Your enthusiastic response to my outreach for help naming my forthcoming novel delighted me and left me more confused than ever! I especially appreciated the comments explaining why one title beat out another in choosing the winning title in my Help Name My Novel Contest.
The vote:
52% for The Boy with a Magic Touch
48% Parallel Lives
Based on those percentages, one would assume that The Boy with the Magic Touch is the winning title.
Yet, after reading the comments and gaining a terrific insight into how potential readers may interpret or glean a sense of what the novel is about based on the title alone, I’m not so sure that The Boy with the Magic Touch is the right title for my new novel. Read the small sampling of comments below and see what you think.
For a Sense of What Writers and Readers Had to Say about the 2 Titles Choices
1) The Boy With the Magic Touch: A Love Story
Cinda: The Boy With the Magic Touch: A Love Story makes me more curious than “Parallel Lives.”
Susan: The Boy with the Magic Touch definitely intrigues me pick it up off the shelf to see what it was about.
Susanne: Both are good titles, but The Boy With the Magic Touch tells me the protagonist has a special gift, and I’m wondering what that gift is!
Laurie: The Boy With the Magic Touch. There is more mystery in the title than the other. I love mystery.
Cherilyn: The Boy with the Magic Touch provides human images which draws us in while Parallel Lives sounds like Parallel Lines and seems very logic and left brained like a non-fiction book. Totally go with the first!
Anna: Parallel Lives is an abstraction. Yawn. The Boy with the Magic Touch is concrete. Interesting! Intriguing? What boy? Why only a boy? What magic? What kind of magic can this mere boy do (distinct from what Harry P. can do, puh-leeze). With what effects and complications? I want to read this book and find out. Title gets my vote.
Sarah: I think it’s best to go with the title that’s the most intriguing right off the bat. The Boy with the Magic Touch piques my interest and immediately brings questions to mind — who’s the boy? What kind of magic? Is it fantasy magic, or the kind of everyday magic we all experience? How does this boy play into the love story?
2) Parallel Lives
Krisan: Parallel Lives holds more interest for me, although it does depend on your target audience. The other title sounds great for a YA audience (Harry Potterish). Best wishes to you.
Shannon: I love Parallel Lives for an older audience. The Boy with the Magic Touch if it’s MG or Children’s.
Alexis: Parallel Lives seems to draw me the most and makes me curious.
Janet: I like Parallel Lives. The Magical Boy sounds aimed at a younger audience and possibly fantasy or magical realism. I shy away from all those. Parallel Lives makes me think, Will they get together or won’t they?
Elizabeth: Without hesitation Parallel Lives: A Love Story ‘got me’.
Conclusion
Elaine wrote that she personally “prefers The Boy with the Magic Touch, though if this is an adult romance, that title probably won’t draw your intended readers as well as the other choice.”
Though I personally prefer The Boy with the Magic Touch for the very reasons Cherilyn mentions and I love the positive reactions I received about that title, this novel is in no way intended for young adult or middle grade readers. That leads me to believe that Parallel Lives is the better choice in this very close contest.
Anna commented that “love stories litter the landscape (not the most felicitous subtitle)” and several others recommended nixing “A Love Story” too. I agree.
So, as things stand now, the title of my forthcoming novel is — tata!
PARALLEL LIVES: A NOVEL
Messages are going out in the next couple of days to the winners of the contest. If you did not win and are interested in a free copy of Writing Blockbuster Plots, please sign-up for the Goodreads giveaway here.
Thank you for voting and for your messages and thoughtfulness and encouragement and love!
Writing Blockbuster Plots Goodreads Giveaway
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