An Epiphany of Epic Proportions
My Novel, Writing March 7th, 2008A recipe for an epiphany of epic proportions:
Start with a slow day at work.
Add a dash of wandering mind.
Sprinkle with a large helping of a story just rearing to get to the page.
Voila! You’ve got yourself not only a sizable epiphany, but also a title for the upcoming masterpiece you’re slowly pulling together during any free moment. No longer will I have to think of the work as “my untitled contemporary fantasy” or “that novel I’m working on” or “my pipe dream”. Instead I can now call it by its new title:
Through Bended Grass
Usually I leave the title of a project to the near the end, and this one could very well change over the course of the project, but something about this title stuck with me, even over the course of a couple of days. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it was the title of the novel, it just took me some time to discover it.
Those familiar with Irish/Celtic/Fey mythology – or those willing to do a little bit of research – will undoubtedly see the relevance the title right away. The rest of you, well… you’ll just have to read Through Bended Grass and find out!
So, what d’ya think?
March 9th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
It sounds literary to me. If you are writing a literary fantasy, that’s fine, of course.
Also, I know we talk of being “on bended knee” but that’s only when the person doing the action is doing the bending. For grass, should it not be “bent grass”?
March 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I like “Through Bended Grass.” As is. I think its catchy, and a touch pretentious, but i mean that only in the positive–for a title to be good it needs to be a touch pretentious, unless of course you go the other way with it. i.e. Sword of Shannara, Song of the Fell Hammer, Key to Zinoa–last one being my title.
Of course I have no idea of what the significance is, nor shall I go do research on it
guess i’ll just have to wait until we see that promised prologue before i do any figuring on it, hehe.
On a side note, I have no idea how you can wait till the end to go name shopping. There are just too many good names to chose from and too much time between starting a book and finishing it to think of them in. Perhaps its a little shameful, and definitely more than a little silly, but I have the name picked out for my one finished novel–completely stand alone–the one I am currently working on, the follow up book to it (they will be a duology), and we’ll see how actions in those lead seamlessly to my perfectly titled fourth book in the series. I also have an absolutely wonderful premise and matching title for a fifth books someday. But I would want to put that on hold for a different project rolling around my head “Deathsong of Ularainia” but if I ever get around to that one I would be, possibly, flexible on the name. I might not get around to it, I don’t know. It was largely inspired by the scorn of a break-up, and has some very cleverly hidden allusions, but alas, her and I are friends now and I no long hate her
hehe, yet one of the charactars is nearly too alive for me to abondon him, soooooo, who knows what the future holds there. See, silly. I have enough ideas and titles to carry me through the next decade, and i’m sure to come up with more in the meantime. whooooaaaa, is the plight of an aspiring author.
Okay, i’m rambling, and this is Mightier than the sword, an Aidan Moher blog, not a Sean M. B. blog.
–And my brother has villianiously lifted a line of my poetry as the tentative name for a book he is trying to complete. And i must say, i love it, but then again, thats why it starred in a poem i wrote.
But to bring this thing full-rambly-circle, I very mutch like the name Through Bended Grass. It speaks to me. (And in my humble opinion, Through Bent Grass would dull the impression.) And while i’m busy raining on Tia’s response let me say, If someone is reading the blog and hasn’t checked out her website and read the excerpt of “Forging a Legend” they should. I did and really enjoyed it.
Sean
March 11th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Thanks for the thoughts, Tia and Sean.
Tia, I thought long and hard about using “Through Bent Grass” or “Through a Bend of Grass”, but neither of them really rung true to me. The word “bended”, and you mentioned with the term “on bended knee”, is actually an archaic form of the word “bent”, essentially having the same meaning. I think this archaic version of the word fits the story better and, as Sean points out, rings a bit on the side of poetry, which has always been a style of title that I’ve been drawn to. Some of my favourite titles in recent times have been Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, Before they are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings.
Sean, I’ve always been picky with titles. It’s like naming a child to me, I’m never really sure what the name would be until I really get to know it. Through Bended Grass really jumped out at me, though, and so it’s an anomaly showing up so early in the process.
Oh, and that excerpt is coming, I promise. I’m just working on doing some editing and also setting up a simple web site for the novel where I can keep all the excerpts for easy access. Look for it in the next day or two!