— The Pinnacle Of Art; A Wip Intro

This is a great idea and it looks so pretty!

What have I been up to, you ask?

Oh, I've started a bullet journal for what else my WIP, Forsaken Gods. It's the first time I've tried it since I'm not very artsy or crafty and my color coordination sucks,

If you have the time and resources, I encourage you to try it!

Pros:

Fun and relaxing!

Helps you keep track of your WIP

And keeping it organized!

Gets your creative juices flowing

Passes time while you're trying to get your writing mojo back

challenges your artistic skills especially if you're someone like me who badly needs improvement

Doesn't have to be expensive unless you want fancy stuff

Cons:

you're still gonna need a couple of things so a budget might be required.

Time consuming esp if you want to make it pretty

Messy. So messy.

Right now I'm making character spreads for the Main Squad, which I might also post here or a second tumblr idk yet.

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How I make book covers + tips for you!

Hey people of Earth!

Around this time last year, I mentioned I would have a video up on how I make book covers/cover making tips, and to summarize: I did not do the thing, and this year old script is still sitting in my drafts.

SO, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and post a written version of these tips! Going to get straight into this because I imagine this will be rather long!

This post will be divided into 6 parts: finding inspiration, concept art, incorporating elements of design, composition, tools and software, and resources. Feel free to skip around to whatever section interests you most!

***Before we get started, really quick disclaimer. I am in no way a professional cover designer. Cover design is merely something I picked up on my own, and I don’t have any formal education/credentials in graphic design. So of course take my advice with that in mind. These are also just my personal thoughts and opinions. So take everything with a grain of salt!

1. Finding Inspiration

What’s the deal?

A really great way to start out in design

Finding cover designs or designers you admire may help you see what works technically

Helps nail down a style you like

In turn, can help you find your cover design style

What should you do?

Look at covers in your genre!

Whenever I design a cover, I take a scroll through Goodreads to pick up some inspiration in designs I personally love

I also love walking around my bookstore and taking a look at physical copies

Find a cover design you like, and point out the specific reasons you like it

Example:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was actually not an inspo cover for this edition of I’M DISAPPOINTED, but as you can see, things I liked from it spilled over into my own design. By pointing out aspects of graphic design you like, you’ll better be able to understand your style as a cover artist. 

Some personal thoughts:

I like covers that include a textured backgrounds, as seen in the collage below: 

So for the I’M DISAPPOINTED cover above, I included a textured background. I also love handwritten fonts/lettering, which I include in almost all of my book covers.

What I did:

Off-white colour from A List of Cages and Holding Up The Universe

Silhouette from Painless and previous cover design of I’m Disappointed

Speech bubble from Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Say What You Will

Marker texture from A List of Cages

Obviously my thought process wasn’t to put 4 covers in a blender and thus create my product, ha, this is just an example for the ease of understanding!  

2. Concept art

What’s the deal?

Coming up with concept art is a super important part of designing a successful book cover. 

Acts as the skeleton of your book cover

Your book cover’s roadmap

Saves time/effort

Similar to an outline for a novel. 

Can be a very quick sketch, or full fledged design

I like keeping my concept art quick, but if this is your first cover, making a more detailed mockup can help. 

What should you do?

Sketch out book cover ideas once you get them/take notes of concepts you’d like to explore

If you can’t come up with concepts, take a look at your inspiration folder and pull concepts/ideas from covers you love

This does not mean copying another book cover (this is notttt a good idea!). BUT, pulling inspiration from elements you like on a cover can be helpful in generating your own concepts

You don’t have to come up with concept art (sometimes winging it works!) but I do recommend jotting notes down, and drawing out loose sketches when applicable!

Keep a list of ideas for book covers as you accumulate them (almost like a little vault of concepts lol) and reference them in the future!

Take a look at as many book covers as you can and make a list of elements you like and don’t like

This is one of the easiest ways to accumulate ideas/concepts!

Example:

^^^ Concept art for two book covers 

Likes and dislikes in book covers:

Of course this list is not my be all and end all (nor should it be), and obviously, I still use these things (besides clunky composition I hope!) in some designs!

3. Incorporating the elements of design

What’s the deal?

