Book title

[skip.knox]

I have to prepare the creative brief for the third volume in my series on the Trouvères. Good grief, I only just finished the first book!

Anyway, I have to settle on a title and would like to hear from others. There's a theme here; see if you can spot it. These are the choices:
The Ghost Forest
Forest of Haunts
Haunted Forest

It's fantasy/adventure/mystery, though pretty light on mystery this time around.

 

[pmmg]

You forgot, forest of ghosts. I like that one

I am not sure how I could really help with this. I don't know a lot about the first one.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Of these, I like The Ghost Forest best.

 

[ThinkerX]

I vote for the 'Ghost Forest'

 

[Prince of Spires]

Of those 3 I like the second one, Forest of Haunts best. Main reason for that is that the other two don't really sound like fantasy books. I would expect "the Haunted Forest" to be a variety of horror, and "the Ghost Forest" to be a parodie of that.

 

[TWErvin2]

Of the three I prefer The Ghost Forest.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

My first concern with all three would be search visibility. Why? Well, I've been screening for the SFWA story bundle and part of that is looking up the books on Amazon to check reviews, blurb, cover, etc. Some of them with fairly generic titles can be a pain in the ass to find. I've had trouble with a few when the title was typed in verbatim, which shocked the heck out of me. So, check the search. Forest of Haunts is the most unique and probably the easiest to get high in a basic search. it took a while Whispers of Ghosts to pull enough relevance to hit the top on its search. Ghost Whisperer was my nemesis, heh heh.

 

[pmmg]

Dem's, you are a treasure.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

One of them cursed vorpal swords, I'm sure, heh heh.

But yeah, there have been some titles where I've done a "kindle books" search after a general search with an exact title and author's name and the book still doesn't show up anywhere near the top. By that point, it usually shows up, but not where you'd want it. Anecdotal evidence from my searches suggests this trends worse for new releases, but it also applied to some older books that must never have really attracted the attention of the search algorithm. This might be a solid argument for spending at least a few bucks on Amazon advertising so that the Amazon Horton hears your Whos and know they exist.

Dem's, you are a treasure.

 

[pmmg]

One of them cursed vorpal swords

Yikes

 

[skip.knox]

Thanks to One and Sundry, and let us not forget Alia of the Inter Clan.

Forest of Haunts is the leader here. I like it because it lets me create Haunts rather than Ghosts. There's an Altearth reason for liking the one over the other. Plus, Haunts brings less baggage with it than Ghosts.

On the other side (of this life), the previous book is called The Tower of Guard. Next in line is, provisionally, The Piper of Rammelsberg, then The Golden Tree, and The Dance of the Wild Men.

So that would give three books in the series with the same structure: The This of That.

Now, I can certainly come up with something other than the Piper of Rammelsberg. I like the title, but I'm sure I could manage. I am, after all, a Clever Writer. On the other hand, this being Barsoom, for convenience, Three in a row with the same title structure might not be a big deal, because by then the only ones reading it will be fans of the series and the title will count for less and parallelisms across titles will count for even less. Maybe half a shekel.

I dunno. This business of titles continues to haunt me.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Game of Titles! Pretty danged original, yes? heh heh.

 

[skip.knox]

Game of Titles! Pretty danged original, yes? heh heh.

Apropos, because the story never ends.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Do you write the book first, or at least kind of sort of plot it out, before giving it a title? Or do you come up with the title first and then have to write to it?

I remember being told, years ago, I think in grade school, that good poets don't give their poems titles until they've written them. Ever since then, I've applied that to fiction writing as well. A story can have a working title, but until it's at least mostly written, the title isn't finalized. That's because what it's really about could change over the course of the writing.

As for your question about which title to use, to my mind it depends on how the story connects to the title. Is this Forest of Ghosts, or Haunts, or whatever it is, a specific place name, like Forest of Arden? Is it just some forest that happens to be haunted (or at least is rumored to be)? Is the forest a metaphor, not something that literally exists?

Ghost Forest sounds, to me, like the whole forest is a ghost. The trees aren't really there, they're just illusions. Or you see the forest from afar but it always disappears when you get close to it. Kind of like a ghost ship. Or maybe something like a ghost town: Ghost Forest could mean a forest that's been clear cut or thoroughly burned in a wildfire. No forest anymore, but the ruins of it are still there.

Either way, Ghost Forest conveys a very different image from Forest of Ghosts or Forest of Haunts.

Haunted Forest, meanwhile, sounds like a Disney theme park ride.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I've never bought into the notion of naming being reserved until something is finished. Staying open to name changes, sure, but every artist is going to work a bit differently. I name books and even chapters long before they're written in many cases. I think I have the working title for the next 6-7 books jotted down, they just aren't set in stone.

 

[pmmg]

Yeah... whatever works. I can see how naming a story before would just as easily focus the direction of the writing for some as waiting till the end would suit another.

I would be open to a change it if made sense somewhere along the way, but...I will confess I had the title for my first three long before I started writing any of them. Chapter names are more subject to change for me. When I started, I did not even have names for those. But when I thought up the name, 'Return of the King,' for book three, I knew that was a keeper...

 

[Mad Swede]

I tend to name my books and short stories part way through writing them. There's no real reason for that, it's just the way it works for me. And the title is usually related to something one of the main characters says or does.

 

[skip.knox]

Other factors enter into this. First off, when I start a project, I have to name a file and folder. Granted, that can be changed, but it means I have to start thinking about names for the story right along with names for the characters. Sort of the same dynamic there.

This gets set more firmly when I start talking to others about the project. Granted I can be cagey and say I'm writing an Altearth story about how a boy became emperor (Frederick II), but that doesn't wear well (that's a real project but it's so far back on the burners, it's fallen down behind the stove). The impetus toward naming builds over time.

It becomes irrestible when I hire my cover artist. At that point, there has to be a name. And a summary! Yes, I can change, but at a certain point the artist will start charging me for such changes. Also, any copy I write almost always has need of the title.

And all of that comes well before the book is finished. By the time I have even the first draft, I'm leaning forward, eager to get through rewrites and edits and proof.

Rosemary Tea is correct that naming the beast can shape the beast. All I had going into the project was that this would be the third volume in the series, and that I love pictures of the Gespensterwald on the Baltic coast (in Mecklenburg). There's a bit of it across the water on Rügen island as well. I girued, if I can't set a mystery adventure in a place called a ghost forest, then I need to find some other trade.

I shy away from Ghost Forest as a title for the very good reasons Rosemary Tea gave, but also because I've found that there are many "ghost forests" around the world, which really ought not have surprised me. I'm pretty sure I'm going with Forest of Haunts until and unless I come up with something brilliantly better. I have a solid track record of not doing that sort of thing.

 

[pmmg]

It becomes irrestible when I hire my cover artist. At that point, there has to be a name. And a summary! Yes, I can change, but at a certain point the artist will start charging me for such changes. Also, any copy I write almost always has need of the title.

You hire a cover artist before you have the book made? I feel that is unusual.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Whispers of Ghosts art was done months before the book, probably Trail of Pyres as well. Eve of Snows' cover was done after the first round of edits but I had to resize it after loading on 20k words, heh heh. I also had a cover worked up for my next book before it was really started, but I'll end up using that image for advertising and whatnot and go with a new cover.

You hire a cover artist before you have the book made? I feel that is unusual.