Stalker's Guide To... novel renamed to WATCHER novel.

I've written about five chapters i.e. 15,000 words, of the Stalker's Guide To... novel, and I'm wondering if the title is even relevant any more.

 

I'll do this, I'll start a project with a 'concept' in mind. Then, as the project finds its way, its feet, its own writing style, concerns, narrative, character that title sometimes falls by the wayside.

 

It happened with the Free Planet novel ... it was only ever meant to be One Novel. It was first called One Of Us then You The People then Free Planet then I structurally went in and did a bit of split-narrative cleverness where both You The People and The Custodians shared the honour; ended up realising it was Book One of a series and called this first part Custodian.

 

Stalker's Guide To... first started out as a conceptualised or parody of the Lonely Planet Guide To... (BBC travelogue series from the 1990s) that showed you how to survive on a holiday budget at so-called holiday destinations like New York, Paris, Guatemala. The idea was to lay it all out, in fact play out the narrative, like the BBC TV series, using the same language and style to fold these budget holiday locations into the story.

 

Didn't work.

 

Almost as soon as the first chapter got written/re-written it became obvious (to me) that there was a better story here about just one crammed city. The unnamed (possibly Japanese) urban city sprawl the novel became set in. It's like I wanted to revisit the missed opportunity I tried to give myself when I brought back a couple of empty notebooks from my 15-years-ago trip to Kyoto/Nara.

 

City sprawl, and time manipulation, I'm going to revert to an early title I had for the 3D game (I prototyped up but never made) called WATCHER.

 

WATCHER's also got some structural connection to 'what the central character uses', not just what he is, on his quest to save eight VIPs.