Monday, September 9, 2013

Working out the Knots: Titles and the Difficulties of Summation

I recently completed my novel - a decade-long endeavor of wrestling, contorting, massaging and coaxing verbiage - the Muse and I sometimes operating in mellifluous concert, like creative wavelengths superimposed to new peaks, but more often at odds in a daily grind of teeth-gritted extraction; a tortured procession of words that finds literary ease only after additional toilings and perpetual revisions: the final phrase born perhaps more of a mutual exhaustion between the Muse and I; or an elusive process of working out the knots: a literary attentiveness that is reminiscent of the close-fingered deftness and focused intent required in disentangling water-swollen ropes yanked to tightness under a wind-filled sail - an undertaking made without recourse to the passage of time, requiring perhaps a year and a day. Or, in my case, in certain particularly entangled parts, a decade.

Amidst the restless search for the trailing sequence of sentences, the years have passed by with all their intervening crises, the geographical re-locations, the upheavals, the family expansions and the critical wage-earning expeditions that fettered the mind and stilled the literary pen. Characters and plot expanded like the complex whirls of a fractal, and page after page filled with the dark imprint of ink. Some paragraphs, of more ancient age than those adjacent, suggested a disparate expressive voice, an awkward shift - a younger authorial me that at times jarred and bristled alongside more recently penned neighbors. These sections were re-crafted and a few more years fell to the task.

But the word-hunt is, at last, over - for this novel. All now is quietude. The pen has been laid aside (the black one at least - awaiting the attention of the editorial red), and the simple words that adorn the last page finally are in accordance with the parental mind: 'The End.' Having suffered from the delusion that these two words signify the completion of the work, I have spent the last few months in the torturous mire of needful summations - acquiring a title; the one which had accompanied an earlier version of the work now seemed an ill-fitting appellation - and so subsequently began months of list-making, opinion-seeking, potentials written in and many more firmly crossed out. For the title is critical, is it not? A few words that entice a bookshop browser (virtual or otherwise), a short phrase that elicits a response...a tendril, a wisp, a light suggestion of something substantial to come. A literary come hither that might coax a pick-up, or a turn of page...the quick scan of an opening sentence or two. And of course there are innumerable restraints in the formulation of said title - erring on the side of short and pithy, uniquely unlikely to be muddled with another work of similar title, some loose connection to the theme of the narrative or a primary character within. For perhaps it is the condensing wherein the difficulties lie. Take this mammoth of a literary beast and reduce it to a scattering of words, distill it (as an alchemist of old) into something that glitters within the pen-calloused palm of one's hand. It perplexes me somewhat - that comparatively months can result in page after page of dense text but weeks upon weeks might yet be required to come up with a mere smattering of words.Three or four will do.

And it simply must be done. The novel without is a rather forlorn thing. Unnamed. Unfinished. And I begin to realize what a title contributes to a given work - it assigns personality before anything more is known. Just as olfactory stimulation quickens the salivary glands, the enticing scent promoting subsequent hunger, so does the naming of a book awaken the curiosity of the imaginative mind. Not only does it appear a succulent dish with its neat glossy binding and intriguing cover art (saving that angst for another post!) but the title itself emits a singular aroma - one that weaves a tantalizing thread of half-formed questions within the browser's mind, and, if successful, initiates a hunger that can only be quenched by reading the novel. A satisfying literary meal will, like well-loved dining establishments, be recommended and passed on. Of course the work within must rise to the occasion of the titillating title - otherwise it will be consigned to the bin of only partially-satisfied, the author to be avoided, subsequent works eschewed.

But perhaps I assume too much - perhaps, as was recently suggested within a Historical Novel Society newsletter, the title need not be so functionally encumbered, need not, in short, serve so many masters; indeed, the author contended that the title is an acolyte of the marketing god - seeking merely to entice - to enthrall - to incite purchase irregardless of contextual meaning or associative parallels within character or plotline. It complements the suggestive cover art and sells the novel. And that is all. So when I tax neurons unmercifully, engage in long fruitless list-making, wax lyrical (and not-so-lyrical) about underlying meanings, the whys and wherefores of title-fit in regard to the contents of the novel - perhaps I am missing the mark. Perhaps I should take my cue from Shakespeare's Juliet and be assured that like the rose the novel will still smell as sweet.

For of course like all writers I yearn to compose anew - the next novel waits impatiently for my attention, kicking its heels in the dusty outskirts, and like a quivering hound before the hunt I scent the promise of it, heart-quickened and breathless, fingers twitching in anxious accord. For the spinning of a new narrative, weaving a world and populating it - another glorious adventure awaits beyond the horizon, knots and all.

10 comments:

  1. Sublime, PJ! I have had similar issues with trying to come up with a title and appreciate your thoughtful musing on the subject.

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    1. Thank you, dear Sarah - I do hope the process of title-acquisition is a little less torturous for you! Thank you for visiting my humble musing and leaving a comment behind you!

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  2. Funny PJ, titles don't seem to be a problem for me, its finishing the darn things. As of now gathering the final issues of poetry and prose for a chap book. Gad, I didn't realize although I've a lifetime of this stuff, stuffed everywhere, how much there really is. I want to get this first volume done because as you, my novels are now banging on my door; finish us.....Miss you!

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    1. Ah I envy you Rachealgrace! Congratulations on your gathering of poetry and prose for your book- it must be exciting, the coalescing after so much time. Please do let us know when your novels are completed, and how to acquire them! Yes and sometimes that banging on the door can get quite insistent! Mine has been remarkably patient with me considering the decade-long haul, although I think it is rather losing patience now that I am diddling over titles! Miss you too!!!!

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  3. Dear PJ, yet another lesson for every writer to consider carefully. I'm a member of your "club": titles don't come easily to me, and I usually need help. I very much envy my mother, who would first come up with a great title and then knit wonderful stories around it. When I was a child, I had the fantasy that she went through life with a bagful of titles as her only baggage :)
    I've posted and tweeted about your article. Thank you for sharing!

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    1. What a blissful idea! Starting with a marvelous title and going from there...and to have a bag bursting at the seams with golden phrases just waiting to be weaved into something magical. Thank you so much, dearest Marta, for your stalwart support - and if your mother's bag is anywhere to be found...perhaps she might spare me a nugget or two??

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  4. Dear PJ, BRAVO again on the completion of the novel! (No small feat!) Naming the baby is a much more serious affair than it may seem, endowing one a sense of "entitlement" for having titled the body of work. I find it helpful to connect with something relevant in the novel and then something mysterious. Whatever works for you will be brilliant, no doubt! ;-0

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    1. Thank you dearest Shari! Yes - and so it has proved to be (much more serious than anticipated...) and finding appropriate names for my three children was an easy endeavor in comparison! Perhaps even easier at that stage because they had yet to arrive and one did not 'know' them as such...so it was just a matter of thinking of a name that you yourself liked. This seems inherently a more complicated affair - but I am working at it - and am hoping that during the course of the current grammatical reading something will occur to me - have me sitting bolt upright in the depths of sleep - a 'eureka!' moment! So I spend my days sitting under the apple tree, shaking the boughs (or is that cheating??)

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  5. PJ,
    As Emerson wrote Whitman upon the publication of Leaves of Grass: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground for such a start." Congratulations on this auspicious beginning! May I add that your musings on finding the right title for your book are a joy to read: graceful, searching, and inspired.

    Christopher (from The Literary Endeavor)

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    1. Thank you dear Christopher for your kind kind words - and that most inspiring quote from Emerson. I am so pleased that you enjoyed this humble musing, and am most grateful for the thoughtful commentary you leave behind.

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