{ of cats & celestial bodies }

Yeah, yeah, so the poem-a-day thing's going slow. But I do have something super-cool whipped up for break, I promise. In the meantime, enjoy my ramblings on book titles.

And yeah, to be fair, things that have nice looking covers aren't going to be totally left in the dust, but if someone was asking you if you'd rather read a book called The Mothball-Lover and the Harpoon-Goddess or My Life, well, I know which one I'd go for.

A part of it is just because I'm attracted to oddity. Yeah, I know it's not the best reason to read something, which would probably be the reviews if we're thinking about things fairly. But really and truly, I guess that just liking the title is a good enough cause to read a book. It's probably a good thing that I haven't published all the much because I'm liable to come up with some crazy titles when left alone for too long.

I like that, though. Which is a little weird for me, because today I want to talk about the impact titles make for books and both the objects of my compare and contrast are going to be fairly generic-sounding titles.

But I promise you, I haven't lost my touch. You'll no doubt see much pulling something outrageous out of nowhere, so don't worry about my sense of flamboyance, if I may flatter myself so much.

A title can make or break a book for a potential reader. I might have said, "for me", but being that I read a lot, and if you write, I'm assuming that you'd want some random person to read what you've wrote, I'll divulge my opinion. It's important. I'm saddened when I hear how agents and publishing companies get to choose titles more than authors do; like when I hear about an author getting a publishing deal and ask what the title's going to be, I usually hear "it's up to *insert not-me here*." Which, in my mind, really isn't how it should be. An author has worked on a piece for so long that the title, the crowning glory of it in a way, really should be theirs.

But I digress.

I'm going to do a compare and contrast for you right out of those old elementary school texts with two books from the young adult fiction aisle, Alyson Noel's Night Star and Holly Black's White Cat. Two words per title, fair playing ground.

Right. I'm a fan of Noel's characters in her Immortals series, but I'll try not to let it prejudice my vote on title versus title. Roman's my favorite, but is that just because villains are so cool to write and like, or some other reason? I sense a tangent here, so we'll leave it for later.

There are a lot of ways that you can bring the title into your text. In some cases, it's the key to the entire story, the pivotal idea you're trying to convey, but not a line that you ever say. Think The Importance of Being Earnest. It's always present but never explicitly stated. This is probably my favorite kind of title because I hate repetition with a passion.

Which might seem weird because both books use a lot of repetition with their titles. But this is where my tastes diverge-- it boils down to needing to be done well.

Noel's character Ever tends to state things a lot. It's not a bad thing entirely because Ever's personality is pretty convoluted since she tends to trick herself into believing things that aren't all that true or real and it's the break-through points for her character when she does manage to get over her delusions. On the other hand, Black uses the phrase "white cat" a whole lot more than Noel does "night star." The white cat is one of the most important things in Black's book and gets mentioned, if not every two pages, then at least once per chapter as main character Cassel tries to figure out its meaning and what it really is.

The idea is in the type of repetition. The phrase "white cat" crops up so often that it's more than just a cat that a mob kid finds in a barn; it's its own character and adds a significance to it by its being the title. In contrast, Noel throws the words "night star" around so often when Ever's lost hope that it's like being hit with a blunt object. I know it's difficult to get things through to an audience sometimes, but I really think that it could have been handled more smoothly.

So, the winner of this title vs. title? Holly Black and her White Cat. Both authors had really good books, and I highly recommend both, but as far as introducing and bringing the audience into knowledge of what the title really means and what it does for the story, Holly Black has got this one hands down.

{ of detectives & deities }

It's the syndrome where you read something, realize that you could do it so much better, and then have to try it out for yourself. I'm sure that imitation is some form of flattery, but this is the feeling of being so enamored of an idea that you have to make it your own and play around in it.

That's more or less what's going on with this next piece. My plan is for the Ministry of Lost Things to be a detective-type story or series of tales with a light tone, with themes of friendship, what is materially and immaterial important, what is means to be alive, and dreams.

Yeah, I'm working on Callahan (how can I not be?) and I'll also be trying to get some revisions done on Argent and Crane when I feel like it. I'd also like to try and get more into the short story scene, which I feel I haven't been as into as I might have liked to be. Anyway, news and results posted here. Currently, I just have a lot of stamps ready for submissions.

I'm also going back to my poem-a-day exercises as well to see what I can whip up.

In other news, playing a cleric on a D&D game to great effect.