Title Meanings, Secret and Otherwise

Day Three of NaNoWriMo was a bit more challenging, juggling work with fun writing, but I got my words done.

True perverse fact about me: Occasionally readers will ask me about the inspiration and/or meanings behind my titles. Most of the time I'll say it came to me spontaneously, or it seemed like the right title for the story, etc. That's not really the truth. I have mentioned that I often run to poetry to find titles, which is true. I'll also coin words or borrow from archaic language to make titles. But more often than not my titles have multiple meanings, and include something very personal. Generally I think about them a lot before I commit.

On the surface, Twenty-One seems straightforward. Including Nex there are twenty survivors from the crash of the Arwe (since he died after the crash we're not counting Koro). Navara makes twenty-one -- or Koro does, if you just want to count bodies. I like the ambiguity of who actually is the 21st survivor.

But there's more: in total I wrote twenty stories set in the StarDoc universe: thirteen novels and seven shorter stories (note: I did not publish or self-publish everything I wrote in this universe; there were a couple I held back for various reasons.) Therefore Twenty-One is the twenty-first StarDoc story -- which is why I made sure the survivors numbered the same.

Then there is the number 21 itself. That has a significant personal meaning for me, but I'll never explain what it is to anyone. That's between me and the story.

You don't have to invest titles with triple-layered meaning, of course, but it can be fun to choose words or phrases that have a connection to something that matters to you.