need to be to be used by God?
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