Title Fight Anne Cassidy

I have a new book coming out in February called Heart Burn. It’s a story about a girl called Ashley who owes a favour to a boy called Tyler. She once had a relationship with this boy and she still has strong feelings for him. When she hears that he’s been beaten up and left for dead she is deeply shocked. Tyler asks her to go and see him in the hospital and then he asks for her help.

When I first thought of this story I had a working title in my head YOU OWE ME. I wrote a lot of the book calling it this. Then one day I didn’t like it. The story is told in the first person and it seemed better if the title contained the words of the girl. So I decided it had to be I OWE YOU.

I did a few school visits round this time and students often ask “What are you working on now?” I tried to explain the story to them and as soon as I said the title I OWE YOU an image of I O U came into my head. So the story ceased to be about a favour owed and became a kind of cash transaction. I spent a lot of time clarifying to the students what the title meant.

It wasn’t working so I threw it out.

When I looked at the story it was about a favour owed but that favour was only important because Ashley LOVED Tyler, had never gotten over him.
So the title HEART BURN seemed to fit.

I showed it to my husband and his response was “Indigestion?”

I ignored him. What does he know about teen fiction?

Beautiful Dead Girls

Recently on her blog 'Trac Changes’, Rachel Stark highlighted a disturbing and worrying trend in teen/YA book covers in which female characters were depicted as dying, beautifully and tragically. Her post “Cover Trends in YA Fiction: Why the Obsession with an Elegant Death?” discussed why the imagery of dead girls has become so popular in teen/YA lit. She considers that these images are “less the product of an overt “male gaze”, and more the product of teenage girls’ morbidity...anyone who has worked with teenage girls will know that many have an astonishing taste for that which is melodramatic, desolate and downright morbid.” Rachel Stark explores the idea that, at least in part, this fascination is a product of the internalised misogyny of teenage girls. You can read the whole post here - .http://trac-changes.blogspot.com/2011/10/cover-trends-in-ya-fiction-why.html?spref=tw

This post comes in the same week as the trailer for the film The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins hits the airwaves. If you haven’t read the series, Katniss Everdeen is the main character and she has gripped the imagination and emotions of thousands upon thousands of people, from pre-teens, young teens, older teens, young adults and adults, and she is also one of the strongest heroines to have emerged in recent years. Yes, there is lots of violence in the books, a love triangle, a terrifying dystopian world, but at the centre of it is a captivating heroine who refuses to die.
The book covers for the Hunger Games Trilogy do not figure a beautifully elegant dead girl. Yet the books are best sellers and they have captured the imaginations of girls and boys alike.

The covers of YA books are typically designed by publishers’ in-house designers, who usually first read the book to capture the mood and the story and who will then discuss the design with authors. But editors, and importantly, the sales and marketing department, have a huge say in book cover design.

Personally I believe that the design of book covers is largely in the hands of the publishers rather than stemming from a demand from teenage girls. I do buy Rachel Stark’s line that there is a strong undercurrent and receptiveness towards images of “beautiful morbidity” amongst teenage girls. But I’m not prepared to believe that this receptiveness has grown explosively. I think it’s down, as usual, to the sales and marketing department’s tendency to hunt in packs and to copy the latest fad. Perhaps too some authors get less of a say in the look of their cover than others.

But to whoever decided that beautiful dead girls on covers sell books and to those who continue to endorse the trend, isn’t it about time for a trend change?

Covers Catherine Johnson

The last school visit I did - to a lovely school in Welwyn Garden City - went off suddenly and at a most interesting tangent. I was working in the library with a group of Year 8s. It was a great school library with a huge range of fiction.
As the session drew to an end, and I can't remember how the conversation began, we started talking about covers. They were all library monitors and big readers so they knew what they were talking about.
It was exhilarating, a fiery exchange of ideas, the students pulling books off the shelves that had great covers, but had disappointed, and those that had what they thought were poor covers but good stories.
It was fascinating, I learnt so much in about half an hour of frenzied sharing. It was so interesting I hope to go back, hopefully with a publisher or a designer and have some further discussions. It's too late for my next book, and I'm not advocating cover design by committee, but I think it's worth knowing - and listening to - what our audiences are looking for in a book cover.
I know it's hard for children's book, some are pitched at parents or adults, others jump on bandwagons, some authors are definite brands.
Very soon I think covers might cease to be as much of an issue anyway. Will e-readers mean that cover art is destined to be a thing of the past?
I hope not.
The picture is my next book from Barrington Stoke, and I think it looks rather good.

