Okay, So I've Been Pretty Unimaginative...

[rebness]

Ganked from pigeongirl99.


( Pick five, or six, or ten of your fic titles and explain how you got the titles. )


The Courtship of M. Lioncourt
This was actually a complete rip-off of Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves, a Freudian take on Little Red Riding Hood. The opportunity to write a VC version of this story was too good to pass up. Carter's story was in her collection, The Bloody Chamber-- another story listed there was The Courtship of Mr. Lion. I just liked the rather lame pun.

Dream Story

The Guardian was giving away free copies of Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler to celebrate the release of Eyes Wide Shut, the stupid film based on the stupid novel. I didn't like either, but I did like the title. So I filched it.

I am Lestat's Confused Ramblings

Ahahaha. The story was a Fight Club-esque satire of The Tale of the Body Thief, and so I took the great central theme of Fight Club-- the narrator describing his own feelings and the absurdities of the story in this silleh way-- and used them as the same device in this fic. Hee.

Preludes

From T.S Eliot's poem of the same name. This story detailed the changes in Louis, from drunken shouty person to vampire and his own reflections upon the way things turned out. A particular couple of lines I love in this poem goes:

You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands.

Those lines say so much, and had such resonance in a VC context. I had Lestat quote them to Louis in the story, so it was fitting to use the title as well.

Scarlet Billows Start to Spread

I was watching TV one night when I was writing. Okay, it was background noise, but anyway... there was a programme on about Bertolt Brecht, and they ran a piece of old film where a man sang the original German-language version of Mack the Knife. It sounded so sinister and so evocative of Expressionist works of the time, that I really wanted to write a German-based fic. So I did. This particular line is from The Ballad of Macheath, and I thought it was a good line to illustrate Armand's cruelty and his murder of Claudia as spreading outwards, infecting Louis' love for him.

Tordue

I had written a fic about Gabrielle and her experience in the Auvergne, because the character fascinates me and I wanted to try writing something from her perspective. I had already given the story the title "Hunter" after Dido's song about a woman trying to break free. Then I read an article-- most likely the Guardian-- about these two French brothers. One described his mother as being what the French call "tordue"-- a strong, angry woman who fights against everything.

Weren't You Adored?

Again with the pop culture referencing. This was a fic about Louis and him missing Lestat in San Francisco. This line is taken from the Foo Fighters song Walking After You. I just like the gentle, matter-of-fact, understated way in which the line is whispered, despite the potential schmaltz of the words. Yeah.

Comments

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

I think Scarlet Billows Start to Spread is one of my favourite fic titles of all time.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Heehee... thanks. I'm going to drop the modesty for a moment to say that I'm really fond of that fic-- it's actually one I can read back on and be proud of without cringing-- though I would really like to re-write some parts of it. Hmm...

[moon-chylde.livejournal.com]

"I am Lestat's Confused Ramblings"
I love that title, and that fic. Best line "I am Lestat's fear of revenge seeking Creoles" That's a classic.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Muhahahaa... thanks. Couldn't have done it without Chuck Palahniuk's crazy narrative. ;-)