A Heart Beyond ~ What's in a name?

Or what's in the meaning, the theme, the story that creates and supports the book title?

Authors will often have working titles as they write a new novel. At some level, the working title aligns with how they see the book story. For writers who don't plot, but simply follow the story to see where it leads, sometimes the first working title will need to change to work better with the story as it changes and grows. In fact, publishers will usually have a better, more marketable idea of what makes a worthy title and the author's idea of a title will not survive. In my case, however, for A Heart Beyond, the title was solely my choice. And that said, the working title throughout the months of writing the story stayed the same: A Narrow House.

While I loved the title, A Narrow House, I didn't feel that a potential reader (and most of mine are women's fiction fans) would find it appealing. I wouldn't. For instance, in my opinion, A Narrow House was too non-genre specific and might confuse readers seeking a new story in my genre. So, as I was finishing the story, I changed the title.

It wasn't easy. I struggled with so many options, always loving my first "love" - A Narrow House - best. When I hit on A Heart Beyond, I knew it was right. But I didn't know why. It FELT right. But I didn't understand the connection between the two. And so I brainstormed. What did it mean to me? How did the new title connect to what the working title had meant to me, and how did that conjunction find life in the story itself?

Let me state clearly, I am no poet. While I love the words, the rhythm, the visual and musical lyricism of poetry, the mechanics of it confuse me. Much like Algebra confused me. Or where to place commas confuses me daily. Let's just call my effort at poetry to be something more like blank verse. Will that work? So the verses popped into my head as if they'd always been there lurking, waiting for the unfinished book to be ready for a REAL title page, and then they slipped gently, yet boldly, into existence like a new word creature stepping on scene for the first time. I did have to do some tweaking, but the verses connected the two titles in my brain. MY understanding of the story I was writing became so much clearer and deeper. So, not out of hubris, but rather to honor that working title AND the finished title, I decided to include it in the front matter of A Heart Beyond, thus I'm doing something in this post that I never do - share my version of poetry - and you'll notice both titles have a place here in these verses, co-equal and indivisible.

Verses composed by Grace Greene for A Heart Beyond, July 2024

My heart within

These walls,

This narrow house

A haven found,

This home

That kept me safe

And hid me well

No longer fits.

This narrow house,

These walls,

I love them yet