Faith McKay - Prophecy Girl
• Pub Date: November 14, 2012
• Publisher: Faith McKay
• Format: Ebook
• Age Range: Young Adult
Ever since Samantha Winthrop's mother moved them to Lacuna Valley, supposedly in search of better weather, the list of strange questions she has no answers for has been growing out of control.
Does her little sister, Violet, have the ability to make things happen just by "praying" for them? Are Sam's dreams really predicting the future? Is she destined to marry the boy she just met, and what is the mysterious orb that he's guarding? Why does she get the impression that there are dangerous creatures watching from the woods?
While Sam should be focusing on answering those questions, there is one other that makes them seem almost irrelevant: Is her mother planning on killing her and Violet?
Titling Prophecy Girl
by Faith McKay
I know a lot of people title their novels right away and get a cover set up before they've even half way through their first draft. I am not one of those people.
I had already written, and edited, and was completely done with Prophecy Girl before it got a title.
Titling Prophecy Girl became a full time job for many weeks. My husband and I would talk during our hour long lunch break, and just throw out titles. I made keyword lists. I made pages, and pages of keyword lists. While editing, I would write down my favorite quotes from the novel and try to turn them into a title.
Some of these ideas were alright. Some of them were really weird, and I think show my delirium after weeks of staring at word combinations to try and come up with a title. Some ideas that came up were...
Stylizing Fate
Destiny's Puppets
Season for Destiny
Icy Fate
Winter of Doubt
A Fateful Move
Dreaming Destiny
Hunting for Destiny
Winter for Destiny
Destiny on Ice (Okay this one is particularly embarrassing. I don't know what's wrong with me.)
I know. They're all a little awful, right? I read the thesaurus more than anyone should ever read the thesaurus. I know more words for "destiny" and "snow" than I ever should. I was so stuck! Nothing felt right. It was so important to me that this story had a title that matched its insides.
Then one day, during lunch, my husband just said, "Prophecy Girl". It took me a week to decide if I was happy with it. It was like after I get a haircut and I spend the next couple hours staring in the mirror and wondering, "Is this really good? Or do I just think it's good?"
After letting it sit for a while, I decided I loved it. It tells you right away that this is something paranormal, and that it's a young adult story about a girl. It also references a joke in Chapter Nine, which makes me smile because Chapter Nine is a chapter for smiles and cuteness.
I never thought that titling a novel could be this difficult, but honestly, how are you supposed to come up with just a couple words to sum up a story that contains over 90,000 of them? I think I've managed to do just that, so I guess the "how?" would be, "You ask somebody else to do it for you." (good husband!)
I write stories about characters with real world struggles in otherworldly settings.
I wrote a book with characters that struggle with the idea of having a destiny called PROPHECY GIRL. In comparison, I really lucked out that my destiny was to struggle with comma placement and be that awkward lady who points out puns at parties.
But like Walt Whitman said, I am large, I contain multitudes. Other things to know about me… I wear two different colored shoes. I am a survivor of child abuse. I have lived with chronic illness for over a decade. A lot of people don't like me because I laugh too much. It's also the reason a lot of other people do like me, so go figure. I listen to more music than people are probably supposed to. I'm a nomad. The word sounds really cool, so a lot of people say it, but I actually live in an RV with my husband and our pet bunny rabbit, Dorian Gray.
Find Faith:
Giveaway Alert!!
Enter through the Rafflecopter form below to win an ebook copy of PROPHECY GIRL by Faith McKay! Contest ends 12/4/12. It's an ebook so it's an international giveaway. Questions? Email me at imabookshark at yahoo. Thanks and good luck!
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I believe our choices decide our fate. It's not written in stone.
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