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Frankenstein's Meme: Q9
Jul. 18th, 2021 05:47 pmQ9: What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?
Hmm... it depends upon the length of the story. Over about 20,000 words the hardest thing is keeping track of everything, making sure things happen in a sensible order, characters are visited regularly, no one spends three days walking from their front door to their kitchen, that sort of thing. I keep thinking I should try out something like Scrivener to see if that helps - though its a while since I wrote anything over about 5,000 words in length. I guess, below that length the hardest thing is probably making sure the story has a good strong focus.
Titles are either really easy and obvious or a real pain - just like writing a good summary/teaser for the start of the story is often surprisingly difficult. You'd think you would know why someone might enjoy your story and be able to set that out pithily, just as it ought to be straightforward to come up with a title that somehow reflected the story in a good way. I guess the answer here is that summaries are hard particularly when they need to entice someone to read more without mis-selling what the story is, and that sort of extends to titles only multiplied ten-fold.
( Questions Under the Cut )
Hmm... it depends upon the length of the story. Over about 20,000 words the hardest thing is keeping track of everything, making sure things happen in a sensible order, characters are visited regularly, no one spends three days walking from their front door to their kitchen, that sort of thing. I keep thinking I should try out something like Scrivener to see if that helps - though its a while since I wrote anything over about 5,000 words in length. I guess, below that length the hardest thing is probably making sure the story has a good strong focus.
Titles are either really easy and obvious or a real pain - just like writing a good summary/teaser for the start of the story is often surprisingly difficult. You'd think you would know why someone might enjoy your story and be able to set that out pithily, just as it ought to be straightforward to come up with a title that somehow reflected the story in a good way. I guess the answer here is that summaries are hard particularly when they need to entice someone to read more without mis-selling what the story is, and that sort of extends to titles only multiplied ten-fold.
( Questions Under the Cut )