MUSKOKA’S MAIN STREET: The Subtitle

ByLee Ann

Subtitles for non-fiction books generally follow a formula: Title (usually in the form of a clever phrase or ‘hook’), then a colon, then the Subtitle (which usually explains what the book is about.) Here are two examples:

  • Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada by Donica Belisle, and
  • Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land: English Canadian Children and the First World War by Susan R. Fisher

It takes some time and effort to find a title that really nails the essence of a book and also helps it appeal to as wide a readership as possible. My very first draft of this was Muskoka’s Main Street: The Muskoka Colonization Road. Although we were both happy  with the title, my publisher and I wanted to expand the subtitle to include several key elements about the road, and also to draw in readers beyond the boundaries of Muskoka. So the subtitle evolved to “150 Years of Life Along an Ontario Colonization Road.”

I still wasn’t sure it captured enough essential elements of the book. So I turned to my trusted writers, Lynn and Jen, and we conducted a brainstorm session via email. (My facilitator friends will be interested to know this process worked fine, although without the same energy level as a live brainstorming session.)

The measure of a successful brainstorm is not the quality but the quantity of the ideas. No idea is “bad”‘; they all contribute to getting to a solution. Every suggestion sparks something else.

I started the ball rolling with several options, they responded with new suggestions, with combining some options, and suggesting elements they felt were essential, like including the phrase “Muskoka Colonization Road.” Over the course of two days, we played with about 20 different options, variations and permutations, until one emerged that met the criteria and satisfied all of us.

You may or may not agree with the final choice – and it may change again before final printing – but here is a peek at some of the ideas we went through to decide on a subtitle.

  • Courage and Adventure on the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • Free Land and  Heartache on the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • Personalities and Perils on the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • The Story of the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • Stories of Courage and Adventure on the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • An Ontario Colonization Roads Success Story
  • How a Pioneer Road Carved the Canadian Shield and Opened Up Ontario’s Cottage Country
  • 150 Years of History and Adventure on the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • The Surveyors, Settlers and Entrepreneurs Who Built the Muskoka Colonization Road
  • The Surveyors, Settlers and Entrepreneurs Who Carved a Road Through the Canadian Shield
  • The Surveyors, Settlers and Entrepreneurs Who Carved a Community in the Canadian Shield
  • The Surveyors, Settlers and Entrepreneurs Who Opened Up  Ontario’s Cottage Country
  • The Adventure Story of One Ontario Colonization Road
  • What it Took To Open up Ontario One Colonization Road at a Time

See how the process works? And how we built on ideas? And all the elements we were trying to include?

The final choice is this: Muskoka’s Main Street: 150 Years of Courage and Adventure Along the Muskoka Colonization Road. It captures the history, the name of the road and two key human elements – courage and adventure – at the heart of the book.

 What do you think?

REVISING THE MANUSCRIPT, PART 4: Surgical Removal of Darlings

ByLee Ann

“Kill all your darlings” is a piece of writing advice that is attributed to a couple of sources. American writer William Faulkner is most often credited, but he apparently paraphrased British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s recommendation to “murder your darlings”. In any case, the advice is to delete anything you write that you particularly like, the logic being that if you like is so much you obviously are not being objective and therefore it must not be as good as you think. So cut it.

I’ve never liked this idea. I prefer the following formula: Draft 2 = Draft 1 – 10%. I believe any piece of writing can be culled by 10% and will be better for it. To me, using the formula allows for a more judicious pruning, not just a brute chopping of anything I think is particularly well written.

Before I finished my research for Muskoka’s Main Street, I still believed what many sources told me: that the road ended up in North Bay. During the time I was hunting down the truth about that, I did quite a bit of research on North Bay and learned some really interesting things about it. None of which is particularly relevant to my story, now that I know the road went nowhere near North Bay. But I like what I wrote, so I’ve kept it in. Until today, when I took out my literary surgical instruments.

So here are 344 words about the origins of NorthBay, which you will not be reading in Muskoka’s Main Street.

Sorry, darlings.

REVISING THE MANUSCRIPT PART 3: Stuffing a Rag Doll

ByLee Ann

I never had a rag doll when I was a little girl; mine was the era of plastic Barbie and Ken. I’ve been thinking, though, that this round of editing is very much like stuffing a rag doll – say, one that is well-loved but getting a bit flabby.

I’m slicing into the manuscript and adding more detail in various parts. Some are at the heart of the story (road elevations, expanded detail about some of the settlements along the way) and some provide additional supporting information (steamboat lines).

