10/29/23
Creating a Title and Outline
This is number thirty-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
BEFORE I COULD START creating an outline for my NaNoWriMo project, I felt I really needed a title. What goes into creating a title for a work?
First of all, I needed to examine the theme and pitch for the book and see what I thought would work. In my case, I also had the bookends to consider. There would be an opening scene and a closing scene that set the stage for the story but weren’t actually a part of it.
Since this would be a work of ‘literary fiction,’ I decided that I liked titles that followed the format of “____ of the ____”. Here are some examples:
Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
So, what was my subject and what was it ‘of?’
In keeping with the idea of a bookend for the story that would paint the time and set the scene, I decided on a unique staircase in a wealthy family’s mansion that would be the silent witness of much of the intrigue in the family. Yes, a staircase. I started playing with what that would look like.
Staircase of the Vanities
Staircase of the Bonnevilles
Staircase of the Massengills
Staircase of the Treadwills
Staircase of the Pembertons
Staircase of the Bellinghams
I was trying to make it the staircase of a family, so I had to pick a name for the ancestral home and family. I decided they would be the Jerico family. (A surname that has about 220 people in the US.) But the more I thought about it, the more I decided it needed something to modify the family name. I thought about what would make this staircase unique and decided it would be carved in the shape of a dragon.
The Staircase of Dragon Jerico
This is a working title. I’ve often changed the title of a book after I started writing it or even after it was finished.
For example, back in 2009, I wanted to write a story that revolved around finding and preserving a legendary ‘other book’ (other than the Gutenberg Bible) printed by Johannes Gutenberg. I’d studied the subject for twenty years collecting information. As a print historian, I could think of nothing better than the title Gutenberg’s Other Book. But that sounded more like a history book, than an intellectual thriller. Following the pattern of Dan Brown thrillers, like The DaVinci Code, I chose to retitle the book The Gutenberg Rubric. In it, people would also discover what a rubric was in Gutenberg’s day and age. It became one of my most successful selling books and continues to sell today. (Available on Bookapy.com.)
This has happened to me many times. My first published novel was originally called Security and Exchange, when it was offered as part of an anthology to raise charitable contributions for Microsoft’s Giving Campaign. People thought it was a book about computer security and email. The cyber mystery did much better when it was released as For Blood or Money!
Just understand that my having chosen the working title of The Staircase of Dragon Jerico does not mean that is what the book will be released as! It is the working title.
My preference in a story like this is to create chapter titles with a single line to indicate the principal action as my first outline.
Chapter 1: Who Was the Artist? The story of the staircase in the Jerico household, and who slept with the lady of the house.
Chapter 2: An Unhappy Marriage. Happily-ever-after falls apart for Erin and Bruce Silver when Bruce has an affair.
Chapter 3: The Other Woman. Shannon Duval regrets destroying Bruce’s marriage, even though her own husband, the president of the company, is stepping out on her.
Chapter 4: Survival of the Fittest. Erin determines to put her life together even if it means taking the lowliest jobs to get her through.
Chapter 5: Creative Genius. Preston Carver, Chairman of JeriCorp, has another great idea for his company, but Royce Duval, the President, will get the credit, of course.
Chapter 6: A Step Up. Banking on her education, Erin takes a job as Assistant to the Chairman and is told that if she can last six months in the difficult position, she’ll be moved to a less stressful position in the company.
Chapter 7: Object of Desire. Royce sees the Chairman’s assistant and decides she would be better as his mistress.
Chapter 8: Subterfuge. Erin recognizes her new boss as her favorite customer from the diner, but he doesn’t recognize her.
Chapter 9: Out of the Zone. Preston is forced to make a public announcement and freezes up on stage, until Erin rescues him.
Chapter 10: Conflict of Interest. Shannon believes Erin is out for revenge on her by seducing her husband, Royce.
Chapter 11: Proxy Fight. The board attempts to oust Preston as Chairman and discovers he controls the majority of shares.
Chapter 12: Rescue Me. Preston runs after Erin to stop her from leaving the company and town, professing his love, and proposing marriage.
Chapter 13: A Family United. The bookend chapter reveals that just as Preston is descended from Isolde and Joseph Carver, Erin is descended from Isolde and Drake Jerico, but, of course, no one knows that.
In this outline, I’ve hit the major clutch points of the novel and have named the principal characters. The next step is to fill in the blanks in the outline by going a level deeper with what the action points will be in each chapter. If this progresses as outlines typically do, by the time I’m ready to start writing, there will be more than the thirteen chapters above, and some may have changed significantly. Over the next two weeks, as I begin writing the story, I’ll also release my character sketches and world building documents.
In three days, my Sausage Grinder tier patrons will get the chance to watch this story take shape on a daily basis in November. Whatever I get written that day will be posted in its rough form, exclusively for Sausage Grinders.
There are many more considerations yet as the story takes shape. I’ll continue writing about the development process through to the end of the draft. Next week: “Who are these people in my head?”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
