The Girl Who…WTF?
You have my permission to shoot me if I ever write a novel carrying in the title, even in part, “The Girl Who…” or “The Man Who…”
Why? Well, don’t you think its been done to death? Doing things to death may be my stock-in-trade as a horror writer, but just take a look on Amazon and see how many writers and publishers have nearly broken bones jumping on the literary bandwagon in their rush to publish something featuring. “The Girl…” or similar, in the title. Did Stieg Larsson start this? Probably. Did he do it well? Absolutely. Perhaps the next wave is, “ The Writer who didn’t publish a novel with ‘the girl’ in the title.” Hmmm.Possible plot line: Budding author harbours deep desire to publish original work, but is stymied by dictatorial publisher who insists that ‘The Girl…’ must be pivotal to story and title. Budding author shoots publisher, writes book called “The author who did serious time for murder but learned how publishing works.” Could be a winner. Here’s a thought: The next big thing could be about animals. Everybody loves animals, apparently. There are twenty more dogs in my street now (plus a macaw — seriously) than just a few years ago. So that proves it. How about: “The Dog Who Knew too Much?” No? Try this: “The Cat on the Train.” Or, “The Ferret Who Married the King of Sweden.” C’mon, how can that lose? Trends. I can imagine some publishers — those at the desperate end of things — exhorting house authors to “write something like Stephen King just did! (think Fairytale) Or, ‘Women are the big book buyers now, put one on the cover and, yes, put ‘Girl’ in the title for chrissakes!” Ah, what fun. There’s big money in publishing. Not so much in writing, (Romance excepted) but hey, publishers put it on the line. Ok, mini-rant over. At some point in the next week, novels need to be re-commenced. (I have four that have been gathering dust for a few years.) It’s nice to start the process of writing again with a little opinion piece. Now, back to my magnum opus: “The author who loved animals and girls and trains…”
Mea Culpa: A short story I give away for free to Fade to Black readers is entitled: The Man Who Saves the World. In my defence, I wrote it quite some years ago…but yes, I can hear bullets being loaded into chambers. Ha!
