Snappy Title Goes Here

by Anna Jones Buttimore

I'm about a third of the way through writing - rewriting - again - a novel I put together eons ago called Kept in Trust. It's the story of a cop who, on an exchange placement in rural North Wales, finds himself having to protect a tough and guarded single mother whose brother is involved with some nasty drug dealing types. When I started it, the crux of the story was that he helped this poor, abused, lonely young woman learn to trust people, believe in herself, and even believe in something else - naturally he was a Mormon and she joined the church by the end of the book. And he also bought a valuable painting from her, without her realising, which he "Kept in Trust" for her. Hence the title, you see. It was all about trust.

The book has changed a great deal. The hero used to be Michael Boyd, from Norwich, England, and he was LDS. Now he's called Ryan Tench, from New York New York, and he's not. The heroine is not quite as pig-headed as she used to be, and her daughter turned into a son before turning back into a daughter again, and is on her(his) fifth name. At one stage in the development she was kidnapped. Now she isn't kidnapped. The process of developing a novel, you see, means it goes through a lot of changes, and this is BEFORE any editors get their hands on it.

That's all part of being a good writer, I think. If something doesn't work, you have to be quite ruthless about hitting the delete key and starting again, as painful as that sometimes is. If you read my blogs regularly, you may remember that I actually gave up on this particular book altogether about four months ago. That's part of being a good writer too. If your entire book is rubbish, you have to be prepared to let it go. Do you see the irony here? I'm trying to pretend I'm a good writer by admitting that I know that what I write is rubbish.

Here's another problem for you to solve: I have effectively removed the the theme of trust from this story. My heroine is no longer reticent about having a hunky New York Cop protect her from the drug pushers trying to kill her and her multi-monikered daughter/son/daughter (let's face it, that wouldn't be convincing) and he no longer buys the painting. So the title no longer fits. I need a new title.

If, like most people, you start a book at the beginning, then the title may be the very first thing you write, followed by the words "Chapter One" and, if you're me, nothing else for several hours. A good title is important. It grabs the attention of the bookshop browser, gives the simplest and briefest description of what might lie between the covers, and will be what you type futilely into search engines for months trying to find out whether anyone has reviewed, recommended, or even bought your book. It's going to be with you for life.

I am completely stuck for what to call this book now. All and any ideas are welcome! Having said that, my first book was originally called In the Shadow of the Mountain, but the contract for it calls it Hearts in Hiding (which, as you'll know, is actually by the wonderful Betsy Green) and the final title was Haven. My second book was submitted with the working title of Haven 2 and the publishers chose A World Away. My current book was always called Easterfield.

So, if you have a title which you think might fit, or you've always wanted to buy a book called _____, please let me know!