Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: tired
  • Music: Blue Oyster Cult, "Transmaniacon MC."

Title trauma.

So a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, in an era before I could explain the epidemiology of the Black Death or tell you gleefully about fluke parasitism...I outlined the first five adventures of a changeling named October Daye. Yeah, I've been working on this series for a while now.

Anyway, all five of the books have gone through dramatic changes since they were originally outlined. The later books especially, because every change to an early book sort of cascades through the continuity to land on their heads. Which brings us to book five, which you may have heard me refer to as The Brightest Fell. See, when that title was chosen, it made perfect sense. It was a good title. And then the book began to warp and struggle with its outline, and the title became a little less good.

And then I redid the outline for the last third of the book, and the title sucked. What's a girl to do?

Rename the book, of course.

Book five is now called One Salt Sea, which is in many ways a much, much better title for this book, and a much better indicator of what's going on between the covers. Book seven, assuming we get that far (dream big, shop smart, shop S-Mart), will be called The Brightest Fell. Because, y'know, this wasn't confusing enough.

Titles make my head hurt. Time to go and pack for my trip to New York.
Tags: book status, one salt sea, toby daye
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  • 36 comments

tygerversionx

October 4 2010, 04:03:35 UTC 6 years ago

You could be in worse shape. You could've named your first book "Episode IV: A New Hope" and then slowly had to dig your way out of that mess for the next 30 years. And only succeeded in digging your way to the molten core of the planet, story-wise.

seanan_mcguire

October 4 2010, 20:11:35 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah, but who'd ever be that dumb?

...oh, wait...