Slice, open, stuff, close. My rag doll of a manuscript is fuller now, although maybe a little lumpy. “Editing Part 4” will involve a general review, to make sure the extra padding is all smoothed out and has resulted in a plumped-up, complete story.

Hmmm. Maybe this isn’t like a rag doll after all. Maybe it’s more like Botox Barbie!

REVISING THE MANUSCRIPT, Part 2

ByLee Ann

This is what revision looks like. It’s messy and it takes up a lot of room on my dining room table. Spread out over the work area you can see:

  • Five manuscript critiques, each one giving me suggestions for change, questions to clarify, corrections and more detail.
  • Maps, to help orient myself and provide accurate descriptions to my readers
  • Laptop for Internet access, to find yet more information in answer to the questions.

This is the Big Review. It resulted in a manuscript about 12,000 words longer than the first draft. You can see the new total in the word counter at the right-hand side of the blog.

I now move on to Final Review. This involves one more read-through of the entire manuscript. My cartographer Gary, who has been drawing the custom maps for the book, has double and triple-checked the route of the Muskoka Road using all his resources: topographical maps, aerial maps, Google maps. Rewrites will result! I’ll also be adding more detail about things like the Canadian Shield in Muskoka (almost a character in its own right), steamships, and the villages at the north end of the Muskoka Road. I’ll be double and triple-checking all the distances and dates I’ve cited in the book, and reviewing my  files to make sure I’ve included everything I have learned over the past year and a half of research.

At this stage as well, I’m putting together what is known as the “front matter” and “back matter” of the book: the preface, acknowledgements, dedication, bibliography.

And yes, there are still a few key illustrations I need to track down.

Am I sick of revision? No – and good thing too. Once it’s submitted to the publisher, the first thing that happens is a whole new round of editing.

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

ByLee Ann

I have over 70 photographs in my book plus six historical maps and 13 custom maps. For every illustration except the custom maps, I have to:

  • Find the source of the picture or map. Is it in a book? At the Archives of Ontario in Toronto? At Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa? In a library? At a museum? In a private collection? In my camera?
  • Find out if the picture or map is under copyright or in the public domain.
  • If it’s under copyright, find out who owns the copyright. Ask permission to reprint.
  • Regardless of whether the illustration is under copyright or in the public domain, note the proper way to reference the source – each organization or person requires something specific for this. Here’s an example from Archives of Ontario: RG15-13-3 Barcode F000932, File item RG-15-13-3-0-294-1.
  • Get an electronic copy of the picture in .tiff format, at least 300 dpi resolution for printing.
  • Store the picture in the proper folder on my computer, corresponding to the chapter it will appear in.
  • Write a caption for the picture and store it in a separate file, with a name corresponding to that of the illustration so they can be matched up later by the publisher. Include the proper source reference.
  • Keep track in a separate chart: the name of the illustration, the source, whether I have it or I am still chasing after it, whether I have permission to reprint in writing, and from whom.

70 photographs. Six historical maps. All form part of the submission to the publisher.

I feel like a new homeowner with a piece of furniture from Ikea and only an Allen key to help me.

RESEARCH A.K.A. DIGGING FOR BURIED TRUTH

ByLee Ann

Everything I’ve ever read about the Muskoka Road says that it got to North Bay in 1884. This information bothered me for two reasons. One, I couldn’t find the primary source to confirm it – a survey or newspaper report, or a map showing the route in 1884. Two, all the research I was doing about the North Bay area at that time – and about the towns to the south of North Bay that the road apparently went through on its way, towns like Powassan, South River, Trout Creek – said that these towns sprang up around railway depots, not a road.

But all these articles said the road got to North Bay in 1884.

You can guess where this is leading. I recently found the primary source material: annual reports from the Superintendent of Colonization Roads. I read them from 1880 to 1913. And the road went nowhere near North Bay. It terminated in Nipissing Village in 1898.

Who knew I was writing an exposé?

And what about these other articles? Where did this myth of North Bay in 1884 come from?

Here’s my theory. The accepted story of the Muskoka Road includes its evolution into the Ferguson Highway, which ran from Temagami to North Bay in 1927, and was quickly extended southward to encompass the supposed route of the Muskoka Road. I now know that the Ferguson between North Bay and roughly Sundridge encompassed trunk roads built by the government around 1900, not the Muskoka Road. This seems to have been forgotten over time. And as the Ferguson in turn evolved into today’s Highway 11, the details of the origin of the highway became less important and the misinformation kept getting repeated in later reports.

I am very glad that I dug deeper and did not continue to perpetrate the myth. Stay tuned for the next episode of CSI Muskoka!