Epigraphs

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Does Age Matter?

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Paul Whybrow

Full Member
Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
An epigraph is a quotation, phrase or poem placed at the beginning of a book. They can also be used at the start of new sections or even chapters.

I like them, as they indicate the intent of an author in creating a story, offering a hint of the mindset they had and acting as a mood setter for what's about to come.

It's tough to resist the temptation of a bite-sized quote set in speech marks—the fridge magnet industry thrives on them! I've collected pithy words of wisdom for the last 30 years and have several folders, that would make a thought-provoking collection in book form if I ever had the patience to collate them.

I've used an epigraph at the start of all of my books. My WIP, Who Kills A Nudist? has a theme of how fragile we are physically and spiritually, and how that is taken advantage of by manipulative men. I chose a quote by Jeremy Taylor, a 17th-century English clergyman, who wrote a devotional manual called Holy Living and Holy Dying, in which he observed:

Man is a bubble, and all the world is a storm.

The first novel I wrote The Perfect Murderer featured a serial killer, whose bloody activities were used by a member of the establishment to cloak his own return to murder. He'd killed a dangerous criminal a year for 40 years, without being suspected. I chose a poem by Leonard Cohen as the epigraph:

The Reason I Write

The reason I write
is to make something
as beautiful as you are

When I'm with you
I want to be the kind of hero
I wanted to be
when I was seven years old
a perfect man

who kills

Have any other members of the Colony used epigraphs in their books?
 
No, because, personally, I skip them almost every time they're in a book I'm reading. I want to get to the story faster, not read something that might hint at what's coming.

EDIT: I should clarify. I thought you were talking about at all of the chapters. *Those* I don't read. Ones at the beginning of books I do and am considering doing one for my next book.
 
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Yes, in 'Susan's Brother', a true story about a boy who suffered emotional neglect and overcame it.

“Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull.

Native American sayings are a rich source for epigraphs. I've saved several, including this one from the Tlingit tribe, which would be ideal for a novel that has a protagonist suffering from depression:

My own mind is very hard to me.
It is just as if I were carrying my mind around.
What is the matter with you?
 
I have a love-hate relationship with them. When they are used well, in the right book, they're great. When they're not...I'm like Nicole--I don't read them. That said, I've never not bought or read a book because they used epitaphs. They're easy for readers to skip if they don't like them.
 
I have - the moving hand quote from The Rubaiyat on book three of the trilogy. It's in the e-book but somehow fell through the cracks on the hard copy.
I love the Rubaiyat. Once upon a time, if you poked me with a sharp stick I could quote almost the entirety of it.
 
An epigraph is a quotation, phrase or poem placed at the beginning of a book. They can also be used at the start of new sections or even chapters.

I like them, as they indicate the intent of an author in creating a story, offering a hint of the mindset they had and acting as a mood setter for what's about to come.

It's tough to resist the temptation of a bite-sized quote set in speech marks—the fridge magnet industry thrives on them! I've collected pithy words of wisdom for the last 30 years and have several folders, that would make a thought-provoking collection in book form if I ever had the patience to collate them.

I've used an epigraph at the start of all of my books. My WIP, Who Kills A Nudist? has a theme of how fragile we are physically and spiritually, and how that is taken advantage of by manipulative men. I chose a quote by Jeremy Taylor, a 17th-century English clergyman, who wrote a devotional manual called Holy Living and Holy Dying, in which he observed:

Man is a bubble, and all the world is a storm.

The first novel I wrote The Perfect Murderer featured a serial killer, whose bloody activities were used by a member of the establishment to cloak his own return to murder. He'd killed a dangerous criminal a year for 40 years, without being suspected. I chose a poem by Leonard Cohen as the epigraph:

The Reason I Write

The reason I write
is to make something
as beautiful as you are

When I'm with you
I want to be the kind of hero
I wanted to be
when I was seven years old
a perfect man

who kills

Have any other members of the Colony used epigraphs in their books?
Epigraphs are fantastic. I'd use them on each page if I thought I could get away with it.
 
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J

Does Age Matter?

Fanfare! WIP Finished

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