There are 7 elements of design: line, shape, texture, form, space, value, and colour. 

These sometimes vary depending on where you look, but this is what I was taught, so I’m going to be working off that!

Examples:

I’m going to go through them really quickly via an assignment I did for my comm tech class

Keep in mind this assignment is 2 years old and is only meant to give you an idea of what these elements are 

1. Line

Line is probably the most important element of design as every piece of art starts with one. 

There are various types of lines. You can have curved lines, straight lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines and so on.

2. Shape 

You can have more mathematical, geometric shapes, or more abstract, free form shapes. 

3. Texture

Texture is the feel of a particular surface. 

Texture in my opinion is one of the most important elements when it comes to graphic design, especially book covers. 

My favourite thing to see in book covers is texture, whether that be paper textures like construction paper, crumpled paper, wallpaper, lace, wall textures, paint textures, or marker textures

Texture adds depth to designs, and if there’s any element of design you focus on in this post, I’d highly recommend it be this one. 

(i’m biased but still)

4. Form

Form is almost like shape, except instead of flat objects, we’re dealing with 3-dimensional objects. 

I don’t often use it in my covers since I like drawings and flat shapes in my designs, but if you want to include objects on your cover, or any sort of 3D shape, this would be form. 

5. Space

The distance around an object, to put it simply

Space in covers can help emphasize what’s important, and what is less important, or can draw attention to a particular piece of your design. 

Examples of space:

Colour coding: yellow = space, teal = focal point/movement of viewer’s eye

In Twilight, the black space helps emphasize the main image, the hands holding the apple. 

This also occurs in the Red Queen book covers. The empty space around the crown draws attention immediately to the focal point

You can also lack space. In The Duff, the girl’s face is the only thing you can see on the cover. 

6. Value 

Is determined by how much light or dark is incorporated into design. 

Example of value:

A great example of value in book covers is on Alexandra Bracken’s Passenger. As you can see, the green at the top fades down in a gradient as more white is added to the centre. 

7. Colour

Light reflecting off objects

Can make certain elements of your design stand out

Why should you incorporate the elements of design into your designs?

Adds layers of depth to your work

Thus can take your cover-making skills to another level

Can help in producing ideas

4. Composition:

What’s the deal?

In my opinion, can make or break a design

Can mean clutter of things, OR too much or too little space between elements

Title placement  

Composition is sometimes subjective from design to design

What you can do:

Pay close attention to detail and spacing

Look out for natural shapes in your design you can fit elements into

Watch the linked video from Mango Street (one of my favourite photography channels) on composition

While photography and design are two different things, the tips in this video can also be applied to various ideas in design such as headroom and leading lines

Examples:

*Before I get into this, I want to make it clear that these examples are exaggerations for the purpose of showing you good and bad composition. If you make these mistakes, that doesn’t mean your design is bad, and again, I’m no professional. This comes from what I believe could be considered bad composition, but trust your gut. 

Example 1: Stick People

doesn’t effectively use space

no headroom for text

text is covering 200 element (looks very clunky)

text is cut off

No focal point

Can’t read the title

Textual elements are better spread out

Title is now focal point

Slightly imbalanced

200 element is distracting 

Addition of stick figures balances out cover  

Text follows natural shape of photograph

Removed 200 element makes cover look less clunky

Example 2: Sixteen Cents

Half the title is on a dark background

Lacks readability

Last name is cut off by window

Uninteresting composition (everything is on one line)

No movement

Title placement is better

Better readability

‘A novel’ fits under windowsill

Last name is smaller to avoid cutting it off

Still slightly boring

Uses free space of wall wisely

Title is easy to read

Text is shaped around photo elements

Gives the cover some movement

Example 3: Fostered

Title is covering the focal point (the girl)

Title doesn’t seem to be incorporated into the design

By moving title down, we’ve made space for the subject

Title placement makes cover look less clunky

Same composition as prior but image is colour-graded

Embossed title adds texture/depth

I’ve mentioned this a few times in this post: focal point. What is it?

FOCAL POINT:

Is defined as the main attraction of your book cover

This is where you want your readers’ eyes to focus

Focal points can sometimes define themselves in areas where more contrast happens to be

Doesn’t have to be the centre of the page. 

