How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Joanna Schaffhausen's website.
Thriller titles are often short and punchy, evoking a feeling or idea rather than a detailed description. Every Waking Hour implies there’s a clock on this story; the passing of time has particular significance. In this case, a twelve-year-old child is missing and someone devious may have abducted her. Every hour she’s gone is another hour lost. As an idiom, Every Waking Hour also suggests extreme effort or endurance, and indeed, the main characters, Ellery Hathaway and Reed Markham spend their hours in desperate search for the missing Chloe. Finally, the phrase evokes a sense that time itself is a pursuer, that the only way to escape is to sleep, which in literature is akin to death. Ellery Hathaway lives her every waking hour as the lone survivor of an infamous serial killer. The public hunger for his story dogs her, defines her, and tries to limit her. Each book in the series is as much about...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: All the Best Lies.
Writers Read: Joanna Schaffhausen (February 2020).
Q&A with Joanna Schaffhausen.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
