I made up some writing memes for the upcoming NaNo month. This year’s theme is superheroes and it is perfect for adding a few more powerful women and non-white “you should be writing” memes into the mix.
Yes, the hunks are lovely, but time to get the dames too!
(Need more writing memes in your life – see my first group under Memes: Write Something)
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Where were the other two? Aminah thought as she surveyed the area. The perp she had been following for the last hour stopped to smoke under a streetlamp. Maybe he was signaling the others to stay back? Had he made her?
She needed all three to stop the conspiracy.
The guy tapped twice with his left hand. A signal, definitely. The man was right-handed. The officer slipped deeper into the shadows to discover they were already occupied.
(Words 77 – first published 9/18/2013; published in new blog format on 10/1/2017)
Image courtesy of jk1991 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The most common mistake I run across while editing is something I call “Screenplay”, where the writer goes into dialogue-only mode – forgetting to add location cues, speaker indications, action, exposition, and other narrative. Other people call it “Talking Heads”, and it is about as exciting as watching stick puppet talk without the puppeteer moving the sticks.
Now, when you are writing the first draft, you may find only dialogue occurs. This is fine, spew the information in your head on the page. You can’t fix it until it is written.
For the flash Grass, which came in just over 2,000 words, the initial exchange was 100% dialogue. The alien visiting my head asked “Why do you dedicate so much land to non-food?” while I was mowing the lawn, and the conversation devolved from there. After getting stung by a yellow jacket, I retreated indoors and decided to type out the exchange. Initially I tried to add some narrative while typing up, but nothing wanted to happen. I knew the exchange was between a human and an alien ambassador and nothing else. Two hundred words vomited from my fingers onto the page in 28 lines of dialogue. That was it.
Then the hard part. Adding in the narrative. Yes, I could have left it in screenplay or movie script format – that is the point of flashes after all, getting things out quickly -, but I wanted to know more. The end result was ten times as long as the initial product, and I did not add a single line of dialogue. If anything the dialogue shrunk a little when I modified the alien’s vocabulary – just a word here and there. The dialogue is substantially unchanged from the initial voices-in-my-head moment while mowing.
Since you are going to write dialogue sans any narrative (and, believe me, you are going to write dialogue sans any narrative) you should practice adding narrative to dialogue. Preferably before you send your manuscript off to a content editor.
WRITING EXERCISE: Either take dialogue already written in play format or create five to ten simple lines of your own without thinking of the scenario at all. You can find dialogue online by searching “screenplay examples” and clicking on images. An example of five simple lines of dialogue is “Hello” “Hello, how are you doing today?” “You know.” “Yep.” “Any suggestions on how to get the red out?”.
If you are using previously created dialogue ignore who the speakers are. Now that you have some generic dialogue, pick a genre and two characters: Fantasy with an elf and orc; science fiction with a spaceship captain and crew member; a mystery with the murderer and investigator talking, anything you want. Add the narrative to your dialogue. It should at least double the length of the dialogue.
Here is a secret, just between you and me, dear writers. You want to increase your word count for a document, go find those “talking head” areas in your Work-In-Progress and flesh them out. You can even try that right now as a second writing exercise for today if you want.
***
Title: Red Cop
“Hello,” echoed through the empty store.
Jazz bit back a curse from popping her head against the counter top when she tried to stand. Stuffing bags underneath the cash register in preparations for next week’s sales had hid her from view. Standing, rubbing her head, she put on her best customer service smile and said, “Hello, how are you doing today?” before focusing on the customer. Correction, police officer. Who did not look happy at all; his uniform was a wreck. Another one stood in the open doorway of her little mall shop, her uniform pristine.
“You know.” He growled before glancing over at his female partner, who nodded and stepped outside.
Remaining overtly perky while reviewing her recent activities for any slipup which might have brought the officer to this particular store, Jazz replied, “Yep.
“Any suggestions on how to get the red out?” the officer asked, moving his right hand over his clothing from shoulder to waist in hovering indication.
Walking around the counter to lead him to the appropriate cleaning supplies, Jazz, sometimes known as the supervillian Prankster, smiled wide while no one was looking. (initial dialogue 19 words – final result 188 words.)
Cover Art
After a writer spends considerable time crafting the perfect story, years even, readers will judge the author’s book by its cover. Something the writer often has no control over.
