Alright, so if you haven’t been paying attention, my family collaboration Baking With Swords releases soon and the question at the tip of your brain is probably, “How much bacon is too much bacon?”
Then, after you realize you can never have too much bacon, you ask, “Where and how did they come up with a goofy title like Baking With Swords? Well, contrary to my father’s short tale about warriors returning from battle, there is a story to the process. It may not be exciting, but at times it is fascinating and maybe even a little humorous.
Since my brother, my sister, and I all contributed stories to this collection, I thought it only fair that we came up with a name together. So, the following is most of a Facebook private conversation between the three of us over a week’s time when we each tossed names out there. To be honest, these are probably only half the names we considered as I believe I had separate conversations with Paul and Betsy where I had a couple of other names tossed in as well as a public poll on potential titles. All in all, there was a moment I was about to bash my head into a wall.
In the end, I think Baking With Swords has an even more special meaning since we have a half-baked title and we each can have sharp personalities with each other as siblings. So without any further delay, here is that conversation (please note we didn’t care about grammar or punctuation in our Facebook chat):
Paul: Thinking title ideas . How about From Shadows Revealed ?
Paul: Or, Finalities
Will: I like second better. Or we could go off our relationship and call it “Sibling Rivalry”
Paul: Familial Finalities?
Will: hmmm…
Will: I would go with Finalities over that.
Betsy: Finalities? Is that because everything we’ve written ends badly? Wow we’re a morbid bunch.
Paul: That’s my thought.
Will: Not necessarily badly…but just final.
Betsy: well…it’s not exactly a good ending for my main character…Ms. Adams…
Paul: Ok. Seems obvious that title still needs some thought. If we want to consider the sibling theme here’s two: Sib Tales or Sibblettes.
Will: Family Ties?
Paul: Makes me think of Tootie and Mrs Garrett
Will: Thats the Facts of Life
Paul: Oops, sorry Alex!
Will: Family Tithe?
Paul: Tales from the Stream?
Will: Bards, fairies, and the end of everything
Paul: Hmmm
Will: You like it, dont you?
Paul: Is that too revealing for 2 of you?
Will: May want to tweak it. Not sure we want to give all that away about betsy’s. Mine would be fine. Wings?
Paul: Idk
Will: A Bard, a Pair of Wings, and Your Internet Connection. Lol
Paul: Why not just call the whole thing Instability?
Will: I like it. Lets wait for betsy to chime in.
Betsy: It’s not awesome, but I’m ok with it.
Will: Well smarty pants…come up with something better to tie together our totally unrelated stories.
Betsy: Transience. And yes, I looked up Instability in the thesaurus….
Will: Fine with me too. Or we could just go with “We Have No Idea What To Call This Book”
Betsy: That could work… We can’t call it “The Search For Spock” can we? No…probably not.
Will: “The Search for a Decent Title”… Skinny Genes… Acid-washed Genes… Sarah said she liked the title “Nerd Alert”
Betsy: “The Quest for Closure”… Bad Endings
Will: Morphin’ Time!
Betsy: YES! no. The Shaky Life of Fictional People
Betsy: I bet there are people out there whose sole job is to title books.
Will: A Requiem, A Metamorphosis, and a Coda… Insert title here…
Betsy: Isolation
Will: Ok….bringing it all back to this: how about Sibling Rivalry?
Paul: Hi. Wow. How about Three Nuts in a Jar ?
Betsy: That was your working title…I suggested it when I didn’t know it was your working title…
Will: Why dont you guys keep plugging away at your stories and keep the title in the back of your mind. I put my cover guy to work with a couple working titles and we’ll see how the mock-ups look in a few days.
Betsy: works for me.
Paul: Hey! I like 3 Nuts in a Jar!
Will: K. Thanks guys. I think this will be pretty cool. Collaborating on collections are sometimes tricky so thanks for being flexible.
Paul: How about we define our personal feelings about what goes into a title. Perhaps we find a commonality somewhere. For me, I like to find some common thread in all three stories, but I don’t care nearly so much about having a clever family reference in the title.
Will: That would be fine with me as well if there are any commonalities we can draw from. I’m ok with whatever.
Paul: However, the thought has also occurred to me that if we did find a good family-related name that it could be a name we come back to if this kind of thing turned into a series – (no promises.)
Will: Sibling Rivalry 3: Revenge of the Sis
Will: Wait for it…. Baking with Swords
Paul: Makes a good cover picture
Will: It could at that
Will Swardstrom Author 