a shy little post about, uh, titles

One curious aspect of writing novels is that the title seems often the greatest secret in the work. Shyness seems to prevent writers from referring to their works in progress by the title firmly established in their head - they might know that it's called "Traffic", must be called "Traffic", and they have visualised "Traffic" appearing on the shelves - but they will refer to it to other writers only as the (mumble) y'know, traffic warden novel", taking further care to clearly enunciate it in lower case, as if to name it is to hex it. Well, I do anyway...

I rarely referred to the novel I recently completed a little while back as Darlington Frigg, even though the title arrived long before all else. If I had to send out a section of it I often demurely labelled it "DF", though admittedly I had a genuine concern about perhaps falling victim to family friendly filtering software or offending the taste of people who perhaps thought they could imagine what I was writing about (such presumption!) Other friends, familiar at least with the content of the novel, refer to it as 'that Frigg novel', which at least suggests my chosen title is not entirely obscure.

Meanwhile my next novel progresses apace under the title Shoplifters. It's amazing the power a single word has, typed in 8 point at the top of a manuscript without explanation. Such feedback as I've had so far has drawn heavily on the implications of a title that has yet to relate to the text. Now all I've got to do is justify that promise...