How we title our work often pertains to our story’s theme. The working title for my memoir What Lies Within was Silver Lining for nine years. Shortly before publication, the movie Silver Linings Playbook premiered. My book dealt with my early life and focused on adoption, abandonment, love, loss, and resilience. Silver Linings Playbook depicted mental illness, loss, and love. The film and my story differed greatly, and I did not want the works confused.
I began to brainstorm new titles. After several weeks and much input from colleagues, I settled on What Lies Within, based on the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” because it conveyed my theme.
I recently completed The Spirit of Villarosa: A Father’s Extraordinary Adventures; A Son’s Challenge, as a coauthor. When I began working on that project in 2003, my coauthor Marc Ashton wanted to name the book Before I Forget. The title referred to the many stories told by his father, Horace Dade Ashton, throughout his lifetime.
After many iterations of the manuscript, we decided the book required a name that depicted Horace’s character and fascinating life. He was a spiritual man who believed his guardian angel would always protect him “even at the hour of his birth in an open sailboat in the middle of the Potomac River.” Horace was also a renowned photographer, avid explorer, scientist, artist, horticulturalist, and student of world religions, who survived many perilous situations. Villarosa was the family home he and his son Marc built outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which some believe Horace’s spirit pervaded.
Shortly before our book debuted, a book titled Before I Forget was published. The story deals with Alzheimer’s disease. After seeing its advertisement in the newspaper, I’m glad we changed our title.
What’s in a name? Plenty, especially when it captures the essence of the tale.