Book title poll
Just a quick post + A Minecraft stream!
Hi everyone
As you probably know by now, I’ve decided to split my upcoming novel THE STEPHANIE GLITCH into seven novellas. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple: Each macrochapter in the book ends when Stephanie ascends from one reality to another, in the same way you might enter a new level in a video game. These new universes have new characters, new locations, and even new physics.
So the splits are not arbitrary, they are built into the story.
The book began as a novel in 2016, but it never felt quite right to launch it as one. My plan is to have 7 eBooks, and one final, big hardback book at the end.
The original draft of TSG in 2016 was about 96,000 words long. That grew to 160,000 words, and during this recent rewrite feels like it might land at the 110,000 mark. The first novella is about 24,000 words, and is currently going through its final round of editing before a Winter 2023 release.
Genre
It is not LitRPG, but some might argue it has some loose connections, owing to the fact Stephanie reasons her reality is not merely simulated, but a video game for a higher consciousness outside her universe. She also uses the logic of gamification when she encounters the Virtualist religion. You may recognise Virtualism from WHO BUILT THE HUMANS?, it’s the religion about simulation theory that Lax Morales - a fan favourite character - invented, sparking his meteoric rise to fame.
There are some connections between the Furukawa universe (Lax’s universe in WBTH, and the universe in which Earthloop takes place) and Stephanie’s universe. Whilst every story is a standalone, I am telling a bigger story between them. So Virtualism shows up in Steph’s cosmos as well. I won’t spoil how.
Atmosphere
I can’t (or won’t) separate my sense of humour from my writing. As well as setting me apart as a comedy poet on the open mics, some freak hybrid of comedian and poet, it helps me to bring the macro down to the micro level. I can tell these huge stories about simulation theory, about astronauts stranded on a hunt for a new planet Earth, about time-travelling cyborgs, and I can tell them with an inherent sense of humour that makes them all the more real.
Because if you were stuck in a starship, and your resident AI told you she was pulling a U-Turn to avoid soiling a new civilisation with human mess, you might have some dark jokes about it too.
The Stephanie Glitch is ultimately a novel about parallel self discovery, that tagline is a punchline in and of itself, and Stephanie is our sarcastic psychic protagonist who goes about arguing with godbots and insulting the laws of physics themselves. Not that they can answer back, but she does it anyway.
So I think this book is psy-fi, an existentialist adventure into simulation theory and the connotations of discovering parallel universes. It is emotional at times, Stephanie goes through periods of isolation and intense battles with the universes she inhabits. But at the end of it all it’s an adventure story.
The first novella ends with… well, you might be able to guess from these titles.
Pick your favourite.
I’m settled on KILLING STEPHANIE, because it’s emotive, gripping, and dark. But you might have other ideas, so I wanted to see how well what I like aligns with what my readers like. If lots of people vote for something else, for example, it might show me that my artsy brain is not always the best at marketing. Because a book title is the first impression the book gives you, it needs to work.
Who Built The Humans? for example, was titled such because the book has several answers to that question, each weirder than the last. And I wanted it to sound like a weird PHD thesis, more than a novel. I know that probably dented my marketing but, the title was honest. It’s a weird book for weird people.
Anyway, please do pick a title for the first Stephanie novella.
And if you like, you can explain your choice below. I’ll respond to every comment.
STREAMING
Whilst I am an author and comedy writer, I’m also a content creator.
I’m going to be playing Minecraft live in about ten minutes. If you miss it, don’t worry, because old broadcasts stay up for a week before dissolving into the ether.
Love your idea of splitting into novellas and publishing a special hardback collection!
Killing A Universe works best for me. No point having Stephanie in the subtitle if it is in the title (especially if a reader doesnt know who that is to begin). Killling A Universe is superior to the "THE" option since it subtly implies a multiverse, and makes the reader pause for a moment realising that fact.