The boys are asleep in a cave near the trestle when a cougar appears at the mouth of the cave and then disappears “into the night woods.”

I’ve always looked for lyrical phrases like that. My mentor, Lee K. Abbott, was phenomenal at choosing titles. He taught me that you shouldn’t start a title with “A” or “The” if you can avoid it, and that the best ones often come straight from the story’s imagery.

So that’s where Into the Night Woods came from.

You want a title that’s lyrical without being overdone. My current novel might be called Still So Beautiful. It may sound sappy at first, but in context, it’s not. The line comes from a character who has terminal cancer. She’s speaking to her adoptive father and says, “As bad as life can be, it’s still so beautiful.”