Urgent: I Have to Break Up with My New Novel’s Perfect Title, and I Need a Little Help from My Friends.
The split is neither of our faults but is being forced by wiser, more experienced (editor/agent/authoritarian-type) sources who have my best interests at heart and assure me that in the long run we will not be compatible for either broad readership or decent sales.
I’m bereft. I thought I could make it work.
But the novel draft is approaching completion, and I’m running out of time. I have to start title creation all over again and . . . well . . . breaking up is hard to do. I’m having trouble. My perfect, but rejected title is etched in my brain. I need an outside perspective. I need a little help from you—writers, readers, observers, supporters, friends—to come up with a new title. Are you game?
I’ll lay out everything you need to know, and hopefully you’ll see ever so clearly what I cannot and help me replace my perfect book title with another perfectly wonderful, no doubt, better one. And I’ll reward you for your efforts, really.
Here is the Problem.
La Querencia
My rejected title is in Spanish: La Querencia. It’s a bullfighting term, though my story is not about bullfighting. Thematically, it’s ideal as you will read below, but no, it does not easily trip off the tongue. In fact, even my iPhone can’t cope with it. It keeps “correcting” querencia into various irrelevant words and phrases—quince, queer congrats, quest, queen. So, I have to agree that a difficult-to-pronounce word in another language is a recipe for the discount bin.
My new title needs to be in English, period. Simple, right? Not so much. La Querencia is idiomatic, so a direct translation doesn’t really work and there are variations about what it means.
My preferred definition refers to “the place in the ring where the bull feels safe.” It is a moment of transcendence for the bull—where he thinks he’s won. Though we know the bull will soon die, in the moment of his Querencia he lives the last, best part of his life.
This is a perfect metaphor for my story of a group of expats, each of whom have come to beautiful San Miguel de Allende, with their last dream. The generational story is informed by Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Click here for the full synopsis.
Like the moment it describes, La Querencia as a title is also transcendent, which is another reason why it’s hard to give it up.
Why a Transcendent Title?
I never felt I had the perfect title for my last book. My working title started out as September 14, but it was too close to the very loaded date of September 11th. My writing instructor, the marvelous Gary Wilson, suggested The Fourteenth of September and it stayed like that for its entire development. I always thought I’d come up with something more lyrical, an elegant brushstroke of my theme.
My model for a great title has always been The Adulterous Woman by Albert Camus, the famous story of a woman whose brief, misunderstood flirtatious encounter plunges her into a review of her life and a “sensuous” visit to an Algerian fortress where she engages in her “adultery.” The title is so apt and necessary that without it you don’t fully understand what you think is happening is actually “true.” If you haven’t read it, you must.
I’ve also been drawn to titles like Starting Out in the Evening, about a writer starting over well past his prime, and Old Joy, about long-time friends on a camping trip, “coming to grips with the changes in their lives.” I feel each of these titles elevated their stories in beautiful and profoundly impactful ways.
This Novel Has Already Had More Than a Little Help from My Friends.
La Querencia, by Karen Thompson
There was one bull who wouldn’t move, another hugged the ring wall. In those moments their postures seem to transform them. I realized that “being safe” in the ring was also this precious moment of time before the end. Suddenly, I saw La Querencia as a potential title: a metaphor for a time in life paralleling that of the older expats in my story. The “moment” you could miss or make the best, a last opportunity for a generation to fulfill its early promise. It worked. And I had a story with a title and a tag line.
La Querencia
For a Generation of Dreamers, this Last One Really Has to Come True
But alas, the beautiful La Querencia, which is still the name of a bar in my story, can no longer serve as the title.
My personal dream would be for a new title that would describe the querencia moment in English and to keep the tag line. That may or may not be possible, or even advisable. I fully disclose that I can only see trees in this forest.
So now you know everything. And yes, I’m really sticking my neck out by going public with so much, and potentially so much that could change.
But I am more than ready to just move on with a new title. And I’m a little tired of working on this all alone.
Continuing the tradition of this novel’s progress, I’m in serious need of help from, well, anyone reading this blog. The titles I come up with all sound soapy. I can literally hear the organ music as I say them out loud.
The pathetic brainstorming list on my bulletin board has only a few potentials:
The Last Hurrah (a Spencer Tracy film?)
The Last Dream, Last Dreams (a romance?)
Sunset over San Miguel, The Sun Also Sets (a Hemingway Pastiche?)
Please engage. Just send any ideas through the comment section of this blog post. It doesn’t matter how farfetched. This is an online brainstorming and each idea will spur other thoughts. Or you can email me directly through the website.
In return I promise to report on progress towards a new title and offer fame (if you want it) to anyone who comes up with a winner. This would begin with immortality via the acknowledgments section of the eventual 🤞🏼 published novel and continue with all kinds of early-read opportunities, giveaways, special invites, and other goodies. If your suggestion really sings, I may adopt you.
It’s my Working Title. Okay?
whatdayamean what's it about? It's a book? What else do you need to know.