How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Ellen Byron's website.
The titles for my Cajun Country Mysteries have to accomplish three tasks: clue the reader in on the plot theme, have an element of suspense, and a hint of the Cajun Country location. Pulling off this hat trick isn’t easy and coming up with a title for this particular book was a struggle. The working drafts were titled Halloween Horreur, but I knew that would never fly because you can’t have a foreign word in a title, and “Horreur” is so close to “Horror” that people would assume it was a typo. I batted around title ideas with everyone. I have a list of at least thirty. My publisher finally stuck the landing with Murder in the Bayou Boneyard. The title is great because it relays to readers the book is a mystery set in Louisiana that somehow involves a cemetery. It also inspired a wonderful cover that brings home the storyline and amps up the atmosphere by adding the plot’s semi-abandoned mansion and the red eyes of a mythical creature called a rougarou, plus pumpkins and a dog in...[read on]
Coffee with a Canine: Ellen Byron & Wiley and Pogo.
Q&A with Ellen Byron.
--Marshal Zeringue
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