Knicks

@alanr – just saw that I basically suggested the same as you!

I keep coming back to the words enmeshing/unmeshing. For me that feels really evocative of family tendrils, the way the brain works (especially in cases of forming, breaking and reforming connections). – it makes me think of a web and a net and a loosening of patterns. Don’t know how you might use it but I love that word!
Enmeshing Seven /…[Read more]

I like that way of putting it. Helpful.

I haven’t seen ‘Downsizing’ but it sounds like a film that is a bit overloaded with ideas and ends up getting lost among them.

Oh my goodness, guys, what great suggestions! I will check out those links too.

@Squidge, I’d love to take a look at your exercise if you can send it?

The focus for the book is about whether and how a family can truly reconcile after such a trauma, and what level of culpability a family must ultimately shoulder. Much time in the book is spent in…[Read more]

You talk about bonds and use the term ‘enmeshed’ so I’m going for The Untangling.

Hi Philippa,

From all the information gathered I would suggest:

– Missing You (works on several level depending on who the sentence refers to or who us doing the miss – if that makes sense)

– The Other You

– The Way Home (again can be interpreted on several levels)

– Little Girl Lost (again lost can be interpreted on several levels)

– Here…[Read more]

Hi Philippa, ‘Lost and Found?’ with or without the question mark, popped into my mind, I think because of the railway scene in your story. Perhaps if you simply included a question mark in your current title it would convey that the abduction is still haunting the family. Also, I really like Jonathan’s idea of using the number seven in the title.

I haven’t either, Sandra! Though in my writing I try to adhere to the RUE rule and thus probably don’t explain enough.

Maybe “Seven Years Gone?” Just simple and kind of … vaguely … title-ish? Or maybe just her name. Or what about those title generators or standard methods for titling a book, eg this? Or maybe something that could be a quote at the moment of change that hints at the situation: “Abby Smith Is Hiding” or something.

I like the ‘Here Ends…’, but what to say is ending.

…the Seven Years of Pain
…the Seven Years of Separation.
Why not something like Seven Years Apart or The seven years of separation. The End Begins Here…? Just playing now!

I also wonder if some of the other themes are more relevant to the title? There are an awful lot of themes going…[Read more]

Interesting one. Titles can be hard. Sometimes a really perfect one will just present itself. Other times…

I was looking, as I’m sure you have, at a thesaurus to see if it was possible to simply replace ‘abduction’. The best I could do was ‘Here Ends the Absence’, or possibly ‘Here Ends the Departure’ which I’m not sure really does it.

A few initial ideas – not sure if they are anything like suitable:

She once was lost

But now she’s found

(Been playing Amazing Grace…)

Re-filling the nest

Stolen childhood

During the abduction, she believed her family had abandoned her. Now that she has returned, she doesn’t know whom to trust, or where her “real” home is. She clings to cousin Jess, she mistrusts the adults, in the end she turns on her cousin too (bit of an all-is-lost moment there, before the end).

Yes, abducted aged 8, now 15. She grew up enmeshed with her cousin – they were like twins in a fairy-tale. She is blonde, her cousin brunette. Otherwise, an unstable childhood; her biological dad is estranged. Brought up by her step-dad since aged 4, and has twin half-brothers (now aged 7).

In my head I am wanting to focus on the seven years. Seven is a highly symbolic number. Seven year itch, seven colours of the rainbow. Seven seconds, seventh son of a seventh son. Seven deadly sins, seven horcruxes if you like Harry Potter. I think it’s the first “difficult” number for children to master in multiplication. She’s been gone seven…[Read more]

One of those moments that tend to restore your faith in human nature. And yes, very moving.

Same moment. Same reaction, Sea!

Yes, Thea – that ‘never apologise, never explain’ – I read, many years ago, that to do so was a sign of immaturity, but it’s one I haven’t always managed (not so much about my writing, I’m glad to say).