What’s in a title?
A title can make or break a book.
Imagine if The Great Gatsby was actually published under it’s original title Trimalchio in West Egg! Or William Faulkner’s the Sound and the Fury was launched as The Sentimental Education of Frederick Henry???
Well, that novel I’ve been working on and off on for 15 years is finally with the editor and it’s time to worry about the title. Can you help please?
If you didn’t know anything about the story, which title would tempt you to pick the book up?
Heart Bones Where the Heart Bones Lie Beneath a Bone White Moon A Circlet of Bone?
Now, skim the synopsis below. After knowing what the book is about, would you pick a different title?
Somewhere on the Mekong Delta, sometime after World War II, a woman is raped under the autumn moon. The rapist takes away her bone bracelet to remember her by. Eight years later a man returns to the same house to visit a boy who is asked to address the stranger as blood-father… The blood-father is a Viet Minh guerrilla fighting for Vietnam’s independence against the French. The boy is torn. He already has a father, the Chief Clerk at the French provincial offices. Which of these fathers should he give his heart to?
Many years later in California, an aerospace engineer contemplates a different autumn moon and celebrates who he has become. He has settled his allegiances, those he publicly espouses and those he continues to hide. There is nothing to regret about his choices and his life with his American-Vietnamese trophy wife, not even his socially awkward genius of a son. He has outrun the wars in his life, laid to rest his guilt over what happened one April night. He is at peace. Or so he imagines….
Do send in your votes. I would really really appreciate them. Thank you.
And if you want updates on how the book’s going, just CLICK HERE
Comments