Writing Dedications

Edward Docx on writing the toughest part of a novel: The Dedication.

[. . .] To whom, then? And how do you say it? It’s an almost impossible choice for, aside from the chosen one, every person you hold dear is going to be disappointed. Put it another way: writing a dedication to a novel is a bit like composing an email to your closest friends and family, explaining that you don’t like them as much as you have been pretending, hitting “send all” and cc-ing the rest of the world. Where to start? [. . .]

The piece lists quite a few dedications but strangely omits the Wodehouse classic from The Heart of a Goof:

To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.

And it makes no mention of this singular dedication by Tom Holt to his mother from Here Comes the Sun.