Keep focal point in mind for composition because if you put it in the wrong spot, you could end up drawing your readers’ attention to the wrong area of the cover. 

The point of most interest in a cover is the focal point, so if you want a particular subject of your book cover, such as a person, to stand out make sure you don’t make the other areas of the cover too high contrast or busy.

Framing subjects also helps, so be creative!  

The human eye tends to focus on areas with increased contrast so keep this in mind

Examples:

The Host

The camera has focused on the eye of the model, with the nose bridge and forehead shadowing each corner of the cover

Helps lead eye to focal point (the eye)

The Girls

Blue around the edges encircles the focal point (the girl), leading the viewer’s eye directly to her

Girl is also scarlet in colour, contrasting the background

The Hunger Games

Grey outlines on the cover lead straight to the mockingjay

Mockingjay is bright gold in comparison to the black background

Creates contrast, thus viewer’s eye is lead there

The Female of the Species

‘Straight’ composition

No particular focal point, viewer’s eye instead moves horizontally across the design

What should you do?

Use the natural shapes and outlines in your design/photo to fill your cover

Use your space wisely (see examples above)

Use leading lines to draw attention to your focal point

Manipulate text to fill empty spaces

5. Tools and software 

You do not need Photoshop to make a good book cover

I made my first book covers in GIMP, a free image manipulation program (kinda like Photoshop’s little brother)

This is the stick people cover I made in photoshop, and the same cover made in GIMP. 

Other tools you may want to use are CreateSpace’s cover templates. 

You can find these through CreateSpace OR Bookow (my personal fave)

OPTIONAL (what I use):

Graphics tablet

I use the Huion H610 which I really enjoy! 

I use this to hand letter, draw silhouettes, create concept art, and so on

Paper and my Faber Castell India Ink Artist Pens. 

These are fine tip markers, and are what I used to create the text on I’m Disappointed 

Thin sharpies and pens will also do the job, and you can always clean any mistakes up in photoshop or gimp.

A scanner so I can transfer what I’ve hand drawn onto my computer

If you don’t have a scanner you can take a clear photograph on a camera or phone 

I also use a few custom marker brushes that now come with the 2018 version of Photoshop

The main one I use is Kyle’s AM - Watercolour Paper from the art markers set (you have to load these into Photoshop, but if you have PS 2018, you should have access to ‘em). 

(I’ve lettered everything in this post with that brush)

6. Resources

Here’s a list of amazing resources you might need when making your own book covers!

1. Stock image websites

Check out THIS post for a master list of my favourite stock photo websites!

Stocksnap.io

Unsplash.com

Pixabay.com 

2. Dafont

Is my main source for finding fonts

3. Goodreads

A huge resource I use to find cover inspiration

I’ll often browse the new releases section to look at new covers and so on

Easy way to narrow down the genre of cover you’re looking for, as well as the age category

4. Keyboard shortcuts 

Check out a masterlist for Photoshop HERE

GIMP masterlist HERE

Makes workflow super efficient

My fave I highly recommend in Photoshop is ctrl > shift > alt > e (merge all layers into new layer) 

I’ve made TWO custom shortcuts: ctrl > shift > o is now open as layer, and ctrl > shift > alt > r is now rasterize layer (these save so much time!)

So to conclude this post, I’m going to list out some of my favourite tips when it comes to cover making (sort of a reiteration of this post)

Add texture!

Texture is a super easy way to add dimension to your book cover

Try lettering with a paper and marker when starting out

I find this a lot easier than digital lettering!

Google is your friendddd

If you can’t figure out how to do something in Photoshop or GIMP, the internet is a vast depository of information!

Pay attention to detail

Cover design is alllll about the small details. Making sure you’ve centred something properly can seriously help in making your cover go from amateur to whoaaa who made thatttt

Get a second opinion

Been looking at your screen for 8 hours straight? Ask someone you know what they think of your design! I find this has sparked a lot of secondhand ideas!

If it doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean it was a fail

If a particular concept just doesn’t work, don’t worry! As you practice you’ll get better, and you can always revisit the concept for another novel!

EDIT: a really great suggestion from @sarahkelsiwrites: print out your design if you need a fresh perspective! You’d be surprised by what you notice on screen VS off!

