Oh yes as you guessed it right it's a word that I learnt recently an am quite excited to use it to ma Oh yes you guessed it right, I just learnt this word recently, of course I knew its a french word and I thought it would great to use it as a title because the pilgrims who are friends visit a shrine every year and they have done it for 10 yrs. I'm just confused now to freeze on a title... The Pilgrimmage is a title already used by Paul Cohen... So I can't use it... I want the word Pilgrim on my title but not sure how to insert any adjectives or phrases... Please give some suggestions...
Habitue is an awkward word to me as I'm not French speaking. I suggest a title that is accessible to as many people as possible. One idea is to highlight the friendship as well as the nature of their journey together. Here are a couple of ideas: The solace junkies Pilgrims of the tenth year
btw, 'the pilgrimage' is by paulo coelho and the word only has one 'm'... for your title, how about: the habitual pilgrims the constant pilgrims the pilgrims club passionate pilgrims pilgrims on the loose or just plain... pilgrims
Oh thanks a lot for those suggestions on titles as you got me thinking. I know I have failed to look at other aspects of the story like friendship and the year and now I'm sitting with a thought and should come up with something fascinating. I'm also wondering if I can use the name of the pi;grim spot?? Not sure but will come back for more suggestions... Thanks a lot to every one you are such professionals who riddled me out so quick...
yes, you can use the name of the shrine... and it may be a good idea to use it in the title... which one is it?
Okay, I have a huge problem here. I've spent 5 months plotting and even writing some key scenes to add to my storyline. In total, I have nine books plotted out and planned just with following the same character, over the course of three to four years in story time. The stories will be told from the third-person prospective. So, I ask, would that be way too much? Of course, the books themselves are aimed to be around 50,000-75,000 words each. Plus, there's always going to be something different going on within the story to keep readers interested. Thoughts? Opinions? Thanks in advance!
One thing I've seen in my research is that publishers, when picking up first time novelists, want manuscripts 70,000+ words. So 50,000 - 75,000 is cutting it close. So instead of writing 9 62,500 word books (I just did an average for that number), write 7 80,300 word books. You can always min/max the length of plots (Add or remove subplots within to achieve this) to fit the number. But 50,000-75,000 sounds a bit too small in my opinion.
Yeah, I'd probably write fewer, but longer books, possibly even making it three rather than seven or nine, but it really only depends on your publisher and in what ways you can form your story into various shapes. If you're hellbent on having it be nine books, you may have to self-publish, e-publish or not publish them at all, if it's that important to you. You could simply split the story into however many volumes you want though (like The Lord of the Rings etc.), but still officially have nine books or whatever numbers works best, as long as it makes sense from a reader's perspective to read them individually and for you to have a suitable title to give each story and/or volume. Simply get to know your publisher's (or others' if you decide to change) requirements and sit down and think about how you can make things works. You are the one who know the story you're writing, so you will probably also know with a little bit of thinking what format makes sense for it.
Is this young adult or adult fiction? Are you planning on self-publishing or going the traditional route?
The genre would be young adult fiction. Today I started to think about it much more and I appreciate the feedback given. I believe a trilogy and more word count in them would make tons of sense. The route I wanted to take was a traditional publishing one. Have too much would be bad anyways. :O Thanks all. I'm still a novice (Only a year of writing) so I just really needed the feedback on this topic. Looks like I've got some planning to do...
Most traditional publishers aren't going to be willing to take on a series because it's too risky for them. So make sure the first book stands alone (i.e., no major cliffhangers). If your first book does well, then your publisher might consider publishing the other books in the series.
did christie or conan doyle write fewer than 9? have paretsky or grafton stopped at 9? that said, to set out intending to write a specific number of novels in a series is not really a good idea... publishers will not commit to a series until/unless your first stand alone novel is a runaway bestseller... so, you should be focusing on turning out a first book that will interest an agent and paying publisher, before putting much energy and time into planning a whole series... btw, 'young adult fiction' is not a 'genre'... it's a 'market'... 'genre' is 'mystery/thriller/romance/humor/western and so on...
I would just focus on developing the story, instead of actively trying to make a certain number of books. Maybe the story you have in mind requires 9 books to tell--maybe it requires only a single novella. Develop the story first and foremost, I would say.
good point, cerebral... daemantalo... and don't just develop the story, write the book!... your cart is miles ahead of your horse at this point...
im going to keep this short and sweet here, get writing and see where it takes you, follow the plotline (s) and then gauge how many books. i can vouch for this, as my current project initally set out to be one book, now it looks like its going to be three (each at 100k words plus)
It all depends on how successful the first one is, perhaps you could stat a cult following and it would go on forever like friday the thirteenth
I have to wonder if you've ever written a novel before. It's very common for new writers to say they're working on a series of x number of books, where x is a fairly large number (five, six, nine, twelve...I think I remember seeing sixteen at one point, too). It's easy to look at the bookshelves (especially the YA section) and see series out the wazoo. But here's the thing--writing just one book is really hard. Especially if it's your first. You don't realize just how many words 80,000 is until you get there. There are some people on this very site who've been working on their first novels forever. It's not hard to get lost/distracted/caught up/bored/etc, but it's really hard to find the discipline to make it to the end. And then, even when you do, you've still got to edit it to perfection, get reader feedback, and edit some more. That's a lot of work, and that's just for a single book. Writing is so much more than just 'getting the idea down on paper.' Ideas are easy. Writing is hard. Finding time in the day to set aside and pound out a thousand words...finding someone to read it and be objective about the quality...finding the determination to stick with it even when the excitement's gone...finding the discipline to not let it slip away under the pressures of everyday life...that's where the work is. Not only do you have to stick it out for 80k+ words--they have to be good words, in the right order, and do their job as well if not better than the masters already on the shelves. There are techniques to learn. There are pitfalls to avoid. And that's all to get one book up to snuff. Just think...then you have eight more. It's good to have ambition. But know that there's a learning curve, and that your early work is going to lack in a lot of areas as you learn the ins and outs of the craft. It's important to be realistic--people like Stephen King and Jim Patterson can crank out novels by the dozen because they're professional writers who've lived writing for decades. For some people, just finishing a single novel is a lifelong accomplishment. So just write--don't worry about how many books you need for your series. Figure out your process, understand the work that goes into creating a first draft, learn technique and craft. Hopefully you'll stick it out and make it to the end. Then, and only then, should you worry about what comes next. @mammamaia is absolutely right (as usual!)--you're putting the cart before the horse. You can't have a series without the first book, and you can't know what kind of work goes into writing a book without starting to write it.
I'm currently working on a creative writing assignment for school. I need a good creative title for my story. My story is about a kid named Stanley who is depressed and contemplating suicide. He is angry because it seems no one else has to suffer the way he does. He then gets struck by lightning and turns invisible. He decides to use his invisibility to make other people feel the same type of pain he does. He chooses a kid at school named Jamal to target first because Jamal is smart and always happy. He enters Jamal's house and listens to Jamal and his father talking. He finds out Jamal's mom has cancer and has two weeks to live. Stanley feels inadequate because Jamal can deal with his mom's cancer without having it affect his outward appearance in school. At this point, Stanley feels utterly useless so he kills himself by hanging himself. What should I title this short story? I know its a dumb story. I had to fill requirements and include mandatory things like magical realism and stuff like that.
Have you actually written the story yet? Titles tend to come to me after I've finished the first draft.
