The Next Novel

Share this post

We Built This City

www.thenextnovel.com

We Built This City

Shayne Terry
Apr 4, 2021
Share this post

We Built This City

www.thenextnovel.com

With both short stories and novels, I have learned not to get attached to titles. 

For the most part, I use working titles, and I deliberately think of them as placeholders. I am fond of them, but I will not be sad when they go. The working title of this novel manuscript is WE BUILT THIS CITY — WBTC for short. 

From McGill Library’s digital collection

A title helps a project, even at its gnarliest stages, feel like a real thing, but I usually don’t even know what a piece of writing is about, let alone what it should be called, until fairly late in the game. The right title might reveal itself during a third or fourth revision, some phrase that was hiding deep in the work all along. Perhaps it is suggested by a brilliant early reader, someone with enough remove to see the project clearly. 

Occasionally, an editor will suggest a title change just before publication, which surprised me when it happened with my very first published story. I had named the story “Turtles.” It had been long listed for an award with that title. It had earned me a spot at Bread Loaf with that title. But the magazine that published it had recently published a different turtle story, and so the title of my story was changed. I still think of it as “Turtles,” but that is not its name. 

WBTC most likely can’t be the title because there is already a middle grade book with that title, and also because it’s not exactly right. (I don’t actually want to get a Starship song stuck in anyone’s head.) But being not exactly right makes it a perfect working title. 

Share this post

We Built This City

www.thenextnovel.com
Previous
Next
Comments
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Shayne Terry
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing