covers, Austen & fish

I know I often go on about covers, especially how authors have very little control over their covers. Sometimes however there is an exception to the rule. I thought this one was worth sharing.

Version pulled together by the author. Her vision of what she wanted her cover to look like (or as close to as a non-design professional can get)

Here's the final version. The design department must have loved her ideas :) And not only loved them, but thought they would work in the market.

 In other news... an unfinished Jane Austen manuscript sold at auction in London for almost a million pounds. The Watsons is the earliest surviving manuscript for an Austen novel, probably written around 1804.

All the edits and changes all over it, it looks like mine :) Not, of course, mine are ever going to sell for that much :)

And on an unrelated note...

Finally a fun picture just for the fun of it.

Judging a book by its cover & series covers

It's been a while since I've done a post on covers - and you know they're a favorite of mine. As I've confessed before, I often judge books by their covers. I don't want to, but I do anyway. We live busy lives & covers are a short cut to genre and content, although not always as accurate a shortcut as we would like.

One book I picked up almost entirely on cover was Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh (I say almost, I'd read her name somewhere but knew nothing about her or her books). I saw the book, the cover caught my eye, I liked it, got the book, loved that, and I've been a fan since. So picking a book by the cover does find one some gems (although it also finds the dross, sadly).

Recently I was in the book store & I saw the new UK covers for her books. I bought her latest one (Kiss of Snow) but on the way home I couldn't help thinking of the differences between the US & UK versions. I should say up front I have no problems with any of these covers. Authors get very little input into their covers Nalini's been lucky :)

This is US cover of the first book in the psy/changeling series. Simple, sexy (but not overt), kind of mysterious, it was certainly enough to make me pick it up. Each of the covers in this series are reasonably different. They somewhat give you a feeling for the action and characters within.

In contract this is the UK version. Still sexy, although in a different way (this relies on the power of the eyes), it's also dangerous/violent. I would have pick up this cover too. This cover sets the trend for the others. 1/2 male face with wound. I actually think these covers capture the male characters better, but they suggest very little else. Also they might capture more male readers? Although the titles might defeat that plan.

Most recent book in the series, US cover. Compared to UK covers the feeling of series is not as strong here (e.g. different font for her name from all the other books in series). Although all the other books, and even this one do have a strong similar vein. Series connections I've noticed are often under-emphasized in US series. I guess you pick up more readers, but as a reader who has been caught, it's annoying to realize you're in the middle of the series (fortunately these do stand on the own even through they benefit from being read in order). To be fair the the US publishes they didn't know how popular this was going to be when Ms Singh started :). More man-titty. With the wolf, also a clear no at what type of paranormal this is going to be. Although a good job, not dissimilar to a lot of other covers out there.

 This is UK version. As you can see (and if you look at the others) an incredibly strong sense of series. On a book shelf together they'll look great. I like this one too. All the men are different, they all look at the reader in a different way. If I have one complaint it's the very thing I also like (yes, I know their is no pleasing some people) it's their very same-ness. You really have to know which ones you've read or you risk picking up the same book twice. The series look is unique, and unlike other covers out there which adds impact, but also using the same device repeatedly for each book does somewhat remove it's power to affect the observer.

One other comment I would make is that  both US & UK covers suggest white men, readers will find that is not the case.

You can see full covers here: US and UK. Two very interesting takes on the same series. Regardless of cover I seriously recommend the series :)

Creativity Tools

Roughing out plot points, suffering from writers block, trying to squeeze the next step in the story out of a reluctant brain, written yourself into a corner... I have the answer.

Well, actually that's not true, but hopefully I have a few tools that might coax your muse out to play again. A friend of mine went on a creativity workshop & here's some of what she shared with me, and some of the ideas ways I've extrapolated them (Sorry, I can't reference the workshop host as I don't recall his name).

4 CREATIVITY TOOLS
1) Forced Questions
2) Think the Unthinkable
3) Magic Wand
4) What if?

Forced connections:
This is a way trying to make your brain think outside the box by making unexpected connections.
e.g. Car battery & women's independence.
How did the car battery drive a step change in women's independance?
    --- They no longer needed to rely on male strength to turn the crank handle which meant they could drive without their husbands.

Way to use this in your writing... Imagine your hero is standing on the edge of a cliff, the villain approaches gun in hand...
And you're stuck, your can't workout how he gets away. You look around your desk and spot your tea cup. You force a connection.
...The hero had been making a cup of tea when he heard the villain. The tea bag is still in his pocket. He reaches stealthy in and grabs it. Tearing it, he throws the tealeaves in the villain's eyes. The brief distraction allows his enough time to disarm the villain...
Okay, maybe tealeaves doesn't work for you, but you've got the idea of throwing something in hte villain's eyes. Maybe the hero grabs a handfull of sand.

This tool might require getting away from your desk to look for things to force the connections. Newspapers, TV, Things happening outside the window are all great sources.

