Bleeding Fiction

This comment should probably go on the previous post, but I'm not going back now. Anyway, about naming your novel. You already have this great web address "Bleeding Fiction." I assume that writing the first novel isn't a one-time thing, especially since you have a second. You can use "Bleeding" as a gimmick. It's like Mary Higgins Clark and "M is for Murder" etc. All your novels will probably have blood anyway. The fantasy genre reading public can't be too adverse to blood. Pick a significant noun from the novel (i.e. mountains, rivers, dragons)and then put that noun in front of bleeding. There's the name of your first novel "Bleeding Rogues." You continue this to future novels. Eventually, you drop this silly, exhibitionist weblog thing and use this as a website for fans to promote your novels. Whenever anyone hears a title that starts with "Bleeding" they'll know it's you and that will make you recognizable. Compare the number of people who appreciate Degas with the number who know he paints ballerinas. Yet we know him as a great artist because the gimmick makes us know who he is and able to pick him out from a lot of impressionist crap. Try out some Bleeding titles. I think it will work for you.

And keep away from the eastern European women. They're trouble. Trust me.

And the naming convention fits in with your desire to seem foreign. It makes you seem British. "That's Bleeding Good Fiction, mate," they'd say. "'Ere, you got to read this Bleeding Book - it's Bleeding Terrific!"

I don't have any desire to seem foreign. It's just a strange coincidence that many of the foreigners I meet tend to think I went to college (should I be saying University here?) in the UK.

As for the naming convention... well, I shudder to consider it, truly. That sort of thing, for one, only really gets done in mystery novels (Mary Higgins Clark being one of writer who uses them, Carol Nelson Douglas being another), but worse than that it's just sort of... well, trite. It declares that, like Mss. Clark and Douglas, I'm writing by some formula, tried and true and never to vary. It declares that my writing is safe and the same and... well, bland. "Nothing new to find here," it'd say, "just the same old stuff you read last book."

Now, sure, I admit, if you find a formula that works (as the afore-mentioned ladies' clearly does), it's not bad for your bank account if you stick with it. But that's not what I'm after here. I write and of course I hope my writing will sell and allow me to make writing my career, but more than that I write for the fun of writing, for the fun of putting something new down on paper, of doing something a little different and daring each time. Each work should stand on its own merits, not the formula that worked in the work before, and as each work is unique, each deserves a unique title, meant just for it.

You know Jason, you reply to these comments awfully seriously. You know most of us are just poking fun at you, right? Don't make me bust out the emoticons!

It's a little naive to expect success as a novelist without creating a voice that follows through your novels. Name a successful artist who isn't recognizable for some common element. It's possible to reinvent yourself at some point, but come on, completely different at each go, how do expect to create a following? You can certainly have an original idea that is good enough to carry you through more than one novel before you dispose of it. I think you're going a little far in saying gimmicks are only for formulistic mystery writers. If you think that you can't resist being formulistic as a writer if your titles carry a common thread that is conveniently promotable by your website, why don't you consider all the opportunities for originality after the title page? Don't be a snob against commercial success. It's your career afterall. No bread, no ink.

Get ready to bust out the emoticons, Erik.

Actually, I've cleverly turned off all emoticons on the site. The anime versions aside, all you'll get when you try to post one is a little red X. He he he.