41. The day my BLANK went BLANK!
I’ve always been excited by comics and movies with dramatic titles like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Night of the Living Dead. I guess it’s no surprise that I love making up my own over-the-top titles, although mine usually feature things that you don’t generally think of as dangerous, e.g. pencils, koalas, grannies and bums.
I really like writing stories in which an ordinary everyday item—like a pencil—becomes scary and dangerous.
I didn’t think there could possibly be a more stupid title for a book than The Day My Bum Went Psycho, but as I came to the end of the story and the Great White Bum was blasted out into space, the title Zombie Bums from Uranus came into my head and the whole thinking, wondering and story-making process started over again. In fact, it didn’t stop until I’d written Bumageddon: The final pongflict.
Two of my favourite stupid, over-the-top titles.
In the story ‘Kittens, puppies and ponies’ in Just Crazy!, Danny comes runner-up in the school short-story writing competition with his entry ‘Killer Mechanical Chickens from Outer Space’. Flushed with confidence due to his story-writing success he now feels more than qualified to give Lisa some advice on storytelling.
Just Crazy!
I couldn’t have said it better myself … (Hang, on I did say it. Danny’s just a character I created.)
The Very Bad Book
An invasion of killer cornflakes from outer space in ‘The day nothing bad happened’ (The Bad Book).
TRY THIS
Fill in the blanks
A good title is worth its weight in gold—both for getting the reader’s attention and, hopefully, inspiring you to write a story to match. Try writing your own attention-grabbing title, a title that stops the reader in their tracks.
Some formulas you could use:
• Night of the Blanking Blanks!
• Invasion of the Blanky Blanks!
• Blood-sucking Blanks from the Blank!
• The Day my Blank went Blank!
• Giant Mutant Killer Blanks!
• Zombie Blanks from Blank!
• Killer Blanks from Blank!
• Blank-blanking, blank-blanking blanks!
Design a book jacket
Select your favourite title from the previous exercise and design a book jacket for it. Think about an image that complements your title. And don’t forget the blurb on the back cover. Remember, your blurb should give the reader a bit of an idea of what your story is about and should make it sound exciting and interesting—so readers immediately want to read it.
The 39-Storey Treehouse