How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Constantine J. Singer's website.
Titles are the most difficult part of a manuscript for me -- they’re the reader’s introduction to the work and they direct the cover design which becomes the primary enticement tool on the shelf.
Strange Days got its final title less than a day before it was sent for cover design. It had previously held at least a dozen different titles, none of which were effective. Putnam had finally settled on Patched! Which they thought was a “tech-forward” title but nobody, including them, loved it.
My agent earned every penny of his cut and more by refusing to allow it and tossing Strange Days out there as an alternative. My editor agreed, saying something along the lines of “whatever,” and I...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Strange Days.
My Book, The Movie: Strange Days.
Q&A with Constantine Singer.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
