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.