Help me name my zombie book! (Please)

[Caged Maiden]

Hi all, I just went to sign up for nano, but it asked me for a title... and I don't have one.

I was thinking about "Missing Persons" but...then I thought that might sound a touch lame.

The story is about a man named Harvey Sanderson, who has no short term memory. He works for a secret lab that's researching virology for military applications and in essence sort of turning people into zombies.

All I have so far is a first chapter, but I'm hoping to get an outline done in the next couple weeks and start writing this for nano. Here it is: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/portfolios/caged-maiden/91-untitled-dream-chapter.html

If you have a couple minutes, throw out a couple titles to help me on my way. Or if you like my pitch at all, feel free to throw any ideas out there too. I've never written anything bordering on this type of genre, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but people read the first chapter and loved it and my concept so much, I'm inspired to give it a go and flex my writing muscles.

 

[ThinkerX]

Given the unfortunate Will Hudson and the selective memory loss...

...maybe 'Shorted'...or possibly 'Wiped' since I suspect the memory loss figures into the tale in a big way.

 

[Caged Maiden]

cool ideas. Yeah, I know it's a WiP and i'm not marrying any title at this point, but it's my hope that I can come up with something that will at least tempt my fellow nanos to click the link and have a little peek, you know? I know me, and I know that when I see a title on someone's nano like "WiP for Nano" I don't even click it. I just don't care. i mean, if they aren't even motivated enough to come up with a working title, I'm probably not interested in taking an hour away from my writing to read it. That sounds sad, sorry. But you know what I mean. Nano is a rough month and I like to know my cabinmates and support people, but I hope people give it good effort. I always put my heart into it and I hope my book gets a couple perusals from those I tempt in with my title, synopsis, and excerpts. not to mention, I often post daily quotes. I started doing it one month in nano camp and people said it really motivated them to read my daily quotes, so I sort of kept it. it motivates me, too.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate it and the insight into what may sum up my story (since in reality, all I have is a chapter and no clue where the story is going). I guess the reason I was going with Missing Persons (which is lame) was because Rita notices a woman following her and then she later sees her image on the news once her and Harvey are on the run. She realizes the woman following her is her sister and she's a missing person. Which leads Harv to wonder where he came from.

 

[Philip Overby]

I was one of the people that read this before and really liked it, but I didn't expect it to be a zombie story. I think if people picked this up thinking they were going to read a zombie story they might be a bit confused after this first chapter, but I do like that it doesn't start off the typical way with a patient zero, a global panic, whatever. Maybe that's coming, but I like the sort of more personal beginning as it shows if it's going to be a zombie story, then the characters will be well fleshed out.

That said, I don't think it's easy to come up with a title based on just this chapter alone. If you're trying to sell it as a zombie story, then I wouldn't make the title too vague. "Missing Persons" sounds more like a thriller title to me. If the story has something to do with the military turning people into zombies, maybe a title that reflects the compound might work? Sorry, nothing's jumping out to me at the minute, but if there is more info about the story, I might be able to come up with something. It looks like you're going for serious zombies and not silly zombies, so it might be hard to come up with a title that isn't campy but also isn't too generic either.

You could go with the name of the actual disease (strain, virus, etc.) Something like that might work.