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How to Pick a Title for Your Novel

March 4, 2018

As a fiction author, perhaps finding a title for your novel isn’t very difficult. After all, quite often writers begin with the title as a first thing. Of course it might later change, but rarely does a writer work for long on something called “untitled”. However, picking just any title and picking the right title can be two crucially different things. There are several aspects that affect your choice of a book title, and today we’ll talk precisely about that. In this article, I’ll show you how to pick a title for your novel.

First we’ll see what makes a title good or bad, and what “good” means in this context. Then I’ll give you some concrete tips on finding the perfect title for your book. There are basically good news and bad news: The good news is that only you can know whether a title for your book is the right one. You will just know it, once you think of it. The bad news, maddeningly enough, is that… only you can know whether a title for your book is the right one. I will show you the how’s and why’s on how to pick a title for your novel, but the choice can only be yours.

How to Pick a Title for Your Novel — Finding a title for your book can be difficult. Recommendations can assist, but nobody but you knows when the right title quasi-magically has arrived

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Narrative Endings: How to Pick the Right One

February 3, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

creativity, ending, fiction, writing

They say that all good things must come to an end. I don’t believe in endings, as I don’t believe in beginnings. Blame my academic background, but I prefer to focus on duration and temporal chunks. Having said that, a novel has to end in some way, because there is a physical limit to how many pages you can put out there. But are narrative endings and physical endings one and the same? (Sneak preview: no)

In today’s post I’ll share with you an important secret about narrative endings: if you do things right, there’s one and only one ending that suits your book of fiction. I’ll give you the details below, but basically it goes like this: if you can’t pick that one ending, whether because it feels wrong or because you can’t find it, it means your structure is wrong. This might sound awful, but see the flip side of it: if your ending feels right, it usually means the entire narrative preceding it is also right.

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Linear Narrative Progression? No, Thanks

January 23, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

art, creativity, fiction, literature, time, writing

Narrative Progression: From Point A to Point B

One of the biggest markers of inexperienced genre fiction writers is the way their narratives progress. In genre fiction such as romance fiction, detective fiction, etc. events often occur in a very linear way. A leads to B which leads to C; one second, then one second, then one second. A narrative progression where events are described in the order they have occurred is called a linear narrative progression and, as you realize, it is the simplest way to narrate an event. Let’s see a quick example, which we can later adapt and reuse.

Last weekend I went to New York and met a guy named John. Today I saw John walking down the street here, in Boston. We agreed to go fishing next Sunday

It’s a clear, natural-looking example. You wouldn’t think that there’s anything wrong with producing an entire narrative like that, right? Only, there is, which is the motivation behind today’s article. I will first show you why it’s a bad idea to structure your book following a linear narrative progression, then I will show you how to restructure it in a nonlinear narrative progression.

linear narrative progression — In a narrative, unlike reality, time doesn’t have to progress in a linear fashion

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