Hello, hello! I've finished the first of a mafia-comedy series in 1930s New York. It's the first, a pilot if you will, of a short series. However! I am now faced with the dilemma of finding a name for the project. For whatever reason, a name for this project has never really jumped out to me during the writing process, so I was hoping any and all could suggest some. It follows an up and coming mobster, Donnie, who gets his big shot to join The Family. The catch is, he joins just as the IRS starts to crack down on the mafia's shenanigans and Donnie ends up being assigned to do taxes with a hodgepodge-thrown-together-at-the-last-minute crew of accountants. Built for bashing heads, shoot outs, and getaway driving, the Donnie must now sink or swim in the den of typewriters, abacuses, and IRS audits! The humor relies on 1) parodying both the mobster genre and noire and 2) edgy of the gross and testy variety (let's be real, living standards in the Great Depression sucked for everyone, some groups of people more than others). It's tonally similar to properties like Shrek, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Invincible. It's a comedy with a lot of heart. The biggest emotional beat of the story is Donnie connecting with another accountant, Kit, when he admits he never learned how to read and the accounting job feels impossible to handle. Kit opens up that she grew up in Kansas and, having moved to NYC for work, and has to deal with coastal delicates unfairly assuming she's an uneducated hick and all the burdens that comes with it. Overall themes include belonging and found families, skill vs. talent, prejudice, and trust. I'm at lost to do with the project's title and it's come to my attention I can't keep saving the doc file as "Untitled Mafia Joint", so I'm all ears. I hope I provided you all with enough info to piece together your thoughts. Thanks again!
A couple of things came to my mind - Crunchers (to refer to bone-crunching mobsters and number-crunchers), or simply Donnie and the Mob
Look through the story itself for good phrases that encapsulate some important aspect of the story. I often find the best such phrases occur near or at the very end of editing, when my ideas are really coming together into new and exciting forms and certain sentences and phrases begin to suggest themselves.
Counting the Vig? Donnie and the Vig? Donnie Counts the Vig? [BTW, I'd like to read that story when you're done.]
