Sour grapes

[devi]

The shortlist of winners for a story competition I entered has just come out. It is probably Bad and Wrong of me to be looking over the list of titles and thinking an awful lot of them are trite-sounding rubbish. I mean, "Somebody's Mother"! "The Summer's Day"! "Saturday's Kiss"! What is it with the 's thing? And "The Great Plains of Africa", ew. I really hope that's meant ironically. Though "The Happiest Mosquitoes in Breson" does sound quite interesting.

Fear Me, competition judges! Pass me over and I'll... I'll... mock your shortlist on my blog! Oh noes!

(Mine was called "We Wait In Joyful Hope". I like nicking chunks of prayers.)

Oh well. Insert standard grey-weather/stuckness/eye-strain grump here, then it'll be out of the way.

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Interesting viewpoint. I tend to like quirky titles a lot (the sort you see in things like McSweeney's), so maybe I'm unjustifiably assuming that's the only way to do things.

It's the same in sci-fi short story magazines. You get a lot of stories called things like "When Visiting the Buzboom Hotel, Don't Miss the Mutant Flamingos".

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Which reminds me, WHY haven't I written "A Photocopier Is A Machine For Living In" yet?

[sibyline.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm all about understated. i hate the idea of a reader thinking that the title of the story is better than the story itself. my recent story titles include: "Eruption," "Penitence," The Last Sweet Happy Season," "Sun Child," "The Subletter," "Slow Death," and "Near the End of Dreams." i'm obviously not a McSweeney's writer.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see the understated thing - but there's understated and then there's trite. "Summer Day" would be understated. "The Summer's Day" is just... ugh.