I'm working on my first full length novel, and I'm trying to figure out a good subtitle. The first thing that came to mind was "The Fallen Heroes", being that this group makes up the majority of the characters. However, that's very cliché to me. I want something a bit more poetic as my story is somewhat emotionally driven. I was thinking something that meant "second chance"... I just came up with "Restoration of Pariah" - pariah referring to "the fallen heroes" I know for a fact that the second book's subtitle will be "Shadow of Intent" - and the third I am thinking "Salvation of Hope" Of course, I guess the title/subtitle doesn't actually have to reflect the story at all. I don't know. Suggestions?
He may have meant that since your story isn't finished you probably have higher priorities right now--like finishing it. After you're done a logical title will probably become evident.
That's also true. The title is the very last thing you need to nail down. But what I meant is that subtitles are falling out of favor. The title alone is sufficient, unless you have a compelling reason for appending a subtitle. I can only see that if you already HAVE a subtitle you really feel adds something special and indispensible.
It was more or less an idle question. I'm constantly thinking about story and character development. Currently, I'm at work, so I can't devote too much brain power to big things, and I was just pondering something simple like a title while I'm bored. PS: I'm going for a series (obviously) and I'd like to actually have a name for my "universe" that I'm creating; i.e. "Lord of the Rings" became the standard name for all things relevant to that world, ditto for "Star Wars". Therefore, each book needs it's own title.
Then each book has a title, and the series has a title. But you stand little chance of publishing a serioes as a new writer. Worry instead about publishing one standalone book. If it is expandable into a larger saga, so much the better, but forget the series until you have the first book sold. If you have an eye on a series when you are writing te first book, you'll probably have a story with too many loose ends to stand on its own.
I understand your sentiment, and I suppose I should be more cautious. However, as I have noticed with many such series of books, each book stands on it's own regardless. Rather than thinking of it like one run-on story, it will be several stories with the same set of characters, each occurring several years after the prior. In the same way that "A New Hope" is it's own story, so shall my first book. Technically, LotR was originally one book, but then it was broken into 6 for publishing. I recently read some of the books by Elizabeth Moon, which is sort of how I plan to write mine. Each story speaks to the previous/next story, but each book also stands alone. I suppose it's confusing when I did state at first I was writing a series. Rather, I suppose I should say that I plan on recycling my characters!
