Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
- Napoleon

Friday, February 9, 2007

How about

"The Smell of Intent"?

I've been thinking about this since I wrote the last post. 'Intent' is a more accurate word, since the MC isn't really certain it is murder, but it doesn't take him long to start thinking the deaths are intentional. *shrug*

On the downside, my online buddy, Alex, posted a link to something called Lulu Titlescorer and it tells me that either way I write it only has a 26.3% chance of being a bestseller. Although, I plugged in some actual bestseller titles, and none of them did very good. For instance, The Great Gatsby was only a 69%, Jurassic Park was only 41.4%, and The Hunt for Red October only netted a 10.2%. So needless to say, I'm a little suspect of the validity of their numbers. (If nothing else, the titlescorer is fun.)

From what I understand, though, the title you give your work doesn't really make a difference anyway. If it makes it to publication, the publisher is likely to change it to something else anyway. So, I think I'll just keep my working title as AWJ and then I won't have to worry about renaming all my files. =o)

ETA: I just scrolled down the the bottom of the Lulu Titlescorer page and read their caveats. I suggest you do the same... Especially before you junk what may prove to be a very good title. (Maybe even one the publisher will let you keep.)

4 comments:

Janimé said...

Oh, I like Smell of Murder better. I like the imagery it generates.

Or, how about just Intent?

B.E. Sanderson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
B.E. Sanderson said...

Ummm... Oops. That last comment I posted would have given away the whole shebang, and if I ever want this sucker published, I really don't want to throw plot spoilers out onto the web. :smacks forehead:

The part of the comment worth saving was:

I like Smell of Murder. And I also like just the word Intent, which works well with my other one word titles. =o)

Therese said...

The Lulu thing is fun; once I got all the tags right, it said my novel SOUVENIR has a 36% shot at bestsellerdom. Or the title does anyway!

IMHO, SMELL OF MURDER is really evocative, in and of itself.

INTENT is not bad, just not as compelling from a glance-at-the-cover point of view.