One of the perks of being published by a big house is the writer may, MAY, get an outstanding cover made by a professional artist worth thousands of dollars. If s/he is lucky, they might, MIGHT, get to fill out a form letting the house know of a scene the writer thinks could work on the cover or provide details about the characters. This form could, COULD, be passed onto the artist. That is about the best a big-house writer can hope for. A cover, they didn’t pay for and had no control over which might have a semblance to story it binds.
Baen is exceptional in this process with some of their artists going as far as to read the book to find the perfect scene; Baen endeavors for a house feel via its covers. Basically one knows a Baen cover when you see it. Action-packed, great fonts and clear words for the authors names and book titles, always painted. As a medium-sized house, located outside the NY city ivory-tower publishing mentality, they do what they want. And they do what they want very well.
At a small house, the writer usually gets a cover supplied at the publishing house’s expense assembled by a part-time cover artist, most often an adjusted photograph from pay-for-use stock art sites. Typically these houses have forms for suggestions on covers and pass these onto the artist who turns something around in a week or two. Frequently, but not customarily (i.e. you may get this power but don’t be surprised if you don’t) the small houses give the author veto authority. Maybe even suggestion capability to tweak the cover.
Then there is the self-published, which is why I decided to write this blog post. About half the questions I get when talking to people wanting to dip their toes into the business is about how cover art works.
If a writer is self-publishing, the author hat needs to come off and the publisher hat needs to go on. Because cover-art is going to cost something and money will flow out. On the other hand, these authors have the greatest perk – sure they are paying for it – but they have artistic control over the biggest marketing aspect of their book, the cover.
Writer’s Edit blogsite describes “5 Common Book Cover Mistakes Made by Indie Authors,” after interviewing with designer Eleanor Bennett.
See how these break down in the blog here: https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/common-book-cover-mistakes-indie-authors/
I’m going to review these points from the perspective of my decisions on the cover for Honestly and future covers I might do.
First off, I do have a fairly good eye for design. I took some art in college to enhance my innate abilities and I don’t suck. I won’t make a living at it, but I know enough to be dangerous and (I hope) know my own limits. You can see some of my art on this website. If you notice, all of the art forms I work in deal with designing, concentrating on balance and color. That I can do and a very necessary skill set for designing cover art. What I can’t do is draw well; painting my own covers is not an option.
If you have not taken the time to develop an eye for design (which takes time – a lot of time) pay someone else for a cover and get more writing done.
I made Honestly’s cover using, dang I forget what major art program, either Illustrator or Photoshop. The problem is the licensing for the program has ran out. To restart will cost about $250 per year. To put this cost in perspective, I can get a pre-made cover for between $40 and $75 with the $75 version including a full-wrap OR I could get a CUSTOM cover with Facebook banner for $100 from the award winning artist Victoria Miller whom I worked with at Breathless Press (her prices will be increasing in 2018). Other writers have done well with a $40 budget on “The Book Cover Designer” and like sites.
Unless I want complete control over my cover art design, buying pre-made covers is not only a viable option, it is the most cost-effective and time-effective option. Making the Honestly cover took two days. When I made it, I had the art program for free therefore creating my own cover art made sense. Now, buying three custom covers or six pre-made covers is cheaper then replacing the art program, not counting the time of learning the new quirks of the program and paying for stock-art.
To make back a $40 cover will take 115 sales of a 99 cent book or 20 sales on a $2.99 book. A good cover should make 20 sales all by itself.
When purchasing your cover, verify you have the following rights (1) E-book cover art (the absolute minimum); (2) Cover art for paperback and hard cover; (3) Ability to make bookmarks, banners, and other permissions. Also see if you can get – you are going to pay extra for these – (1) permissions to manipulate the cover art for things like banners (crop wide) and bookmarks (crop long); (2) the art without the title words (makes rearranging things into banners and bookmarks easier); (3) the name of the font or a close font to write your own stuff over top; (4) full cover wraps (for the paperback and hard cover). A true bonus is if you can get permission for merchandising – expect to pay hundreds for this right – so you can make t-shirts and coffee mugs and other swag. Do not make t-shirts or any other merchandise unless you have paid for this right, Just like you don’t want people sharing entire chapters of your book for free, respect the artist’s right to control her work and make a living.
Back to the basic point. Set aside a $40 to $100 budget for a pre-made cover for your e-book or $100 to $300 for a custom cover and all the related warm-fuzzy rights.
