How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Erica Ferencik's website.
The title Girl in Ice can be interpreted as referring to the girl who is actually frozen in the glacier and thaws out alive, and/or the protagonist, the linguist Val Chesterfield, who is in one sense “frozen” by her anxiety disorder, which causes her to feel safe only in certain settings: home, her office, etc.
Girl in Ice is also short and direct, and has a thrillery-feel, which I thought would be effective, as much as I chafe at categorizing the novel strictly as a thriller, since it also has elements of mystery and touches of horror – and – it’s not a by-the-numbers thriller read. We tossed around a few other titles but not too many. One was Girl on Ice, which to me sounded like a skating story or an appetizer.
The title of the German edition (September 12th release) is Ein Leid Vom Ende Der Weld, or, Song From the End of the World, which I love. They are positioning the book as general fiction rather than a thriller. I love the complexity of the word Leid, which means song but also call, or melody, or melodic message. There is no literal singing in the book, but the girl who has thawed from the ice certainly “sings” her own message of warning and truth to this modern world about climate change and the dangers of...[read on]
Q&A with Erica Ferencik.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