This blog post has no title!

I have just changed the title of the novel I'm currently working on.

Again.

I just can't decide on the right title. I almost feel like letting the publisher decide.

Just think how important the title of a book is. A good one will not only be memorable but make potential new readers actively seek out the book.

It will resonate in your head like a tuning fork. Stick in the mind like stubborn egg stains. Have an emotional punch like Muhammed Ali.

A good title even becomes an icon or a touchstone in its own right.

Catch-22. 1984. Brave New World.

It can also signify the genre.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen could not be anything but fantasy.

The Unquiet has to be a thriller.

It can be eponymous, like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary; or signify the theme, like Crime and Punishment or Pride and Prejudice.

Or it can be quirky, like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, or The Knife of Never Letting Go.

And just silly and quirky, like Puckoon, or The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

At the same time as thinking about this I'm reading an autobiographical monograph by Haruki Murashami called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

People, he says, often ask him if, while running, he is thinking about the novel he is currently writing.

"No," is his answer. Actually, he is thinking about nothing. Or, as he puts it, The Void.

Now, here is an interesting place. I love The Void so much I have a room permanently reserved there.

The problem is, I often lose my way when trying to reach it.

The Void is variously also known as The Still Point of the Turning World (T.S. Eliot), The Supreme Point Where All Contradictions are Resolved (André Breton and the Surrealist Manifesto), and The Uncarved Block (Chinese Taoist Art training).

In a world drowning in a surfeit of words, to which we are all, writers par excellence, fatally addicted, The Void is reached by taking a Journey to the East - which is East of Eden - by jumping off Brighton Rock, following the Songlines along the Road to Wigan Pier, through the Heart of Darkness, crossing the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, at the end (where else?) of The Road Less Travelled.

Not enough people go there.

It's quiet: in The Void you can't even hear yourself think.

Here, you can try without trying, be without wanting, start without stopping.

All opposites are reconciled like identical poles of a magnet brought together as if they were north and south.

And here, as Pierre Reverdy said, is the place where the most successful poetic images are generated.

"The image is a pure creation of the spirit. It cannot emerge from a comparison, but from the coming together of two distant realities. The more the relations between those two realities are distant and right, the stronger the image will be - the more it will have emotive force and poetic reality."

Is not this also what we require from a successful book title?

So what, you're hopefully wondering, is the title I have settled on (at least until a better one comes along)?

In truth, it's not one I thought of myself. I have my fiancée, Helen, to thank.

She, being a musician and composer, knows the Void well, since music is another conveyance that transports to it the sympathetic mind.

The rejected titles were: The Drowning. The Essence. The Ending.

The new one: Stormteller.

Would you pick up a book with such a title?

Acknowledgements - Charlie Butler

I know from the experience of having written about Acknowledgements elsewhere that most people who read this post are going to disagree with me. So I’ll say it up front: this is just my personal preference, I’m not judging anyone, and I’m happy to contemplate the possibility that I may even be, yes, wrong. Nevertheless, I can’t help clinging to the feeling that I may also be a bit right.

I don’t much care for Acknowledgements pages in novels.

There, I’ve said it.

If I seem a little nervous, it’s because when I mentioned this in another forum some time ago, I was surprised by the visceral ferocity of the reaction. More than one person accused me of wanting to ban the things (which I certainly don’t). Another devoutly hoped that I was joking. Yet another declared my preference “bizarre”. Altogether there was something defensive about the comments I received, as if I were somehow sneering at people who like Acknowledgements.

