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The End. Just finished the first draft of my novel. ~118000 words. Ran a little long, but I'm sure I'll lose some of that in the editing stage. Which I will soon commence. Right now I'm going to take a short break and celebrate. I have only one major hurdle remaining (besides publishing that is). I have yet to come up with a satisfying title. Maybe someone here can help with that part.
Premise of the book: The flood. Noah's sons are born into a family where completing the great ship while reaching out to a dying, degenerate world are the foremost priorities. They are also told they must find wives. But where, when all the world seems corrupt? Of all his sons, Noah has been told by God that Shem is special, that his bloodline must survive. There is tension within the family and from without, threatening to tear them apart. Satan is using anything he can to try to destroy God's remnant; a vengeful neighbor, ruthless city officials, the demon spawn Nephilim, and if he can, even one another.
I want to incorporate the word 'grace' into the title somehow. The book has a quasi-fantasy feel. The scripture in Genesis, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." is the keystone verse. By the end of the book various characters have all come to realize the different ways in which God has shown them grace. My tentative title is 'The Grace Finders'. I have also come up with these:
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I really like "Fall to Grace". It conveys the idea that the story takes place during the time period between man's fall and the time that Noah found grace. But how are the main characters themselves falling into grace, as this title also suggests?
"A Fall to Grace" is also very good. But the added 'A' seems to weaken the association of 'Fall' with the fall of man.
Just not sure. There is also the problem of conveying the central event 'the flood'. Should this be incorporated into the title? "A Flood of Grace" maybe.
I don't know. I'm kind of leaning toward "Fall to Grace". I'm curious to know what you guys think:
Fall to Grace A Fall to Grace A Flood of Grace or something different?
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I'm interested in these demon spawn. How is that working? I only recently became aware of that interpretation of "sons of God" through the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Until you mentioned wanting grace in the title, I had the humrous thought of 'Finding Wives'. I realize that isn't the tone you're going for, though.
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franc li, there are two interpretations of that scripture. a lot of people take the more conservative interpretation, but for my work i chose the more controversial one, mainly because it is more interesting. Wikipedia says it better than I can. Just look up Nephilim.
In defense of my choice the Hebrew term translated sons of God is Beniah Elohim, and every time it is used in the OT it is in reference to fallen angels.
Also, my book has dinosaurs (pre-flood), the Behemoth and Leviathan, which are both mentioned in the Old Testament. Very different world than ours.
The Apocryphal book of Enoch is also a good study for antedeluvian life.
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I guess my foremost objection to that interpretation is unique to "Mormonism" which is that non-fallen creatures cannot procreate (including Adam and Eve before the fall). So if the Sons of God were not mortal, it would not according to our scripture be possible for them to father children. We also do not recognize a species of angel that is not a human spirit, though angels can have bodies if they are resurrected humans or "translated" humans, which are humans who are somewhere between mortality and resurrection. (Most notable John the Beloved, Moses, the "3 Nephites" and possibly Alma the younger.) But details on them are vague and the possibility of them having seed is not ever broached in scripture.
The meaning of the Sons of God in Job was, in my discussions with the Jehovah's Witnesses, ambiguous. It rested on a chain of assumptions that traveled through Revelation and Peter and back to Genesis.
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Well, Crotalus, you might stretch into your characters falling into grace, by thinking, they didn't struggle upward to it, they sort of fell into it by no particular planning of their own. (If that's a reasonable way of looking at it.)
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What about some other boat terms? Like "Embarking on Grace". Are you taking the tack that the flood was an act of grace or that Noah's willingness to follow God's will was grace? The former statement is another Mormon teaching that depends on the idea that our spirits exist before mortality and so sending them into a world full of violence was a bad enough prospect to justify the premature demise of the population already on the earth.
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Will, that's very good in that it fits with what I've already written. While my characters are for the most part proactive, they are also woefully human. They stumble along like we all do.
Reason i like your title. We all hear about falling From grace, but seldom about falling To it. I'm going with your suggestion, and if i ever need another title i'm asking you first. Thanks!
A signed copy to you free if this ever gets published!
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Good work! But don't be too optimistic about losing words on the rewrite. My rule of thumb is rewriting seems to add about 30% to my stories.
One bit of advice is to go through the whole thing using the 'find' function addressing commonly used words like 'that', 'the', 'and' et cetera. It is really funny how often filler words aren't needed and compound sentences can be trimmed.
When rewriting it helps to look at places where you got action out of order. It is easy to miss places where you've interpolated two sets of action which should have been done sequentially.
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Hey Crotalus, I just wrote a short story about a nephilim. Keep Drivin' and posted it on F&F.
I can't help with the title. Reminds me of Will and Grace.
I think the idea of alluding to grace is good because it talks about Noah finding grace in Gods eyes, but also Shem finding grace in Noah's eyes whih is the conflict.
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Thanks all for suggestions and comments. And Will, my wife liked dakota's suggestion. Since women make up about 70% of the readers for Christian fiction I may go with GUTW. Don't know yet. I also thought of another myself 'The Depths of Grace' or maybe just 'Depths of Grace'. And I must admit 'Ham's Sandwich' also has a very nice ring to it. What to do, what to do.
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