JK: Choosing Titles

I’ve been working on possible titles for my as yet unwritten book that will be the third in my Change and Cherish Series. It was one of the surprises about writing, the realization that I don’t always get to have the title I propose. For this book (and the second in the series) I wanted “A Hand While We’re Falling,” but it was nixed. Too esoteric I guess; too difficult to come up with an image for the cover.

So we went with “A Tendering in the Storm.” I do like the word “tendering;" it has several meanings. It refers to something fragile, but it also refers to the taking care of things such as tending a garden. And it’s the word used to describe small ships that “tender” people from a larger ship to shore. Since my character was moving through a fragile time of her life, she needed tendering but resisted it for the view of obligation she thought came with it, and she needed something to take her from a place of isolation to a safe place in life’s storm. So tendering seemed to be ok.

But that also set up a pattern, since the first book was called “A Clearing in the Wild,” so now I’m looking for the same pattern in the third title: A Compassing in the Calm. A Mending at the Edge. A Raisin’ in the Sun…no, that’s been taken, although one can’t copyright titles. I could even call it “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” But I won’t.

I would love your suggestions, though, keeping in mind the pattern established. The story is about a real life woman who lived in the 1860s, and who was part of a religious colony that in many ways lost its way as a Christian group, following instead a charismatic leader. But Emma, my protagonist, resisted the leader’s direction, and in book one she and her husband and his family separate from the group. But circumstances and the trials of the 1850s limit her choices, and she finds herself back with the original colony. She is intent on making her own way there and does, becoming, I believe a model for living a faithful life.

If you have a title AND an idea for the cover, let me know! Thanks! Jane@jkbooks.com

http://www.jkbooks.com/ Jane Kirkpatrick's next book will be out in April. A Tendering in the Storm is the title.