Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Title Dilemma

I'm still tossing around title ideas for a book Loose Id will be publishing.

This is unusual for me. Bastards and Pretty Boys, The Prayer Waltz, Jude in Chains, Mobry's Dick, and Fugly all came to me at the same time the stories did or, in some cases, before (with the kernel of the story embedded within them). So this indecision is making me a little crazy.

The new book, still technically in the WIP stage, is a friends-to-lovers tale that spans forty years (1970 to 2010), although the vast majority of it takes place during the most critical week in the main characters' on-again, off-again, ever-changing relationship. It's also a story that entails many "comings out." (What is the plural of "coming out," anyway?) And it's quiet and introspective, like The Prayer Waltz, except for one foursome scene.

The working title is Electric Melty Tingles. I believe I mentioned it before and posted a snippet from the first chapter. Melty tingles a phrase the POV character dreamt up in his youth to describe how he felt when he first kissed a boy (hence, the juvenile ring to it). The "electric" gets tagged on later. This phrase crops up throughout the story and is still relevant at the very end.

But . . . there are other possibilities. One of the men sometimes teasingly calls the other "Schnickelfritz," a term of endearment, German in origin, that roughly means little rascal or scamp. But is that too doofy for a title?

The POV character's father uses the term fruit when referring to homosexuals (as, I'm ashamed to say, my own father did), and I think that word has a lot of potential for being massaged into something sensual or gently comic (one of the protags puts his own spin on the term) rather than perjorative. However, it also has the potential for stirring controversy, like Beautiful C*cksucker. Hmm. Do I want to go there?

So . . . I don't know. There are certainly other possibilities, but since I have an aversion to blah titles, I'm studiously avoiding those that sound generic or are derived from common phrases. I might just stick to the working title. But I'm obviously still undecided. (More to the point, why am I even babbling about this? I suppose because it's preying on my sleep-deprived mind.)

16 comments:

Chris said...

Hmm. I think there's another m/m book with some variant of Schnickelfritz as the title (or something sufficiently similar that I'm thinking of it right now).

I like the working title best of the ones you've tossed out. For what it's worth. :)

Tam said...

Ummm. I have no clue. I suppose if it was m/m/m/m for the whole book you could call it "The Fruit Bowl" or "Fruit Salad". See how helpful I am. :-D

I think your original is fine. Definitely unique.

K. Z. Snow said...

Schnickelfritz has been used before? WTF? Oh well, I doubt I would've gone with that one anyway.

Chris, I think that's the first time someone'a answered a blog post with a YouTube vid. Heh.

Yikes, Tam, you want to get me drummed out of the m/m authors' union?

Lily said...

LOL, I recognized it which is a miracle early in the morning. Schnickelfritz In Love is part of a dog themed series.

I liked the Melty title.

Chris said...

:) Sorry, what can I say? I love Placebo. Go watch the video for "Nancy Boy"...

Thanks, Lily! I was pretty sure I remembered that had been used before...

K. Z. Snow said...

Thanks for your input, Lily, and for shedding more light. I did find out that Schnickelfritz has often been used as a dog name ... which may not have reflected well on my character. *g*

K. Z. Snow said...

You're a bad influence, Chris. I don't need to get on a YouTube jag. Gotta polish up this story. (Well, okay, I'll save the vid for this evening.)

wren boudreau said...

At first I thought of "Comings and Goings" but then decided that no, Electric Melty Tingles is a great choice!

Chris said...

Why the hell is everyone calling me a bad influence today?!

K. Z. Snow said...

That's a great title, Wren!

K. Z. Snow said...

I can't speak for everybody else, Chris, but anything that lures me away from a WIP with shiny Interwebz trinkets is a bad influence.

Now go make peace with your conscience.

wren boudreau said...

Chris - if the evil fits...

KZ - hmm...

Chris said...

hmph

Kris said...

*likes it when peeps pick on Chris*

I love the 'Electric Melty Tingles' title. For what it's worth, I think you should stick with that one.

K. Z. Snow said...

There sure is a lot of umming and hmming and hmphing going on around here. Now come on, let's get our literate on.

Kris, thank you. But not for fueling Chris's tendency to make petulant, inarticulate grunts.

Electric Melty Tingles it is. I just put it on the contract today. So now, if some reviewer thrusts a sharp stick in my eye for choosing a silly title, I have a whole bunch of people to blame. (Castanet came up with the idea. Once in a while, she does make herself useful.)

:-)

Tam said...

Tell the editor to poke the stick in her own eye. The people have spoken.

Didn't you see at my blog we've already got Stephani Hecht's next book half plotted for her and I threw out an idea for you too.

Just make us happy and go with the flow. Less stress for you that way.