Ulff Lehmann's Blog: Blogging Lot - Posts Tagged "titles"

Seriously, I do. Took me months to figure out the names to the first book, "Drangar Book One" just didn't cut it. "Drangar and the Magic Mutt" didn't do so much for me either.

Some will rightfully say that the title should be the last of my concerns, and to all of you I say, you are damn right! And it was my bloody last concern. I had written the novel once pre 2000 under the not-so-great title "Drangar - Awakening." It was a story pretty much like the stuff I read at the time, hence the pretentious title. It promised... well pretty much nothing really. Then again, at that time, I didn't know what the hells I was doing anyway. Read D&D novels and you write D&D novels. But it wasn't really that either.

Needless to say, that version never made it past the "I wrote something, some people read it, liked it, but I don't know" stage. Turns out I was neither happy with it or myself.

Fast forward seven years or so. Still not happy with my life, and yes, I had that book, that idea, but like everything else in my life, it felt worth- and useless. I had no idea who I was, what I was, and why the hell I kept on going. Cue in the melodramatic music. At that point of my life, a kick by an idiot was all it took to have me utterly unravel.

It took the persistence of a dear friend, who pushed me from fetal into a somewhat sitting position to get my ass in gear and look for a therapist. She nudged and nudged and didn't give up on me. Until I found one. Behavior therapy it was, it had to be because in essence I knew what was wrong with me, problem was I couldn't find a way out. Those suffering from depression know what I mean.

One of the first things we determined was that I had to be serious about writing, that I needed a ritual, and keep that ritual. The next step was to set myself benchmarks, points in the narrative I had to reach by a certain date. It worked, in less than four months, the first draft of what is now Shattered Dreams was finished. A 160.000 words monstrosity. Only it was still called Drangar - Awakening. I printed it out and waited a week or so.

I played some computer games, watched a bunch of movies, tried to focus on anything but the book. Distance is the key to editing, to rewriting a draft. So, with some distance between me and my creation (by that time I could already hear my voice in my mind, whispering "It's alive, it's alive.") I printed the bugger out, and over the time of five cappuccino and cigarette fueled days I read the book, made notes, vigorously crossed out words, the usual stuff writers do. (I didn't consider myself a writer then, mind you.) Back to the computer it was. In between my writing sessions, I dutifully continued my therapy.

Now came the tougher part. My story had gushed upon the page, so to speak, and now whilst correcting and deleting stuff, I began to structure it. Don't get me wrong, I already had chapters and such, and while I also had some coherence in the various narration strands, it wasn't what I wanted it to be.

See, I was inspired by what GRRM does in A Song of Ice and Fire, from the narrative standpoint. What I didn't want, however, was to eventually wind the narrative clock back a few days just because a previous chapter had told one character's story over the course of a few weeks. I wanted a faster pace. Not necessarily more action, but less inaction.

I re-read "The DaVinci Code," a novel whose breakneck speed, to this day, still impresses me. I noted how short the chapters were, too short to my liking, but still exemplary of the pacing I wanted. There was no Council of Elrond, no, in my opinion, useless blabla. That was also the time when I read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, noting the economy of the language. I have to re-read these stories, just to once more bask in its glory.

So, I wanted multiple in-depth third person narrators in a fast paced tale that took place in something like two weeks. Multiple viewpoint characters, with the reader stitching the tapestry themselves, never having more information than whatever character. The various sections, I refuse to say volumes because they are not, should be tied together by dates... sometimes there would only be one chapter on a given date, other times there could be up to 10 chapters or more on a day.

Easy, for a novice writer, right?
(told you I suck at titles)

tbc

Yesterday I elaborated the task ahead of me. Re-arrange all the parts I had written so they'd fit the day by day narrative I wanted. I bought one of those bigass artsy sketch pads. Then I hit the first bump. I needed a calendar... you know months and weekdays, the stuff you don't consider until you have to.

What followed was inspired, I thought. Until I found out, my method of time keeping wasn't so original. Truth be told, I had done some research but nothing in regards to time keeping and calendars and such. Why not? Because any sort of calendar the ancients devised was based on reality, you know moon movement, and stars and planets and whatnot. I wanted some but not all of that.

Let me elaborate. Yes, I wanted a mythical world, but the thing is most fantasy worlds are basically carbon copies of Earth and our solar system. If you look at the ancient myths, however, the world they described looked more like Terry Pratchett's marvelous Discworld than anything else. To them, the ancients, the world ended on one side, where the sun went down into the underworld, and came back up on the other side of the rectangle or whatnot after it had finished its trip through said underworld.

Our timekeeping is based on our relative distance to the sun. Funny thing is, in the Middle Ages the year did not begin in January but in March, because of, you know, spring. That's what I did with my calendar, the year begins in spring and ends with winter. I named the months after the predominant weather, Chill, Frost, Heat etc, and the days got their names from the various gods I created...

Then, finally, I sat down and arranged every bit of text to fit the narrative form I wanted. Writing down page and sometimes even paragraph numbers. The bloody sketch page was covered in tiny hieroglyphs. Numbers, viewpoints, it was fun. (No, it wasn't)

With this guide at hand I attached a second monitor to my write computer (I had installed a two monitor graphics card years before, anticipating such a moment) opened the original text on one side, and a blank doc on the other. I cut and pasted a lot; sure, I could have copied and pasted but I needed to see the progress I made. A motivational thing, pretty much like the writing ritual. It all boiled down to behavior therapy, again.

Now, with the text basically in its final form, I printed the bugger out once again, and spent another week in my café, wrapped in cigarette smoke, two piles of paper plus a note pad and pen, my tobacco, my lighter, and the accompanying stares of everyone pissed that I occupied an entire table by myself. Like I gave a fuck :P

Once more I whittled away, clarifying where needed, deleting when necessary. Then, when that was done, I edited the ms. and as luck would have it, well my luck anyway, a well read friend of mine had just broken her left arm (I did say my luck) and needed something to read. Thus she became the beta-reader, cue the harmonious choir music.

Two weeks passed, then she called, telling me she was done and I could come over the next day. My note pad, tobacco and loads of time were my companions when I walked the few miles to her place, well maybe one and a half miles, poetic license and all that. Anyway, we got to business almost immediately, after I had prepped a can of coffee... she began, hesitantly, fearing I would take offense at whatever she found at fault. Brash as I am, I told her that I wanted, needed her input because I was at an end and I wanted the novel better. That took some of her reluctance, and 5 or 6 hours later, we had managed to get through about one third of the novel, I walked back home, with my tobacco, several pages filled with notes, and less time that day, but I felt good. It weren't huge things, but smaller stuff that bugged her, but she explained her reasoning and I had to agree, with most. (She also complained about my characters swearing too much, but despite that complaint, they continue to do so.) Two more such days came and went, and then on the third day, I went home, my tobacco, my notes, and a well worn print out and itching to get back to implement the changes.

Then, once the changes were done, a third print out, and more cappuccino. Bloody expensive that, but well worth it.

Then two things happened. One, I bought a book on titles, how to pick them, which was more geared towards non-fiction but that hardly mattered, and two, I reread The First Five Pages.

Not only did I still lack a title, but the chapter I thought was a good first chapter was actually pretty shitty.

tbc