2. Using the wrong image just because it looks “cool”
I’ve marked books down half a star in my reviews when the cover image is drastically different from the story within its covers. My most common type of mark down? The male on the romance cover does not match the hero inside. For example, a character described as having long dreadlocks throughout the manuscript has a military high and tight on the cover. Yes, the model for the cover was exceedingly hot and the reason why I bought the book, and the hero inside the story was also exceedingly hot. But the two hotnesses did not match.
Getting the right picture for Honestly proved challenging. Not many pictures are available of mongoloid-negroid mixes, especially of males, outside of Tiger Woods. I needed the man to have an ectomorph (lean) build since Troy contrasted with Dewayne’s mesomorph body. The tradeoff to have the perfect look for the guy is I ended up with a picture where the male is wearing a leather jacket, something Troy did not wear during the story since the happenings take place in late spring/early summer.
3. Using an image found everywhere
For my blog I use art from freedigitalphotos.net. I also draw from unsplash.com, a more complicated (but still free) stock art depository. These pieces of art are so big I often have to crop them. When using the art, I give the attribution.
The problem of “free” is anyone can use it. I’ve seen pictures from this freedigitalphotos used uncropped & unmodified for cover art on Amazon – often for more than one title. Freedigialphotos provides additional artwork for a fee, their “premium” service which pays for the free site as well as the pay site. Tapping into “premium” service can decrease the chances of the image being reused on other people’s covers.
And suddenly we are in expense again, if you are doing this on your own. You are paying for the uniqueness of the art, the fonts, and the program.
Cover artists already have all these things setup, lines into multiple photo stock arts where they can merge background images with models and props, a plethora of fonts begging for the perfect title, and several different art programs to use as needed. Plus skills worked over the years.
4. Shoddy editing and mismatched typography
Have you ever seen a PowerPoint where the maker went wild with the fonts available? The advice of limiting a slide to three fonts, including bold and italic variations, is a good one. Same is true for cover art. Every change to the font – color, size, thickness, etc. – makes the cover look that much more busy. And unless arranged for eye-flow, the font can stall the eye, make it jump wrong, and destroy the beauty of the cover art. The font for title and author can create a headache when done wrong.
When buying art (either a full cover from an artist or creating your own), watch the pixels. You want enough that when your ebook takes off, you can blow up the cover for hard-copy versions.
Otherwise you will be starting the cover art process all over again. Which may or may not be desirable. Art aimed at appearing good in a thumbnail (Honestly’s creation only had thumbnails in mind with just my name, the title and a single, simple picture), may not ever work blown up for a full print. One of my favorite series, Fugue & Fable, written by Darin Kennedy has cover art which is amazing on the books, and not so hot in the e-book thumbnail. The title and author is in thin small font. The double face shadow gets lost as it shrinks. (NOTE added 10/24/2019 (to original blog from 9/28/2017) – Mr. Kennedy changed publishers. The new artwork is just as amazing as the first AND works as a thumbprint.)
Depending on your budget and long-term plans, think about the scalability (up and down) of your cover.
My comprise to make scaling up better for Honestly was to add a great deal of texture to the background. The diagonal texture adds detail and enhances the eye-flow. After reading the dark title left to right, the color variation and texture both draw the eye across again to the picture of Troy sliding down him to the bottom. The eye then darts to the side with the white text of the author name, bringing the eye up to read the title and starting the eye-flow around in the Z-pattern again. (And that is eye-flow folks, in case you wondered what the art term meant. The art, by its nature, pulls the eye through the piece.)
5. Too much text on the cover
Okay, so this isn’t “Will it stand the test of time?” I’m writing pulp; max I care about is ten years. On the other hand, having too much text on the cover is a classic mistake of new cover creation. People want their name, the title of the book, the title of the book series, the publishing company’s imprint, a quote, a comment from their best review, and the most recent award they won on the cover. Oh, and the artwork. All to be visible in a thumbnail.
If you hire an artist and they tell you “it’s too much”, listen.
Which route should you go?
Should you hire an artist for a custom cover, create your own cover, or buy a pre-made cover?
Remember readers buy you book based on the cover. Readers recommend your book based on what is between the covers. The core marketing in the self-published market is Cover and Word-of-Mouth.
What is your skill set? What do you want to spend your time doing? What will produce the best response from potential readers? Think on these questions and the long hours at the keyboard you spent getting your book to the point it needs a cover. And good luck.
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Rating: Mature
Well, that certainly shows her interest in being here. Apollo thought to himself as he entered the mating room. Amusement snuck across his face at the thought.