So that’s it for this post! I hope this was helpful for some of you guys, I know it was looooong overdue. If it helped you out, let me know, and if you have any questions, feel free to send ‘em my way! :))

–Rachel

"I am sharp edges and shattered glass. Yet, when I'm with you, I am soft."

– write-away-from-here

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the slaughter of finches. a wip introduction.

category. new adult.

genre. apocalyptic, low fantasy.

point of view. multiple, third person omniscient.

themes. apocalypse, man v. human, man v. society, man v. nature, supernatural creatures, mystery, found family, war, humanity.

status. outlining, first draft.

type. standalone.

links. old tag. new tag. inspiration tag. powerpoint. pinterest board.

synopsis & characters.

Lees verder

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Be warned, I now have a powerful tool for translating that even translates my subordinate clauses over subordinate clauses correctly. From now on it is over with simplified sentences and you will get the full dose of my way of writing. I am curious what you say to it and how it will be received. And thanks @cirianne for reminding me there is DeepL. 

Hi! So I have never written anything but I have this idea for a book and don’t know how to start. What tips do you have for beginners?

Where to Go from Initial Book Idea

First, congratulations! It’s pretty exciting when you come up with your first book idea. :) <3Here are some things you can do to get started…

1. Write an in-depth summary of your idea to the extent that it’s fleshed out in your mind. Sometimes, while you’re writing this summary, you’ll be able to flesh out other things as you go. I will often put things in parenthesis if I’m not sure, like: And then the princess steals the guard’s sword and escapes into the corridor. (Maybe it’s not a sword but a dagger?) Which helps me keep track of things I’ll need to figure out in more detail later on.

2. Once you have your in-depth summary, you can start thinking about your protagonist, antagonist (or antagonistic force), and any other main characters. It can be helpful to get this sorted out at the beginning, because quite often your characters (and who they are) will inform the finer details of the story.

3. If you’re not familiar with story structure, now is a good time to take a look at it. Well developed stories follow a similar structure, though that structure can vary from story to story, and how people distill that structure into a template can vary as well. But understanding what that general structure is and seeing how different people lay it out can help you flesh out your own story. I talk about that more in this post. 

4. Next, it’s a good idea to outline your story. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but it’s handy to have a step-by-step guide to your story. You may also want to do a timeline, and if you have enough fleshed out, a scene list would be great, too.

5. By this point, you may also want to set up a physical story binder and/or a folder on your desktop where you can organize all of your story-related files.

6. Before you start writing your first draft, you might want to spend a little time doing research and looking for inspiration. This is a great time to put together inspiration boards (digital or physical), cast your characters, and start gathering notes about other important story elements (like setting, for example.) You might also want to do a map of your story world and/or setting, layouts of important buildings/structures, etc.

7. Now it’s time to write! Whether you call it your “zero draft,” “rough draft,” or your “first draft,” this draft is really just about getting the bare bones of your story on paper. You are not writing the final version of your story in one go, so this isn’t the time to worry about quality and perfection. This is where you dip your toes into your story’s world, get to know your characters, and hey–if you feel the urge to poke around in unexpected places or foray off the path to explore organic ideas, do it! In the very first draft of your story, you can do whatever you want!

8. Once you get your first draft completed, if you feel like you have a really strong first draft and there aren’t any structural edits you know you need to make, you can assemble a team of beta readers to get feedback. Or, if you did any of that poking around or foraying I mentioned, and if you know there are structural changes you want to make, do that in your second draft, and then you can send that to betas for feedback. At this point, you just keep editing, tightening up, revising, and polishing until you have your finished draft.

9. Sometime during this editing and revision phase, you’ll want to think about which publishing path you want to pursue: traditional or indie? Traditional publishing is where you find an agent (which doesn’t cost anything upfront, they get paid if and when they sell your manuscript) and they find a publisher for your story. Querying agents can take months or even years and there’s a lot of competition, but there are success stories every single day. Indie publishing, aka “self-publishing,” is a great path for those who want more control over their novel and publishing process. Hopefully by the time you get to the point of deciding between both routes, I’ll have a “traditional vs indie publishing” guide up for you. :)

Best of luck with your story! <3 

(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, and art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Stockvault.net - stock photos

freepngimg - icons, pictures and clipart

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Getdrawings - simplistic images and drawing tutorials

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more sites for free images <3

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Welcome to the first in a very long series of posts in which I talk about my writing process from conception to the end of my first draft. I wanted to do this series for a few reasons: 

I think that learning about others’ writing processes is really interesting. I get to see other ways of going about my work, thinking either wow, that’s really insightful, and I should implement that or I definitely won’t be using that, but now I know that about myself. 

