A thousand words per day.
Publish/distribute fiction on Mondays.
Free Fractal Friday.

I shall elucidate later. Must work now.

I’ve been following discussions on book covers in writer’s mailing lists and on yours and Dean’s blogs. I’d like to share two opinions which I hope will help authors as they learn how to do their own book covers, which I think we should do.
1. The “critique my book cover please” posts I see in the mailing lists read suspiciously like those critique groups that we shouldn’t belong to; the ones where the stories get homogenized and, yeah, those kind. I’m reading a lot of “this is good, this is bad” opined by people who are trying to give their gut feeling on the piece (which is good) but don’t have a conscious grasp of visual grammar (which is bad).
Just as in writing, we need to learn the basic principles and THEN happily experiment with breaking those rules to make our book covers even better.
(Oh noes, I hear, I just went through the pain of learning about epub NCX files and Smashwords Meat Grinder and now she wants me to learn something else?)
It’s not that hard.
2. Here’s what you need to learn and practice while composing your book covers. Here’s your visual grammar primer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_(visual_arts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_design
Just learn it a bit at a time and practice on the book covers. Do this before jumping into the Photoshop Secrets or the Deviantart tutorials or anything else.
If you’ve studied music, filmmaking, interior decorating, yes even writing, you will find some common concepts that will make this much easier.
Rhythm. Contrast. Motif. Texture. Where the lines go, either melodic lines or dialog lines.
Next time you watch a movie, watch how the shots are composed, with the Rule of Thirds in mind. See how much space the DP gives the frame when an actor is in profile, looking at something offscreen. Notice that in closeups the eyes are not dead-center in the frame.
Watch how the actors are lit.
While filming Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg entertained Laura Dern during the hurricane blackout by putting a flashlight over his head, shining downward, and saying “Romance movie” and then shining it upward from under his chin and saying “Horror movie.” Pay attention to lighting.
Watch the typography on the credits. Listen to the pauses (white space) in the music.
Go to Home Depot and look at all the color swatches, and learn complementary coloring works. How do you use an accent color? How is landscape balanced?
Just as you’ve read all your life and picked up storytelling subconsciously, you’ve used your eyes all your life and have picked up the visual storytelling subconsciously.
As you advise “Read outside the genre” the same advice goes for book covers–”Watch outside the genre.”
So, I hope this helps. Good luck!
And thanks for all you do.
Carolyn

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Subsequently, I had an amazing discussion with some writers and artists at the ASFA suite (run by the American Speculative Fiction Authors) at RENovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention. More on that later.

Actually, one more thought:
I learned some valuable book-cover lessons from John Picacio during his presentations at Worldcon. Here he is:
http://www.johnpicacio.com/

]]> http://www.carolynnicita.com/writing-related/quetzalcoatl-ourobouros/feed/ 0 http://www.carolynnicita.com/writing-related/a-study-in-pink/ http://www.carolynnicita.com/writing-related/a-study-in-pink/#comments Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:26:17 +0000 Carolyn Nicita http://www.carolynnicita.com/?p=372 Just saw the pilot for the new British rendition of Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed it immensely.
It had an excellent example of subtext in dialog; if you come across the episode, be sure to pay attention to the Blanket scene.  Holmes is describing the man who shot the gun, and then realizes exactly who it is he’s describing.

“I’m in shock. See? I have a blanket.”

http://christy-evans-mystery.blogspot.com/

http://www.kriswrites.com

I found some of those writing rules laughably stupid. But I marked the few breathlessly good ones for long, hard study.