So the current title of my book on Alaska flying is Flying Cold and I'm really not in love with it. The book is a collection of inter-related stories with the same characters, in the same place, doing the same thing. (I can't call it a novel because there isn't one big plot arc going on but basically that's what it is.....you have to trust me on this, it does work!) Anyway, I want a different title and here are a few thoughts:
The Truth About Flying
Just One More Dead Pilot
Our Missing AIrmen
"The Truth About Flying" comes from one of the stories and is about all the stuff you had to know to fly and survive up there. "Just One More Dead Pilot" was the title of my thesis and something a Fed told us once - "Unless a pilot crashes into a school, it's just one more dead pilot". That was the reason why they never figured out how to stop pilots from crashing up there. (yeah, it's a sweet sentiment, right?) And "Our Missing Airmen" is from the story about Sam that is excerpted in failbetter this issue. The actual title is from an Anchorage Daily News editorial in 1929 about missing bush pilot Russel Merrill (who was never found). The story title is singular though - airman vs airmen.
Does anything make you want to pick up the book? I was calling it "The Truth About Flying" for ages because it's about how flying stories are never true and how you lie to fly and break regs and all that all the time. But someone told me that title sounded like it might be an expose about the airlines or something and didn't convey the Alaska angle. It's still my favorite, but I don't know.
Crap - maybe none of them work. (That's why when you have a good title you must keep it Gwenda!!!)
Let me know what you think................
May 6
2006
08:14 AM
It's, of course, impossible to say with any certainty without having read the book. I like The Truth About Flying but it does remind me a little of other titles as it's the most conventional phrasing. Also, if it's a sort of novel in stories, that makes me immediately think of The Truth About Celia, which is the best novel in stories I've ever read. That's probably just me.
The other two, I love a lot, but at first blush they do make the book sound like it might be dark. Is it dark?
You could always do a little subtitle to get in the Alaska thing. I don't know. I'll have to mull it.
You know, I'm not sure you have to worry that much about this right now. Once you sell it, your editor will probably make you come up with a new title anyway. :)