I also think it’s important to understand others’ processes is important, because it allows you to see other views of writing besides your own. You will learn very quickly that I am a planner (or, as George RR Martin says, an Architect, which I prefer). I sit down and plan everything. Some people can’t fathom that, but I hope those people will come to understand why I do it this way, rather than the Gardening way. 

Before we start, I want to add a little disclaimer: what works for me might not work for you. I’m not presenting this, or any of the subsequent posts in this series, as fact, but just my own way of going about our shared profession. 

Also, finally, I will be discussing all of these steps in greater detail. Don’t worry. 

Let’s go!

THE STEPS

1. GENRE. Before I start with anything, I start with genre. Genre is the flavor, it’s the broad idea of a story. It colors everything that comes after.  

2. CHARACTERS. Characters are the next thing on my list. I can’t develop my plot until I have my characters, because I want to tie my plot to my characters and their backstories and motivations. 

3. WORLDBUILDING. Not everything I write needs a lot of worldbuilding, but worldbuilding comes right around here. It’s often combined with steps 2 and 4, but a large bit of it gets done after character creation. 

4. PLOT AND OUTLINE. This is the part of the process when I start coming up with the plot and working on my outline. This part takes a while! My outline is essentially my first draft, so I need a lot of time to work on the pacing and flow.

5. FIRST DRAFT. The first draft is definitely the hardest, I think for anyone. I don’t have a lot to say here, other than just get through it. It doesn’t matter how long it takes - I’m definitely not one of those people who can slam out a draft in a month - just do it. Start, and keep working on it until it’s done. 

And that’s about it! I’m planning on talking about my drafting and editing process at some point, but I need to finish My Heart is a Concert first. Let me know if you found this helpful or insightful, and look forward to my upcoming articles!

(Idk where to ask this so if you cant do you know anyone that can?) Im new to creating ocs and im overwhelmed w all the resources...I have basic appearance down but i feel i dont know my characters at all. I feel picking personality traits/background will be like throwing darts at random and wont come together like theyre an authentic, real person. Any advice? Thx.

This is a common thing for writers, artists, and character designers, so no worries! You’re completely on the right track! It can take months or even years to flesh out a character! I’ve found the best method of working through this is the use of OC interviews!

What are those you ask? They’re questionnaires made specifically for your OC’s to answer! It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to start getting to know your characters. It’s like you’re asking them the question, and they’re answering. It gives you a sense of how they may talk, form their sentences, or even respond to such a question.  

Ask yourself one simple question when working on character personalities: Why? Why do they like this specific color? Why do they behave this way? Questions like these help the characters flesh out more. You need to ask yourself these questions because your audience will be expecting answers to them. 

A few more ways to develop characters: from experience, I found that roleplaying, making AU’s (alternate universes), and writing oneshots about them are the most effective!

Here are some resources for fleshing out character personalities:

Antagonist OC Interview

How to Write Diverse Characters

OC Interview: Through Another Character’s Eyes

5 Minute OC Interview

Foolproof Ways to Flesh Out Your Characters

8 Other Ways of Fleshing Out Characters

Character Profile Sheet

Character Traits

Archetypes to Avoid in Character Creation

Strong Female Characters: How to

Characterization Ask Game

Five Traps When Creating Characters (and tips on how to improve!)

Traumatized Character Profile

So you want to make an OC? (Masterpost)

30 Uncommon Character Development Questions

The Importance of Weaknesses in Your Characters

Qualities of Realistic Characters

Ultimate Guide to Creating Authentic Villians

If anyone has any more resources feel free to add to this list! I hope this helps you out! 

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Hey everyone reblog (no likes, only reblogs pls) if you want to be tagged in writeblr tag games