You've met Ursula Wong on my blog before as she weighed in on why people like reading about strong women and why women fight. Read on, and a special treat is that she has a new book out in her Amber War Series that blends the unique strength of a woman into a soldier who fights for the love of her country. I know you'll find her take on book titles interesting!
Book
Titles to Remember, and Some to Forget
By
Ursula Wong
Ideally, book titles should be compelling, unique,
and trigger an emotion. Above all else, a title should leave an impression
about the book. It took a long time to name my Amber War Series about
the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. I still wonder if I got it right,
because once, when I was at an event promoting the first book in the series, Amber Wolf, a few people called me Ms.
Wolf instead of Ms. Wong, confusing the book title with my name. Did I get it
wrong? Let’s take a look a few well-known
titles and see how they measure up.
Some titles tell us exactly what the book is about.
We know right away that the main character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll will visit a
strange and magical place, the agent in The
Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John
le Carre, will have a hard time leaving a communist bloc country, and the
events in A Tale of Two Cities by
Charles Dickens will be as outstanding as the cities themselves. To me, these
are fabulous titles.
The late Sue Grafton named her Kinsey Millhone series
after letters in the alphabet, but I give her credit in coming up with creative
solutions with a mystery theme especially in U is for Undertow, Y is for Yesterday,
and X all by itself.
Some titles convey a theme, but this can leave
readers wondering what the book is about. Twilight
by Stephenie Meyer could be about aliens living in the dark, but we know it speaks
to the vampire world between life and death. The Nightingale by Kristin
Hannah brings thoughts of spring and nature, but this is a WWII story about two
women in German occupied France. If the themes are compelling and interesting,
the names work. Otherwise, they can be near misses.
Some titles trigger a feeling. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote sends chills up my spine while
giving a hint that the subject is about murder, making this title a winner on
several levels. The title Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier gives no information that the story takes place during the Civil War, but it works because it conveys the feeling of
isolation and the possibility of overcoming obstacles, two important themes in
the novel.
Other titles just don’t work well. With all due respect
to the authors, The Storyteller’s Tale
by Omair Ahman, and The Accordionist’s
Son by Bernardo Atxaga tell us nothing about the stories and convey little
impression. This is unfortunate because both novels speak to very interesting
times in history.
We shouldn’t judge people by their clothes or books
by their titles, but we do. My hope is that readers forgive us when we choose
poorly (and read our books anyway), and that we writers think hard about our
choices, doing our level best to get it right.
Back Cover:
World War II is over, but the fighting in Eastern Europe continues as Lithuanian resistance fighters wreak havoc on the Soviet occupiers. Their guerilla tactics incite Russian leaders to amass their power against the tiny resistance. But sheer force is not enough as the freedom fighters join Polish partisans, and a Soviet spy infiltrates the camp of the Amber Wolf.
Bio:
Ursula Wong writes about strong women struggling against impossible odds
to achieve their dreams. Her new novel, Amber War, continues the
spell-binding story of Lithuanian farmers fighting the Soviet occupation of
WWII. For more about Ursula, visit http://ursulawong.wordpress.com.