It’s easy to forget that Acknowledgements pages haven’t always been around, so quickly have they become entrenched. In the old days – by which I mean 15 years ago – novels generally appeared with an author’s name, maybe a dedication, and possibly (if it was a historical, say), a technical note explaining what liberties had been taken with history or geography. By contrast, the full-blown Acknowledgements page will detail all the editors, friends, family and chance acquaintances who may have had a hand in providing inspiration, coffee, good advice, and so on. Often the page will be fleshed out into something like a mini-essay on “The Making of This Book”, in the manner of a DVD extra, replete with reminiscences about the people and incidents that contributed to its writing.

So, why don’t I care for Acknowledgements pages? What could be my problem with such a generous-spirited recognition of the undisputed fact that, with any book, the material doesn't originate entirely within the writer's own head? Why shouldn’t the beta readers and editors and long-suffering spouses have their moment in the sun? There are two main reasons for my preference, one perhaps more respectable than the other. (And let me repeat that this is just an account of how I react, not a model for others to follow.)

The less respectable reason – to get it out of the way – is that, in some hands, Acknowledgements can feel a bit breathless and Oscar-speech-ish. Or they can become a rather cloying round of log-rolling and mutual admiration between members of tight literary coteries. But this doesn’t apply to all, or even most, of them. Most are heartfelt and gracious.

The (arguably) more respectable reason is that Acknowledgements tend to throw me out of the fictional world by reminding me that it’s all made up. Of course I do know this anyway, but I don’t like to be reminded of it the minute I’ve read FINIS. I’m aware that this is not an entirely consistent reaction. I don’t mind at all when actors come on at the end of a play to take a bow, for example – but the “Making of this Book” approach feels more like a magician explaining how the trick he’s just performed was done. As a matter of fact I’d be very interested to know how it was done – just as I’m very interested to know how books are written – but I don’t feel the book itself is the place to do it.

In that case, why don’t I just skip the Acknowledgements altogether? Of course, I’m far too nosy to do so (and I’d certainly stay to hear the magician’s explanation). Also, I feel that if something’s designed by the author to sit in the book, it’s because the author feels that reading it will enhance rather than detract from the experience of that book. I don’t like the idea that some parts of a book are optional extras. As a parallel, imagine that it became standard practice for artists to put up a page of Acknowledgements next to their paintings, explaining how they came by the idea for the picture, where they buy their brushes, how their partner encouraged and criticized them, what other painters they admire, etc. All very interesting: all entirely distracting. And imagine that this page was considered part of the painting, to the extent that wherever the painting was to be displayed the Acknowledgements would be displayed too. Would it really be so bizarre to say that, personally, I’d rather that kind of information, fascinating as it is, was kept to the catalogue or a magazine interview? Or that being told to “just ignore it” didn’t quite answer the case?

Finally, I wonder why Acknowledgements pages have become so widespread in fiction? Are they now in fact de rigeur, so that anyone who doesn’t include them will be seen as an egotistical ingrate? And does this mark some kind of epistemic shift, whereby authors are no longer seen as individual artists (in the way that painters and composers still are) but simply as one player in a collaborative art form, more on the lines of a movie scriptwriter? If so, how did that happen?

Blurbling On: Penny Dolan.

The blurb is so simple that Year 1 children – the five to six year olds – can recognise the thing. They point to the patch of text on the back of book cover, proudly telling you “It’s the bit that tells you about the book.”

Is that truly what a blurb does? Does it tell you too much? Or not enough? I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve had examples of both.

In books I’ve written for an early reader series, the standard blurb format sometimes gives the twist of the plot away.

Eight enormous elephants turn a little boy’s house upside down.
It seems nothing can stop them . . . until a little mouse appears.

Or

When Ed dropped his gum on as stormy day, little did he know what would happen. Can Granny save him from the Big Bad Blob?

Why? I wanted both the mouse and the Granny to be a surprise.

Does it help the young reader’s reading and enjoyment to know what the surprise is? Would it help readers of Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” if the blurb contained the words But the narrator did it all along?

The writer doesn’t usually write the blurb, in my experience. The words comes from someone at the publishing house. The copy editor? The editor? Are the words agreed with marketing who must surely know what aspects of the book might make it sell? It’s all a mystery to me.

