Petr
asked
Peter Cawdron:
When do you decide on a title for a book? Do you have a title in mind while writing, or do you come up with it afterwards? Did you end up changing some of the titles during the writing process? Any examples? :)
Peter Cawdron
Good question... Most of the time the title is part of the inspiration behind the book. For example, Little Green Men, Xenophobia, Anomaly, and Starship Mine are all stories built around their titles, and they reflect that quite well.
The only book I struggled to name was Mars Endeavour, which started life as The Colony (too common), then became Abiogenesis (but I felt that was too obscure) so it was released as Mars Endeavour, before being republished as Retrograde (due for release this Sept). Retrograde fits well as it describes not only the motion of the planet relative to Earth, but the way the relationships between the various parties slip backwards as the story progresses.
Some book titles have been torturous for a different (more obscure) reason. With Maelstrom and Nosferatu, their "real" titles were already used. Both Maelstrom and Nosferatu are the results of a series being combined, but I couldn't reuse the original names (Colliding Worlds and Vampire) for fear of confusing readers who read the first parts of the series (even though I've now withdrawn those shorter works). I won't make that mistake again. I think my days of writing serials is over. I'll either just do stand alone novellas or novels.
Cheers,
Peter
The only book I struggled to name was Mars Endeavour, which started life as The Colony (too common), then became Abiogenesis (but I felt that was too obscure) so it was released as Mars Endeavour, before being republished as Retrograde (due for release this Sept). Retrograde fits well as it describes not only the motion of the planet relative to Earth, but the way the relationships between the various parties slip backwards as the story progresses.
Some book titles have been torturous for a different (more obscure) reason. With Maelstrom and Nosferatu, their "real" titles were already used. Both Maelstrom and Nosferatu are the results of a series being combined, but I couldn't reuse the original names (Colliding Worlds and Vampire) for fear of confusing readers who read the first parts of the series (even though I've now withdrawn those shorter works). I won't make that mistake again. I think my days of writing serials is over. I'll either just do stand alone novellas or novels.
Cheers,
Peter
More Answered Questions
Robert
asked
Peter Cawdron:
In your theme of First Contact, have you considered a situation where WE are the arriving "aliens" who are perhaps 100-200 years ahead (or behind) of the planet population, we want to colonize, and they don't want us? I know that Cold Eyes slightly touched on this, but not from a wider standpoint.
James Rocks
asked
Peter Cawdron:
Reading "The Artifact" and, while I get you're US-focused (seems weird for a New Zealander living in Australia; best guess is market size), I don't get why the UK/Welsh main character of the book refers to her parents as "Mom and dad". Native Brits call their mothers "mum", "mother", "mama", "mam", "mammy" but never, to my knowledge, "Mom". You seem to do a massive amount of research for your books so why "Mom"?
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