Tag Archives: Annie’s Story

Books ARE judged by their covers

Annie's Story coverIt’s the first thing you’re attracted to as a reader, especially if the author is unknown to you.
You should be able to tell at a glance what the genre is. Take historical fiction, which is what I love writing. Clues are in the font chosen, the style of dress and make-up; if there’s a woman on the cover, her age. If her features and hair look right for the period or if she’s too ‘fluffy’ or simply too young to be your heroine.

If she’s travelling on a ship, a train or a plane, and you want them on the cover (hopefully, not all at once) it’s important that they, too, convey the correct period of the story. When you look at a cover that attracts you, you should subconsciously absorb the atmosphere of the story and setting of the book, which might lead you to open up your purse.

With the first cover of my debut novel, Annie’s Story, Book 1 of The Voyagers Trilogy, beginning in 1913, the designer amazingly picked out a perfect ‘Annie’ for me. She is young and beautiful, but with downcast eyes, giving the impression she’s a little apprehensive of the long journey to Melbourne before her. And so she should be, the trouble she gets into! The ship I asked the designer to use was a photograph of the Orsova, the very one my own grandparents sailed on when they went to Australia in the same year. So all I had to do was ask him to tweak here and there, but basically I was thrilled at the first proof.

Book 2, Juliet’s Story, set in the present day, was a real problem. Juliet sails to Australia to follow in her grandparents’ footsteps, only she has a secret reason why she really wants to go. To be more adventurous she sails on a freighter. The brief to the same designer was for an attractive middle-aged woman who looked as though she could be a businesswoman, with long dark wavy hair, in holiday clothes.

The designer sent through a profile of a woman in her forties with the long dark wavy hair. And there it ended. Oh, this one was strong-looking, all right. Rather too severe. Her nose was too big and her chin was too square and she was bare of make-up. Yet I didn’t dislike her. On the contrary, I felt she could be my Juliet with some work. I so badly wanted to love the cover the way I did with Annie. The publishers and I went backwards and forwards several times but it was never quite right. And the container ship the designer used was one that apparently passengers wouldn’t be allowed to travel on.

I had a search on ‘Dreamtime’ and ‘Shutterstock’ at the dozens of pages of middle-aged women on holiday, until my eyes went funny. I found the same woman the designer had used, but with four different positions and expressions. I picked a three-quarter angle where she’s giving the hint of a Mona Lisa smile, and asked that make-up and nail polish should be added – oh, and a pearl earring. Then I picked another container ship that was nicer to look at, and voila…job done.

Heart in my mouth I ‘unveiled’ the final proof of the cover. Bingo! Juliet looked stunning. And the container ship looked quite romantic against the sunset colours the designer had chosen for the sea and sky.

Now, he’s got to pick a third young woman for Kitty’s Story. She’s only seventeen when it opens in 1941. Plus I need a military aeroplane and a troopship in the background, as Kitty is on her way to Cairo.

That shouldn’t be too difficult for the designer…should it?

Inspiration, then doing it.

inspirationI’m talking about inspiration. Who or what inspired you to write your first novel? What was the moment when you knew you could do it and would do it? When you suddenly gained the confidence to tackle something so mammoth? When your life and family and job, even if one or more of those areas was in disharmony, still pointed the way that ‘this was the hour’ to make that decision and actually begin?

I’d wanted to write ‘a book’ since I was nine. By ‘book’ I meant fiction, such as the kind of adventures my idol, Enid Blyton, wrote about. I began by writing a serial and was the only pupil to have it pinned up on the class notice-board. I remember even to this day the thrill of seeing my story on display, and a group of children clustered round, avidly reading it. Then demanding to know when they would be able to read the next episode. Oh, the stress, even for a nine-year-old!

Adult life rolled along, and my writing consisted of dozens of short stories and articles and letters, together with some editing of a couple of charity magazines. But I was no nearer to my dream of writing a novel. And if I thought about it, I was beset with fear that I wasn’t clever enough.

But the dream kept nudging me. So I decided to go on a writing course. The only possibility in Tunbridge Wells at the time (ten years ago) was one morning a week at a script-writing course put on by the Adult Education Centre. I was disappointed it was script writing. ‘You’ll learn just as much, if not more, about novel writing on that one,’ said Richard, my published friend. So I took his advice. We started with a class of about 15 with Malcolm Davidson, our tutor. He had a wonderful wry sense of humour so I wasn’t surprised he had been on the US team writing the great American sit-com, The Golden Girls. He was an excellent teacher but even so, our class dwindled rapidly to a half a dozen.

At the end of the year I had a one-to-one with him and told him my secret dream of writing a novel. He asked me if I had An Idea. I told him I had two pictures of a ship called the Orsova hanging in my sitting room, which my grandparents had bought when they sailed to Australia in 1913, thinking they were going to emigrate. I told him I didn’t know many details of their journey or their seven-year time spent in Melbourne, but had enough of my own ideas to completely fictionalise it. Then I said I wanted to intersperse it with a present-day heroine who follows in her grandparents’ footsteps.

‘That’s a parallel timeline,’ he said.

‘Do you think I’m being too ambitious for a first novel?’ I asked.

‘No,’ was his answer. ‘If you get stuck on one story you can turn to the other. And I can see you’re excited by the idea, so that’s the one to go with. You can do it.’

So I did.

Moving on

crateI don’t recommend moving two houses in the space of one week into one (quite big) house, with several hundred books, but that’s exactly what I’ve been involved in lately. Thankfully, we’ve sort of settled in, although it still feels like a very warm, comfortable 4-star hotel, and we keep wondering when we’ll be made to pack up our suitcases and go home. It’s probably because everything is either painted or tiled in cream and is crying out for paint colour, loads of pictures, and, of course, all our books.

Keeping up the writing every day has been difficult. Sometimes I’ve had a change and done a spot of self-editing. A couple of times I’ve managed to have a go with the third novel of my trilogy called The Voyagers and produced 1,000 words or more at a session. I’m so near the end of the first rough draft, but still haven’t quite worked out the ending. It’s hard to feel inspired and creative when you’re surrounded by all these dozens of boxes bursting out of every room, including my study. Luckily, all the rooms are generously-proportioned, but as soon as one room looks half-way decent, the overflow has got dumped into another room, making that room worse than it was before.

I decided to pay for a professional editor to edit the first novel of my trilogy: Annie’s Story. I found her through Cornerstones, a literary consultancy whom I’ve used before to edit my non-fiction book: Seller Beware: How Not to Sell Your Business. Not long after their report and my amendments I found a publisher for the book, so I have great faith in them. I was bowled over by this editor’s very encouraging and complimentary 13-page report on Annie’s Story which I received last week. I even get to have a face-to-face with her for an hour or two, which will take place at the beginning of March. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The editor’s comments and suggestions were mostly spot on, and I’ve made adjustments where I thought appropriate. The good thing was, she didn’t highlight any structural problems or plotholes. (I nearly said ‘potholes’ as you can hardly get down the lane leading to our new house without destroying the underside of your car.)

I guess I’m nearly ready to start sending Annie out to some agents!