However, for my long novel for upper junior readers, A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E, there was some information missing.

The book blurb emphasizes Mouse’s earlier life and his time in a dreadful school. Here’s an extract:

Mouse cannot know there are people who want to kep him hidden away . . . or worse. Frightened and alone, what Mouse does know is that he must get away from Murkstone Hall – and fast.

The blurb is gripping and compelling stuff, but nowhere does it mention that the final third of the book takes part in the busy backstage world of the Victorian theatre, nor that the play that involves Mouse is A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Originally I had decided this had been missed out because someone at my new publishers felt that any hint of “the theatre” might put readers off. Maybe it would have attracted readers? I’m not sure. Or perhaps it just was that, with a long and complex story, there just wasn’t enough space for everything? Ah well.

I looked at quite a few book blurbs before writing this post and must admit that one stood out:

Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.
Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.
Once I made a Nazi with toothache laugh.
My name is Felix.
This is my story.

I can’t help wondering whether it was Morris Gleitzman or his publisher who wrote that blurb for "Once".

Can any of you explain the mysteries of blurb writing? Or do you have your own favourite “blurb” blurbs?

Bad Blogging Day - But Smile! - Emma Barnes

It has been one of those days where nothing is working. My beautifully crafted post (you would have enjoyed every word, promise), with its wonderful, glowing images, is failing to upload, my computer keeps crashing, and so there is nothing for it but to be brief.

Here is a preview of the new edition of my book Jessica Haggerthwaite: Witch Dispatcher with a new cover by the fantastically talented Emma Chichester Clark - creator of Blue Kangaroo and many other wonderful characters. What do you think? I am feeling lots more cheerful already!

What has made you smile today?

Posted by Emma Barnes www.emmabarnes.info

Who's the Girl on the Cover? by Marie-Louise Jensen

This is possibly the question I get asked most often about my books. Many people assume that the girls on the cover are my daughters (in fact I have sons) or friends of mine. Or that at very least I've met them and chosen them.

The truth is very different. Many people are genuinely surprised to hear that authors aren't involved in cover design. It's the publishers choice, and as an author you hope and assume they are more expert in selecting a face than the author would be. If your publisher is nice, you are consulted along the way. Occasionally they'll even listen if you don't think it's right. But ultimately I know almost nothing about design or sales and marketing and they have trained experts.

What about the title then? Do authors choose titles? Well, that is far more likely than choosing the cover. I've only chosen one out of five of my titles, but that's because I'm not very good at thinking catchy titles up. Many authors do come up with their own titles and I'm sure publishers are pleased to be saved the work.

And the cover copy or blurb? Do we write that? Generally, no we don't. It's harder than you might think to make your own story sound enticing. I've sometimes collaborated on the cover copy or made suggestions, but I've also sometimes only changed one word. It's something I'm more than happy NOT to do if there's no need.

I'd far rather get on with the next story. That's the part I do best.

Chateau Downunder - Michelle Lovric

Hyping up a product with hints of wickedness and perversion? Sexing up its contents with eye-catching art? A subtitle that teases? Terrible puns? Synaesthesia? Satire? Yes, books and wine have a lot in common. Both are mind-altering stuff. And both advertise their contents with imagery and words, sometimes more creatively than truthfully.

I spent last Christmas in Australia and New Zealand, where wine label art is particularly reminiscent of book jacket design. Antipodean wineries regularly use humour, drama and creative typography to get their wines noticed. A visit to the ‘bottle-shop’, just like a visit to the bookshop, can see the customer staggering out with more than he or she intended to buy, seduced by dazzling label/cover art and text. So here are some of the wines that I ‘read’ or tasted by word-of-mouth on my travels.

The trophy-winning Australian Shiraz of last year is called Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch. The Gatsby-style illustration shows an elegant woman carrying a shotgun. The wine is said to be an ideal accompaniment to game. In contrast, a stark black-and-white drawing of a lone figure announces a Pinot Gris called Innocent Bystander. A sommelier whispered reverently of Dead Red Dog and Two Old Boots, and told me about an American winery called Pompous Ass, with offerings such as Highfalutin Red and Kiss My Ass Blush, illustrated with a girl puckering up to a donkey.

