Upcoming Joshilyn Jackson Novel Takes Next Step Forward
Al Such / WABE
For more than a year, novelist Joshilyn Jackson has been keeping listeners up to date on the progress of her upcoming novel. After sending her manuscript to her publisher in July, Jackson has reached another milestone – giving the novel an official title.
On this edition of “Writer To Reader” Jackson explained the process of giving up the working title of the novel.
“In my head, this book has been ‘Origin Story,’ well, from its origin,” she said.
It was based on the Rachel and Leah story in the book of Genesis, a word that means origin. Another connection stemmed from the novel’s main character, who is a comic book artist. “Origin story” is a term often used in comic books to describe how a character came to be as they are now.
Jackson explained that, while the title made a lot of sense to her, her publisher said it only worked if you’d already read the book.
Despite finding it difficult to let “Origin Story” go, Jackson came up with three titles for readers to chose from. She created two surveys, one anonymously and one on her Facebook page, and asked respondents to pick between “Birchville in Black and White,” “The Second South,” and “The Almost Sisters” for the new title. Both surveys had the same results. “The Almost Sisters” won.
With the new title picked, Jackson has moved on to the next step for the novel.
“Now I’m in copy edits, which means going through ‘The Almost Sisters’ sentence by sentence, word by word with a lid nailed down over the creative eye,” she said.
This, in addition to the title change, Jackson said, will make it even easier to finally let the book go.
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