You can look at Fahrenheit 451, with “It was a pleasure to burn,” or Stephen King’s first book in The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger, which begins, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” This line, the first line, should set the tone, hint at the internal and external conflicts, and help to create a sense of urgency and stakes. This is where most people think the story or novel starts. It’s the very first thing people read-so have fun with it, be clever, and see where it might go. It’s the tip of the spear, shoved into the tip of the iceberg. So you can see how the title is supposed to hint at what’s coming without giving it all away. “In His House” is a direct reference to a Lovecraftian phrase, “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” Hiraeth means “a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which never was the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.” Quite a lot, right? Of course, if people don’t look these words up or don’t know what they mean, I guess that I do lose out. I also went through a phase where I had several titles that came from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows-“Hiraeth,” “Nodus Tollens,” and “Saudade.” I don’t know if people went and looked these words up, but if they did, they definitely got a bit more information about what was coming. Maya Angelou’s autobiography was called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which may have been part of the inspiration for this title. “The Caged Bird Sings in a Darkness of Its Own Creation”-this story is so weird, but I like the idea of a creature building its own prison, a cage made out of darkness, so this really sets the tone early. Spontaneous Human Combustion-the tricky part here is that I’m not so much talking about the combustion part, the fire, but the human combustion, what it means to be less (or more) than human, what happens when we lose our humanity.Īnd as far as my short story titles, what are some of my favorites? I have a few:.Staring Into the Abyss-part of a Nietzsche quote, which talks about how you shouldn’t battle with monsters, “lest ye become a monster, for when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.” This hints at the themes of this collection really well, I think.Herniated Roots-this comes from a title of one of the stories in the collection, and it’s a compelling visual, IMO.
#Nodus tollens meaning serial
Is a serial killer born or made? That’s the question I’m asking.
How do you do that? It starts with the title, and then expands to the first line, the first paragraph, the first page, the first scene, and the first chapter (if writing a novel).
In order to engage the reader you need to hook them not just once, but as many times as you can, so there is no way they can escape. If you think the only hook to your story or novel is the first line, then boy do I have some news for you.
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