Think the Unthinkable
This is about finding those thoughts that we instinctively hide from.
e.g. How do we stop elderly people dying of cold in winter?
--- Should we save them. Let them die.

This tool is not only good once for finding difficult thoughts, it's also a great way to did deeper into characters - to unearth the WHY. Why does the character think/react that way.
In this example is the character willing to let old people die.
- Maybe he's a villain in a position of power, and maybe his experiences growing up have made him view the elderly as a waste of space, or worse and experiences have given him a distaste or even hatred for them.
- Maybe he's the hero, maybe this is going to be a critical point of internal conflict for him. Maybe he has to chose, he can either save the babies or hte elderly but he doesn't have the budget to do both.

Magic Wand
When this tool was explained to me I was told "of course this doesn't really have any real world uses, it's more to get one thinking." However, as writers we're the masters of our universe - we can do anything, even wave a magic wand.
e.g. Our hero is still standing on the edge of the cliff. We can't think how to save him so we wave the magic wand. The hero sprouts wings and flies away.

Of course using this tool in your writing has huge risks, but it can also drive some fun storytelling because this it lets CONSEQUENCES out to play. You can't wave your wand without consequences. What happens as a result of waving the wand, how do you justify it both in the world building and as part of the character integrity, how do the other characters respond,  etc...

WHAT IF?
This is a tool that most writers will be familiar with, the brain interrogation of What if? It's a process of dumping everything you can think of out on the page without prejudice and then sorting through it afterwards.

e.g. Heroine is locked in dank, dark dungeon. How do we get her out?
--- What if she makes a key out of thread and stones; What if she shrinks small enough to get through the bars; What if her fairy godmother pops in and saves her; what if she still had her cell phone in her pocket; what if she seduced on of the guards; What if she faked a siezure and the guards opened the door and she over powered them; what if....
...you get the picture


So those are the tools, and don't forget the WHY & the CONSEQUENCE when using any of them.

Fun images

I thought some fun photographs this week because,  well, that's what I feel like :)

Okay, one of the reasons I've feel like fun photos is because my day job is being a complete pest. However, seeing this photo really puts it into perspective. Even on a day day my job's not this much of a balancing act, nor do I have this much risk hanging over my head.

Why this photo you ask? Well I've never seen a cat's tongue up this close, kinda fascinating. Also I couldn't help thinking of all those paranormal romances with cat shape shifters (I've just finished Nalini Singh's new one so that could be why).

These two cracked me up. These two are probably the baddest, bad-asses on their block. Look at the stance, look at ht menacing glare.  If they were people they would have leathers, big bikes, scars and gang patches. 

Not sure why I added this one. I'm not sure if it's funny, or creepy, or weird, or some combination of all three - or something else entirely.

A kiss

Photojournalist Richard Lam took the photo below and it's gone viral - and yes here I am adding to that :)     An Australian guy kisses his Canadian girlfriend to comfort her after she is caught up in the Canadian riots.

I think several things make this photo powerful.  Love surrounded by anger, caring surrounded by violence. A moment of calm in the chaos. That no one else in the photo is even aware of them, and they are aware of only each other.

This photo is a great symbol for what romance writers are trying to create. Two people at there center of a story, who find love regardless of what surrounds or challenges them, and who are there for each other. And of course there are other elements as well, tension, excitement, romance, etc... you get the picture - literally in this case :)

brain exhaustion

I've been working so much lately my brain feels like it's leaking out my ears, and not on my writing unfortunately. My day job has been a bit of a menace on that front. So I'm afraid I have no cunning or clever post for the week (in as much as they ever are :) 
Instead I have a silly cartoon for you from xkcd.

As a side note, I've been re-watching the first series of Alias. I only saw the first series & a 1/2 last time round, but I gather the later series rather jumped the shark. Nonetheless, I've been enjoying my re-watching. Something I've noticed about the writing as it goes on is that the writers have huge skill at ending each episode on a cliffhanger. Even if as you watch the episode you're feeling a bit blah, by the time the end comes round you have to watch the next episode. Yet next episode they take the extream situation and wrap it up neatly in the first 5 minutes :)


It's a skill that works really well on TV, draws the views back each week. However, I find that technique in books (cliffhangers end of each chapter) is rather annoying. Oh a few are good, drive the tension, too many and it gets annoying.

What are your feelings on cliffhangers?

Design a new cover....

Look at the cover below... It looks like a perfectly ordinary cover doesn't it?

It isn't.
That's not to say it's not a perfectly good cover - it's simply that it's not a real cover. Not in the sense that it was published with the book anyway. Over here, is a site where a designer has taken on the task or redesigning the covers of some of the books he reads :)
This appealed to me because as an author I dread getting a terrible cover, and I'm sure there are authors the world over who wish they could redesign a cover. Here's someone who's done that - if not for the reasons that most authors would like to :)