How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?The Page 69 Test: Infernal.
Settling on the title took a bit of work!
My original working title was Beast, but that doesn’t carry as much weight, whereas Infernal alludes to the main character’s belief that he is demonic in origin, which drives his perceptions for much of the story.
The tagline ‘The Chronicles of Stratus’ underlines that this is his story, and ties in with it being written in a first person perspective.
What's in a name?
Stratus, my main character’s name, was the first thing that came to me and didn’t change from that very first draft. It’s a strong name, but it’ll make more sense when you get to book two (which is out in May 2021).
I was conscious that the names for the people he interacts with and places he goes would add a lot of flavour to the setting and themes, in the same way that names change as you travel across borders, or sometimes even within the same state.
For example, names in the kingdom of Krandin have softer consonants than those in the opposing empire of Penullin, which tend to be...[read on]
Q&A with Mark de Jager.
--Marshal Zeringue
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