Which title to choose?

[Kyriakos]

About a new story completed... The story is (most likely; it is a bit open-ended, but leans to one direction) about discovering the treasure one was after was actually another trap. More literally, it is about someone who is at a police station with the end to give some information on a killer, so as to get a significant reward in money.

Current title is (translated to) "The trap in the sand-dunes", but i am not happy with it, because it is way too sensationalist. Furthermore it already alerts the reader to expect a trap, which isn't entirely disastrous though given almost 95% of the story directs you to think the trap is something else.
The sand-dunes are a metaphor, found in numerous ways in the story.

Other titles i thought of were a lot more plain. Eg "The treasure". This is way too generic, despite being also a good title if one had already read the 7 thousand word (18 pages) text.

Or "Turning", which is again generic, despite signifying that what is going on is turning.

Other possible titles:

A ticket to a better life (phrase in the story) (rather cheesy as a title; in the story phrase the focus is on a preceding gloomy epithet)
The reward (pretty decent, albeit generic)
The game (tied to another metaphor in the story) (again too generic for 18 pages)

 

[Zkribbler]

I've come up with two, neither of which I'm delighted with.

"Sand Trap." This has the same problems as the first on your list. Plus, folks might think it's about golf.

"Mirage."

Are we talking about desert sand or beach sand? If desert, we could do something with heat, e.g. "Swelter," "Sweltering," White Hot." If it's beach sand, then "Jetsam," "Horizon," "Cry of the Gull," "Buoy."

 

[Kyriakos]

It can be both. Once it is used as a desert sand, and a few times as beach sand. In fact part of the story uses the image of the trap an ant-lion is building

Maybe i should just go with "The trap in the sand dunes", despite it being a bit too colourful for my personal taste

Mirage is nice, but i think it would work (again) better if one already had read the story, so i can't really use it as the title...

 

[Silurian]

"In the dunes"


So people will wonder, what is in the dunes.

 

[Kyriakos]

^A good idea as well. Yet that would make it hard to tell the relevance up to 10 pages in... Whereas "trap" is a heavy focus (if misleading ) already by the 5th page, and is a massive point of focus when dealing with the totality of the storyline.
In other words: the sand is a metaphor, although it has a number of uses, including three distinct allegories inside the story...

 

[Silurian]

Well the sand-dunes are a metaphor, found in numerous ways in the story!

 

[Snerk]

"Faster than the speed of love"

 

[Kyriakos]

Well the sand-dunes are a metaphor, found in numerous ways in the story!

^I am considering it, i just don't feel that good using a metaphor as the title, cause that would make the reader not really care as much as i mean for him/her to care about the outer part of the story (literal-- or is it?) which as noted is about someone going to a police station to give info about a serial killer, out of hope to be given the promised reward

The sandhills/dunes there would probably move the focus to desolation, and not ultra violence, which is needed to set the trap

@Snerk:

 

[Gigaz]

I suggest "A story about someone who wanted to get a significant reward".

 

[Snerk]

Ok how about "Kyriakos' super happy fun story with interesting people"

 

[Silurian]

Or maybe "Treasure or trap"

 

[Kyriakos]

Or treasure island

Two more ties to sand in the story:

-There is in it a quote by Pythagoras, "silencing (or not uttering) the truth is (like) burying treasure"

-the text directly below the title is a quote from an ancient greek novel, titled "The Aithiopica", by Heliodoros. It obviously takes place in southern Egypt, bordering Aithiopia (anything sub-saharan at the time, but it is near the Nile so likely the Sudan).

So in retrospect, maybe "The sand-hills" would work as a title, instead of "the trap in the sand-hills" etc.

 

[Silurian]

Someone has used that already

Before your edit ; treasure island that is.

 

[Kyriakos]

^That is always a problem with generic enough titles :/

Oh, i know,

i will title it...

DUNE

 

[Silurian]

NO NO NO then you will have Valka after you because it is not been fired from a cannon.

 

[Snerk]

Instead of "the trap in the sand dunes", what about "Trapped in the sand-dunes". Or "trapped among the sand-dunes".

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, for almost all of the story the trap is supposed to be something generally mundane, ie that the police officers are so corrupt that they will try to deny the narrator his reward and just divide it among themselves.
By the end, though, that is not what the serious trap is. In fact by the end it is hard to say what in all this isn't a trap.

 

[civvver]

A walk among the sand dunes

 

[Kyriakos]

A walk among the sand dunes

Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes

(He walked staying silent along the sand dunes and the loud-sounding waves of the sea-- Iliad)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Like Burying a Treasure