Titles, a Sentence and Contest Plans

Friday Item The First - Titles

I like book titles. I make them up all the time. In fact, most of my short stories began as nothing more than a title. If you’ve memorized James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, you know that on page 38 he lists “making up titles” as a great way to spark plot ideas. Well, continuing the spirit of generosity I began yesterday, I thought I’d just go ahead and give you five titles.* Now all you have to do is write a great novel around them. You can do that, right?

• Kick the Mountain
• The Truth About Climbing Trees
• A Modest Collapse
• Thief of Seasons
• Hello Lucid

Friday, Thing 2 – A Sentence

I like this sentence and the sort of person it describes:

There is a certain kind of confident traveler who likes to open the carriage door just before the train has stopped in order to step out onto the platform with a little running skip.

- On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

Make it Three, Friday – Contest Plans

Someone must be spiking my coffee with bailout funds because I’m suddenly feeling generous again and I want to give stuff away. So next Friday I am going to host a fun little writing contest right here on this blog. Hey, you know what would be super great? If you started telling your friends about Noveldoctor.com before the official contest announcement. One really good reason to do this is that I’m going to base the coolness of the prize on how many folks stop by the blog during the week. The greater the number of visitors, the cooler the prize. Another good reason to send your friends here is that my self-esteem is based entirely on the popularity of the blog. Because of this, I am naming the contest the “Help Keep Stephen Off Prozac Writing Contest Extravaganza.”

All the important details will be revealed next week.

That’s all. Enjoy your weekend.

*I didn’t search any of these titles on Amazon to see if someone else is already using them. But you can be assured your publisher will. And then they’ll change it. To something like Cupid Has Terrible Aim. Or maybe Bunny Slippers of Doom. Hey, I kind of like that one.