What's in a name?

Editing a book, as I have been all week, is one of the really fun bits of writing. Actually making the stuff up is hard, but this part of the process is a lot easier.  It isn’t finished yet but (keep those fingers crossed) the end is in sight.  Editing is where you can add the finishing touches, fill up the pot holes, smooth everything out and make sure that it all hangs together. 

However, the perennial problem of titles is now upon me.  You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after the  effort of writing an entire book, to think of three or, at the most five, words would be easy-peasy.  Yes, but those few words have got to do so much; attract a reader, tell them something about the book and – just as importantly – not mislead them about what sort of book it is.

It’s amazing how hard it can be to come up with the right title.  It has to be pithy, memorable, relevant. A few words – maybe one word - that will jump out at the reader from the bookshop shelf and inspire them to part with hard-earned cash. Geez.

 Names are often a good bet and carry their own baggage of expectation. You don’t pick up Emma, for instance thinking she’s going to turn into Dracula. (Which would be confusing but fun.) Or it may reflect the book’s theme:  Pride and Prejudice or Death on the Nile.

In the heyday of the gothic novel, you could get away with titles such as Geralda, The Demon Nun, which could still be – just about – be used today. Joanna Polenipper, Female Horse Stealer, Foot-Pad, Smuggler, Prison Breaker and Murderer is probably too wordy for modern tastes but you’d be wrong in thinking that Joanna came to a bad end. At the end of the book, “Joanna was transported for her crimes, retrieved her character in Australia, married a rich settler and lived for many years respected and beloved by all who knew her.”

 If you found Joanna’s unexpected embrace of virtue unsettling, you’d probably be better sticking to another novel of the 1830’s, Lovel Castle, where the anxious author told his readers exactly what they were getting:  Lovel Castle, or The Rightful Heir Restored, a Gothic Tale Narrating how a Young Man, the supposed son of a Peasant, by a train of Unparalleled Circumstances, not only discovered who were his Real Parents, but that they came to Untimely Deaths; with his Adventures in the Haunted Apartment, Discovery of the Fatal Closet, and the Appearance of the Ghost of his murdered Father; relating also how the Murderer was brought to Justice, with his Confession and the restoration to the Injured Orphan of his title and estates.

They don’t write them like that any more.

The Cuckoo's Flown

Well, I’ve finished  The Cuckoo’s Calling and so, by now, have a great many other people, judging by the number of reviews on Amazon.  I’m surprised how many reviewers - crime fiction fans by their own account – praise the “unexpected twist” in the ending.  I don’t want to be a big spoil-sport, but the ending is hardly original.  Honestly.  I mean, it actually appears in the jokey lists drawn up in the heyday of Detective (as opposed to Crime) fiction as one of the things Not To Do, along with gems such as “Don’t have your villain one of a pair of identical twins” a nix on secret passages and putting the blame on that tired old stock figure, the sinister Chinaman. 

Another thing that various reviewers have been awed by is the occasional use of Latin and other quotations, pointing this up as evidence of great erudition.  Again, hold on.  Yes, yes,yes,yes, yes, of course JK Rowling is incredibly well read, but it’s also very well known that one of her favourite authors is Dorothy L Sayers and Dorothy L always has quotes in her chapter headings and throughout the books. To keep up with the amount of literature that Lord Peter has at his fingertips would require a medium-sized library.  It’s a hat-tip or homage and good fun. 

What is slightly more problematic for many reviewers is the band language.  It you took out all the F and C words, then it’d slim the book down by about 200 pages or thereabouts, but the characters in the story would undoubtedly talk like that in real life, so I’m not sure what the answer to that one is.   Offensive?  Not after the first few times particularly, as constant repetition dulls the shock value, but it’s a bit tedious to read, like any other frequently repeated word or phrase. 

One reviewer was worried about “Robert Galbraith” and his false biography, as an ex-soldier.  This, they pointed out, was a lie.  Well, so it is, but what surprised me was how many people evidently believed it before the truth came out.  There’s very little military detail in the book and (thank goodness) no graphic horror of mutilation, despite the hero, Comoran, having lost a leg in Afghanistan, or angst about  life under fire, but shedloads about life in the goldfish bowl of celebrity living.  Paparazzi are present like wasps at an August picnic and about as welcome.  Everyone is hounded wherever they go and the idea of privacy for the famous is a joke.  That sounds really unpleasant and very realistic.  All I know about life as a model comes from programmes such as Gok’s Fashion Fix, America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway but the world of fashion portrayed in the book sounds real enough.

There’s plenty of clues there, no we do know who the author is, as who wrote it;  Comoran is a non-magical Hagrid in size, strength and kindness, although he’s a lot sharper.  Familiar phrases, such as tears “leaking” crop up and death threats are sent on writing paper embellished with pictures of cute kittens, as if Dolores Umbridge had retired from the Ministry of Magic and set up a Writing Bureau (Threats R Us, perhaps?)

However, one thing – one massive thing – is missing; and that’s the gigantic, outrageous sense of sheer daftness and fun that pervaded the magical world.  There’s no Arthur Weasley collecting plugs, pink umbrellas, or tents that are bigger on the inside than the outside and furnished like a 1950’s flat with antimacassars and smelling of cats into the bargain.   Pity, really.  Because that sort of unique goofiness that JK Rowling made so believable and genuinely all her own, the thing she can do better than anyone else, probably is the magic that endeared Harry Potter to so many millions of readers.