Revisions and Titles and Contests, Oh My!

by Joyce

I'm about halfway through my revisions and I'm pleasantly surprised that this manuscript is actually in pretty good shape. It seems like I've been working on it forever. I tend to edit and revise as I go along, so maybe that's why.

I have a couple of chapters that I'm going to switch. I think they would work better if the second one comes first. I've done that with scenes, but never with an entire chapter, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

I have one scene that I really like where my protagonist is out with the hunky new guy, but it may have to go unless I can squeeze some little plot tidbit into it. The scene is basically these characters getting to know each other a little but I think it needs more. If anyone has a suggestion, let me know. Even if I don't come up with anything, I might leave it in for now and see what my beta readers think (ahem. Annette).

I also had to add a few clues to the early chapters because when I wrote them I had no idea who the murderer was. And I definitely need to flesh out the climax and the denouement because I kind of rushed through them because I wanted to get the f***ing book finished.

Which leads me to another dilemma--I don't have a title. Although Annette has suggested several times that I keep calling it The F***ing Book, something tells me it might give people the wrong idea. I thought for sure that a title would come to me by the time I wrote The End, but it didn't. So here's where I ask for help.

I'd like to run a little contest. I'm going to give a prize to whoever comes up with the best title for the book. Since I don't have anything to give away, I thought of a prize that won't cost me a dime: I'll name a character in my next book after the winner. You can have your pick whether it will be a good guy, a villain, a farm animal, whatever.

Here's what my current book is about:

Irma Jean Bennett, secretary for the tiny Spite, West Virginia police department knows it's not her day when the chief drops dead in her office. Her efforts to find out who poisoned him are hindered by the mayor who wants to keep the murder under wraps because he's afraid of scaring off the non-existent tourists, the new acting chief who happens to be her ex-husband, her pink Cadillac-driving mother hiding out from her fifth husband, and the hunky guy renovating the downtown hotel. When one of her suspects ends up dead and Irma Jean is fired for breaking into a tool shed, she knows she's on her own.

And that's all I got. I'm still working on the blurb. I haven't figured out how to end it yet. That's harder to write than the f***ing book.

Anyway, thanks for your help!