The Donkey That Roared – One Title Too Many
By David C Baird
It’s the problem confronted by every writer sooner or later. What title to give his opus?
Choosing the right words can be critical. The title has to grab the browsers’ attention, persuade them to scan a few pages, even put their cash down and buy the tome.
Pick the wrong title – not difficult – and they pass by on the other side.
A tricky business, as I realised when I finally typed “The End” on a work that I had been toiling over for months. For the life of me I could not come up with a neat, catchy title.
So I conducted a worldwide survey of friends, colleagues, acquaintances. Some of them were quite bright folk. Yet most of the suggestions were sadly lacking in imagination.
The book was about escaping to the good life in a Spanish village. The so-called “simple life” can be fiendishly complicated, so it was light-hearted stuff but with a serious message underneath.
There have been scores of escapist books (you may have read “Driving over lemons” or “A year in Provence”), so something different was necessary. No oranges or lemons for a start. And no Provence.
And – emphasized three friends with some experience in the business, a bookseller, an editor and an author – no funny foreign words. They all agreed: “Don’t put a Spanish word in the title, even a simple word like ‘pueblo’, as English-speakers will be confused by it.”
They fell about when I offered my poetic suggestion “Are there butterflies in your pueblo?”
“What’s it mean?” they scoffed. “Too long anyway.”
How about “Garbanzos for breakfast”? “Ho, ho, ho! What are these garabanzos? Is it a cookbook?” They missed out on the cultural reference – garbanzos (chick peas) are what Spaniards eat when they’re really hard up.
Most of those surveyed exclaimed “Too bland”, “dated”, “too ordinary” and “not exciting” when I offered “We came to the village”.
Okay then, how about “Street of bitterness”? “Please!” they retorted. “Too sombre and downbeat. Depressing. Is it some sort of a joke?”
But they didn’t only scorn my ideas. They ridiculed their own. As more suggestions rained down, I got the impression that my advisers had all been hitting the vino.
A sample, with their comments:
Follow that mule! – So corny.
Brandy for breakfast – Yawn, yet another escapist saga.
Pueblo experience – Dry, must be a sociology primer.
The grape escape – For wine connoisseurs?
Days of wine and whitewash – Not another Brit waxing lyrical.
South of ma�ana – Sounds like a rip-off from another title.
When the grapes are ripe – Oh no, more fruit.
By now a certain hysteria appeared to have taken over. The suggestions were becoming more ludicrous: Whitewash and olives, Your turn to mix the whitewash, The vintage years (another wine review!), Sunstruck, Cobbled together, Is there a Spaniard in the pueblo?, Don’t forget the fiesta, Everything under the sun, Vino and whitewash, The blossoms of spring, The sunshine life, The donkey that roared…
The donkey that roared?
Help! My head was spinning. Time to open a good bottle of red and re-read my manuscript. Sooner or later, inspiration must strike. And – you know what? – it did.
*David Baird finally found his title, Sunny Side Up – The 21st century hits a Spanish village. It’s published by Santana Books, [http://santanabooks.com]http://santanabooks.com. His other books include fiction (Typhoon Season, a thriller set in Hong Kong, and Don’t Miss The Fiesta!, passion and adventure in Spain) and an acclaimed documentary, Between Two Fires – Guerrilla war in the Spanish sierras. All three are published by Maroma Press. More info at: http://maromapress.wordpress.com/
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