How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Learn more about The Whole Truth and visit Cara Hunter's website.
Titles play such an important part in establishing the reader's route into a book. Like the jacket design, it's like a signpost for the sort of experience to expect. You only have to look at the original titles for classic novels to see how vital they can be - would The Great Gatsby have been such a hit if it had been issued as Trimalchio in West Egg? And what about All's Well That Ends Well - doesn't have quite the gravitas of War and Peace, does it.
As for my own books, all the novels in the Fawley series thus far have had three-word titles, all of which have a double meaning. Thus Close to Home (literally, figuratively), In the Dark (likewise), All the Rage (fashion, but also anger - the theme of the book). The Whole Truth is number five, and here the title is - of course - a deliberate reference to the oath taken by witnesses in court, but it's also, as the reader quickly discovers, the name of a podcast, included in full in the book, which analyses a possible miscarriage of justice. The rub there is that the case in question is one where my lead character, Adam Fawley, was instrumental in securing the conviction. And as he well knows, he wasn't the only one back then who didn't tell...[read on]
Q&A with Cara Hunter.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
