Thursday, November 10, 2011

First Step in the Proposal: The Title

I write to learn. Which is kind of weird because you'd think that writers write in order to entertain or to teach others, but not me. I look at a subject and go "Gee, I don't know anything about this. Maybe I should write about it!" The process of writing then leads me through the learning process. (Which is why I am blogging my journey to learning about the proposal.) In writing my memoir about my possession and deliverance (that's right I said possession) I wrote in order to learn about me--what exactly happened to me? (How did I get so mixed-up spiritually and how exactly did I then become so normal?)

Writing the MotherHeart was no different. After I became a Christian (which happened during my deliverance) I then read the Bible and while reading I noticed something interesting there about the Holy Spirit. After this I had a spiritual experience which then led me to question if the Holy Spirit really did have a feminine personality--from here I went "Gee, I don't know anything about the femininity of the Spirit--maybe I should write about it and learn!" So there, I write to learn. Which brings me to the process of how to write a great proposal.

I've made the decision not to send out another query until I know my proposal is absolutely perfect. This means of course re-working my proposal so it conforms to my mentors' guidelines (sounds like work ugghh). Obviously, my first step is the title.
The Title, agent M says in How to Write a Book Proposal, "should appeal to the heart as well as to the head." Therefore, we must provoke an emotional response with the title and an informative response with the subtitle (maybe not for fiction). M says our titles must "tell and sell." Titles should be:
* clear;
* concise;
* compelling;
 * commercial (as the subject allows).
M has a whole chapter on titles (so go buy the book). I will cover a few points using my manuscripts as examples.

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