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A title should intrigue potential readers but not confuse them. I usually end up pulling a word or phrase from the book, something evocative but also mysterious, so that when the reader stumbles upon it in the text, there’s a bit of an “Aha” moment.
In the case of Rovers, the working title was The Little Red God, which came from a poem written by a Montana convict in the 1950s. Rovers tells the story of Jesse and his mentally-challenged brother, Edgar. The brothers are rovers, vampire-like beings who must drink human blood to survive. Jesse turned Edgar into a rover in order to watch over him in the wake of their mother’s death.
Edgar believes his craving for blood is caused by an actual creature living inside him, a creature he referred to in the first draft as the Little Red God. I changed this to “the little devil” in the second draft, which didn’t feel like a great title possibility, so I ended up going with Rovers. It’s a good word, painting a picture in your mind, and its meaning in the book is explained in the first chapter. There’s already so much going on in the story, I decided to...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: This Wicked World.
The Page 69 Test: Angel Baby.
The Page 69 Test: The Smack.
The Page 69 Test: Rovers.
Q&A with Richard Lange.
--Marshal Zeringue
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