Animals feature strongly in Antipodean wine labelling. There are Chardonnays called Barking Owl and Platypus Play, a Shiraz called Shoo Fly, and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc called Cats Pee on a Gooseberry Bush. One Chardonnay Semillon goes by the name Hair of the Dingo.

A Barossa Grenache is simply called Bitch (in an ornate typeface on a pale pink label). The back of the bottle is printed with the word ‘bitch’ 77 times. According to one wine website, Bitch is now the ‘liquid anthem’ for divorces, birthdays and, mysteriously, baby showers.

There are Californian Cabernet Sauvignons, Chardonnays and Merlots called Mad Housewife, with an Edna Everage lookalike on the label. An elegant white label announces a French Chardonnay that goes by the name of Fat Bastard (now joined by Utter Bastard Syrah). Boarding Pass Shiraz’s label is just what it says … on the label. There’s a Californian Chardonnay called White Trash White, from the same stable as Redneck Red. Vampire Vineyards in Romania produce various reds including Dracula. Let’s not forget Marilyn Merlot, made by Marilyn wines in the Napa Valley. There is also Norma Jeane Merlot and Sauvignon Blonde. (All royalties go to the Strasberg Theater Institute and the Anna Freud Foundation.)

South Africa has its famous parody wine labels, Goats do Roam and Bored Doe (say them out loud). And Sicily has satirized the much-advertised Piat d’Or with its own Fiat Door. Abruzzo has The Full Montepulciano. And France has even parodied itself with a Chat-en-Oeuf, illustrated with a cat sitting on an egg. (There’s also Longue-Dog.)

Alcohol labels are more regulated than book covers. But is not the requirement to list the alcohol content a bit like age-ranging? Labels may not lie, according to a ‘bevlog’ I read, but they may contain information that is not necessarily purely factual, just like a book jacket.

How much is its great title A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius to do with what’s inside Dave Eggers’ book? Who cares? We all bought the book anyway for the pleasure of its name.

Perhaps wine labels are more honest than book covers? There’s a Spanish Tempranillo called Scraping the Barrel. And in Hungary, a Cserszegi Fuszeres varietal has been christened The Unpronounceable Grape. B Frank’s label asks the giver to complete this phrase: ‘I’m only drinking with you because ……’ There’s an American wine called Adequate Gift. Its label is a form for the giver to fill out: ‘Hope you and …… enjoy this rich red blend! Its fleshy mouthfeel of cherry, coffee and vanilla flavours reminds me of the …… times we’ve had, like the whole ……incident.’

Not a bad idea for the back of a book jacket, is it? Let the punter fill in the blanks! Especially useful in the gift book market.

Just to demonstrate the synergy, book covers can even become wine labels. Elizabeth Gilbert’s paean to me-ness, Eat Pray Love, is now not just a ‘major motion picture’, but also the label for a Pinot Grigio.

But wine and beer labels can also get the ‘publishers’ into trouble. The brewers of a series called Witch’s Wit – in a line of Catholic-themed beers, like Inferno Ale and Judgment Day – decided to use an illustration of a witch being burned at the stake for its new offering, The Lost Abbey. Predictably, the image caused a furore among wiccans, pagans, shamans and others. This generated a great deal of hot air, and the publicity no doubt increased sales.

I suspect similar intentions in the South Australian winery that named its Cabernet Sauvignon simply Evil, printed white-on-black upside down with a dramatic tagline of ‘It’s just wrong’.

During the long summer evenings to come, I’m planning to drink a lot of books and read a lot of wine. You’re all invited to submit tasting suggestions.

LINKS

Michelle Lovric’s website

See the new video trailer for The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium on YouTube

The Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch series of wine has its own website, including a picture gallery showing their butchery course.

The lovely Chat-en-Oeuf illustration comes from the beautiful Arts Parts clip art site

An excellent site for wine labels, including many that I could not mention on a site for writers of children’s books, is this one