Title Ideas for a Christmas-themed murder mystery

Usually this would go on NaNoWriMo, but… well. That’s not really an option as far as I know right now. This is based on a prompt revolving around the Twelve Days of Christmas song and a serial killer, because what else would make sense? And naturally the people dealing with the serial killer are two teenagers, because, again, there aren’t any more sensible options.

When I first attempted a wintery murder mystery, the main characters were triplets Felicity, Scarlett and Theodore (narrator) as well as Theo’s classmate Hollis, with no surnames because I only wrote like 800 words. I’m probably going to change all of those, although Theo might still be Theo. I’m not quite sure yet. But the characters’ names aren’t particularly important in terms of the title.

It’s a Christmas urban fantasy murder mystery, I think, just to be complicated. Magic ends up in pretty much anything I write… even my Rowan Cross mysteries involved witches for some inexplicable reason. Most of what I know is that the murders are all relevant to the day’s corresponding verse, starting from the 13th of December and ending on Christmas Eve, (like in And Then There Were None, I guess) in some way. I’ll work out all the methods later on.

I’m not really sure where to start with this one…

Title ideas:

12 Days Of Killings

And A Partridge In A [name_f]Pear[/name_f] Tree

Blood-Red [name_u]Christmas[/name_u]

A Killer’s [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] List

(Titles aren’t my strength either, but these are four that I think could fit the story)

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[name_u]Christmas[/name_u] Foul
Violent [name_u]Night[/name_u]
The Naughty List
[name_u]Christmas[/name_u] Evil

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I consulted my mom and sister. We all came up with The Twelve Deaths of [name_u]Christmas[/name_u].

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@NaomiNY

I think this one is the most fitting :slightly_smiling_face:.

I said I’d come up with the murder methods and I figured it’d be easy, but why are there so many birds? I have like three set in stone, from days one, seven and ten, and it’s like… I still have four other bird-related lines and they’re even worse than one and seven. I have a feeling it’ll have to be poisonings for both days six and eight, and then it’s just trying to incorporate the relevant birds into days two through four.

Basically:
Twelve is barely going to involve the line, eleven’s idea deliberately misinterprets ‘piping’, ten is slightly awkward but alright, nine might be about the location or timing, eight is probably a poisoning, seven is reasonably logical, six is also likely a poisoning, five is more victim related than anything else, four is a mystery, three maybe links to the victim as well, two is also a mystery, and one is a very deliberate statement. We don’t exactly have many pear trees where I live but we do have fields with trees along my bus route home – technically, though I usually take a different bus home – and the reason seven and ten were easy to come up with because they would fit along the route too. It’s everything else that gets awkward. And they’re not all even murder methods, just… murders. At least three poisonings now I think about it, a fall, a drowning, and a hanging that isn’t even trying to look like something else.

There’s a reason I don’t tend to do mysteries. This sort of thing gets convoluted fast.

Anyway. Actual comments on some titles (none of this is intended to be offensive!):

Twelve Days of Killings – I mean, it definitely fits with the theme. Maybe [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] wouldn’t be anyone’s first thought, but it’s not wildly irrelevant.

And A Partridge In A [name_f]Pear[/name_f] Tree – Honestly if the partridge wasn’t day one I’d really like this one! You basically get this one within the first couple of chapters, in theory, so… yeah.

Violent [name_u]Night[/name_u] – Somehow I don’t think sharing a title with that film from last year would be a good idea… I haven’t watched it, and it doesn’t particularly sound like my sort of thing, but it’s the first thing I thought of.

The Naughty List – Would make a fair chapter title, I think. Haven’t worked out how many of the victims (if any) ‘deserve’ it yet, so whether it would be relevant is a different question.

The Twelve Deaths of [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] – Like Twelve Days of Killings, this does fit the song part perfectly. And it’s the more obviously Christmassy title. So yeah. @GeographyDragon I agree with your judgement about it being the most fitting. Although Twelve Days of Killings is a close second, and I do quite like The Naughty List.

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I had an idea. I don’t tend to do mysteries much either because they get repetitive and that’s why I don’t ever read them. It just gets boring. But what you could do is make the song backwards.

Basically:
You could do something where it starts out with “on the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me” but have it be on the first day. Keep the days as 1 through 12 but make the song backwards so the 12th starts on the first day instead. It sounds like of wacky but it would be very cool. Less like it’s repetitive or convoluted.

title ideas:
Backwards Christmas
Murderous Christmas
The Christmas Murders
The Murder List
Silent Nights
Downfall Christmas
The Christmas Kill List
Hometown Killings
The Christmas Kills (alternate to Christmas Kisses)
Under The Murdertoe (I tried to make it like Under The Mistletoe)
Killing of Joy
Joy Killing
Goodbye Christmas
Miserable Christmas
The Christmas Victims
The Christmas Murderer
On The Naughty List
Killer Christmas

I have no ideas, sorry (I’m terrible at titles lol), but I want to say that this is a very cool concept and I would like to read it!