How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Christopher Swann's website.
I tend to like titles that create an image in a reader’s mind and have something to do thematically with the story. But my Faulkner family thriller series is different. Never Turn Back is the first in that series, and my editor suggested the title. I didn’t know if I was going to turn it into a series, but when I did, I decided the subsequent books all have to be “never” titles—“never” plus a verb plus a third word. I’ll see how many books I write in that series and how many “never’ phrases I can come up with!
What's in a name?
Everything. Even the minor characters’ names matter. In Never Go Home, the first chapter has Susannah Faulkner interacting with a real slimeball, and I wanted to give that guy a slightly unserious name. I settled on...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Never Go Home.
My Book, The Movie: Never Go Home.
Q&A with Christopher Swann.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