The woman turned from her pacing and glared at him. “What are you smiling at?”
“The hat.” He responded. “Aren’t you a little overdressed?”
She yanked the hat off her head and crumpled in with her gloved hands. “So was I supposed to wait naked?”
Excellent, the brunette had fire. When the elder had instructed him to be gentle since it was Lewella’s first mating experience, he had been worried. Like all cats, he liked to play with smaller, weaker creatures. He wasn’t certain how gentle he would be once he scented the heat, but at least he wouldn’t be cruel. “Hardly, but removing a few articles of clothing, such as the coat, might have been advisable.”
Her brown eyes stared at him for a second, anger warring with terror. Anger won as she threw the hat into the corner and started yanking off her gloves. “Don’t know who among the wolves decided to torture a bunch of desert and jungle creatures by forcing us to settle in New York, but I would love to get even with the shit.”
Apollo sauntered over to the agitated female and moved her hands away from where she continued to jerk at her parka’s zipper after it got stuck on her scarf. He started working the knitted material free. “Wolves do not torture. Not their style at all. A cat would have been gleeful about sentencing their enemy to Winter, but not a wolf.” He got one scarf end free and started working on the other. “I think they meant well by giving us the Catskil Forest Preserve and surrounding area to recover from the Were-war. Always look for straight forward thinking in those creatures.”
He leaned closer, taking a quick sniff. Lewella jerked away from the intrusion.
Beginning of her heat cycle. Not more than a couple of hours. Not the same species … “Bobcat or cougar?” he asked.
“Cougar.” She responded automatically. “What are you?”
“Leopard.”
Her scent glands filled the air with the removal of the parka. Apollo felt his dick immediately ask for release from its confines. Looking into the woman’s eyes, he saw them darkening with arousal. But she was also far from ready emotionally for the next few days. He moved his hands from lifting her shirt’s hem to the scarf’s ends.
The female tilted her head after the eye contact. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Apollo started moving the scarf up and down by pulling the two ends, causing the wool to rub the back of her neck.
A gasp parted from her lips. She needed several moments to reform her train of thought. Her much raspier voice queried, ”Why don’t they let us meet before the matings? We cats don’t form permanent bonds, so why all the mystery?”
Continuing the stimulation with the see-sawing scarf – which provided him the amusement of a toy and toying with someone, Apollo responded, “Are they still selling that crap in the pride nursery?”
Confusion crossed her flushed face.
“Ahh. I can see they are.” He slowly pulled the scarf completely off her neck. “Yes, we are cats, sunshine, but we are also human. Which means while we don’t do that one mate for life idiocy wolves do, we do have enough monkey to prefer long-term monogamous relationships.”
He took off his jacket suit and tossed it into the growing clothing pile. Her eyes burned into his chest as he removed his work shirt. “For example, Lavi should have been here before me, but he needed to say goodnight to his human mate and kids.”
Startled out of the deepening heat, the girl said, “He has cubs with a human?”
“No, they are from her first marriage.” He sat on the bed to take off his shoes. “No hope there to restore our species. But he hates it when his turn comes up for the matings and that is what Alta is trying to keep from happening with the rest of us. Unnecessary emotional cruelty,“ Surprise tinged his voice as he concluded, “Quite unlike her to be kind.”
Lewella started following his example and soon they were both naked. She laid on the bed and spread her legs. The scent nearly overwhelmed him. The cougar’s heat was nearly peaked.
“Had sex with humans I see.” Apollo commented.
“Why … what?”
“Flip over.” The female was well into lower brain function, so he needed to keep his wits just a little longer. He helped her get on her hands and knees.
Once she was in position, Apollo bit into her nape. Lewella immediately screamed in orgasm and her nails extended into the sheets tearing them apart. No male feline ever mounted a female from the front while she was in heat. Those nails would destroy thin human skin.
While her nails held her in position, Apollo released her neck and slid his penis into her weeping slit. Her vagina was still pulsating from her first climax. His brought his right hand around to play with her clitoris while his barbs started digging into the sides of the channel. As he withdrew, his dick was squeezed tighter and the barbs increased the sensitivity at hundreds of points. Pain and pleasure drove them both over the edge.
Together the feline couple sunk into scent and sensation.
(911 words – originally appearing in Sunday Fun for Breathless Press on 11/18/12; reposted new blog format 9/24/2017)