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“That’s not her nose.”

“What role do you play in design­ing the cov­ers for your books?” I’m often asked that.

The answer: not a great deal. In my ear­ly years of pub­lish­ing I didn’t see the cov­er until the book was pub­lished. Of late, art direc­tors share ideas, sketch­es, even drafts with me. I try to make use­ful sug­ges­tions, but the deci­sion is made by the edi­tor, not me. Is that right?

Con­sid­er this: the cov­er of a book is ulti­mate­ly an adver­tise­ment. It’s mar­ket­ing, a way of inform­ing and entic­ing a read­er about a book. All well and good, but is the author the best judge of visu­al images of their own char­ac­ters? Here’s a true story.

Bright ShadowThe book I worked longest on was Bright Shad­ow. A fan­ta­sy with some­thing of a com­plex puz­zle, I just couldn’t get it right and worked on it, on and off, for four­teen (14!) years. At the cen­ter of the book is a girl, Mor­we­na. I sup­pose I described her, but not in any great detail.

Short­ly before the book was pub­lished I dropped in at my editor’s office. “So glad you came by,” he said. “The cov­er paint­ing for Bright Shad­ow arrived. Love for you to see it.”

I looked. My first thought was, “That’s not her nose.” Mind, I said thought. I said noth­ing because the paint­ing was fine. But, it was not Morwena’s nose. Did her nose have any­thing to do with the sto­ry? No. Did I write some­thing about her nose? No. But it proved to me that one writes with uncon­scious thoughts as well as con­scious ones.

That’s why, I think, when it comes to cov­ers, authors are the hard­est to please. Someone’s image of your word-defined char­ac­ter can bring uncon­scious thoughts to the sur­face. Does it mat­ter? I think not.

4 thoughts on ““That’s not her nose.””

  1. I want this exact same anec­dote except about work­ing with Bri­an Flo­ca on City of Light, City of Dark. Obvi­ous­ly it’s a dif­fer­ent lev­el of com­mit­ment and inter­est on your part, so what was dif­fer­ent about work­ing with some­one illus­trat­ing every aspect of a sto­ry? How suc­cess­ful was he in con­vey­ing what you had in your head? On a less relat­ed note, what is your favorite illustration(s) from that book? 

    Hear­ing your per­spec­tive on cov­er illus­tra­tions is very inter­est­ing. I would­n’t have guessed it was such an indif­fer­ent process. I’d also like to hear about which cov­ers you were most pleased with. For instance, the cov­er of City of Orphans played a huge role in my read­ing expe­ri­ence. How accu­rate are the draw­ings of Maks and Willa?

    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. Work­ing with Bri­an Flo­ca is always a plea­sure. We have a great work­ing rela­tion­ship. I am hap­py to have his response to my texts, and I respond to his art. City of Light, City of Dark, was like noth­ing (a graph­ic nov­el) either of us ever did before. We met reg­u­lar­ly (we both lived in Prov­i­dence, RI) and (along with our edi­tor) made con­stant changes and revi­sions. I loved the whole process and learned a great deal. When I think of the char­ac­ters I think of Bri­an’s art. Would do it again in a moment.

    As for cov­ers, it is not an “indif­fer­ent process.” It’s just that for the book edi­tor and art direc­tor it is an intense process. I, as writer, have less input. As it should be. And, as my blog bit sug­gests, I’m not always helpful. 

    The cov­er art is, may I sug­gest, nev­er “accu­rate.” A dif­fer­ent artist would have cre­at­ed dif­fer­ent images. Not bet­ter or worse, but dif­fer­ent. The cov­er of City of Orphans does, I think, por­tray the main char­ac­ters very well, and sug­gests the ener­gy of the novel–and your own response tells me it was a success.

    Among the cov­ers I have most enjoyed are the Pop­py books, Seer of Shad­ows, Iron Thun­der, The Barn, True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle.

    Reply
    • Awe­some, thank you for the reply! That was a great read. I’m a huge fan of City of Light, City of Dark and Bri­an Flo­ca, so I would of course love to hear more about the work you guys did for that graph­ic nov­el. I would also love to hear an announce­ment for a new col­lab­o­ra­tion project. 

      Please make a post for both of those things!

      Reply

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