The title, the hook

 This week, having finished rewriting my second riddle quest novel, I’m putting it aside for a while.  I plan on starting the edits in January, when I’ve got all the things I know about the story out of my head.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to go through my entire catalogue of short stories and do an honest assessment of them.  And I’m finding that the stories which I thought were damned good when I wrote them are every bit as good as I remembered them being.  In one case I read a story and asked myself if I really did write it.  It seemed so complex, and packed such a hard a gut punch, that I couldn’t imagine me writing it.

It was a stupid thought.  Of course I wrote it, but several years ago.  But a thing which has come to light during my re-read is how bad I was at titles back then.  Many of these stories are between five and ten years old, and a lot of them had utilitarian titles when I wrote them.  There were some stories which I knew had weak titles at the time, but I just couldn’t discover the right title for them.

A case in point is a longish story about a physically disabled admiral who uses the SF equivalent of a wheelchair to get about, an antigrav platform.  So guess what I called the story?  Platform User.  That was one of the titles I knew was wrong, but which I got completely stalled on.

While I was rewriting it I came across some dialogue between another character and the admiral.  The young man was telling her that she made him furious because she was always powerful, efficient and effective.  And that chunk of dialogue was the key which unlocked the title for me.  The story is now called When the Flesh Weakens, the Spirit Strengthens.  And it perfectly sums up the character of the admiral.

Another story was about an AI designed to care for terminally ill people.  It’s original title was Terminal Decision, which again I hated.  Now it’s called Empathy and the Kill Switch, which again perfectly sums up the themes of the story.

I also had a lame title for a story about removing implants.  Surgical Removal, I called it.  Now it’s titled After the Fall, the Death, which again perfectly sums up the themes of the story.  

Another of my stories had the bland title of Reader.  It’s about a woman who can read memories from clothes.  Now that story is titled The Peacock Eyes of the Founder, which refers to the favourite meditation gown of the man whose memories my character is trying to read.

My new titles have become longer, and also somewhat more lyrical.  But some of them also act as story hooks.  What does empathy and the kill switch refer to?  What are the peacock eyes of the founder?  You have to read on to find out,

I’m pleased with the changes I’ve made to my stories and to their titles, and I’ll shortly see whether any of them catch a editor’s eye when they go out on submission.



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