BE IT FOR LOVE

gayle. they. lesbian. oc and writeblur sideblog. icon: last day of pompeii by karl briullov; header: ophelia by john everett millais. main is @aerismutual! my wips: the hostess; untitled (oaaj); our own pretty ways (cowgirl baby)

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ROSIE RED CORSETRY & COUTURE Collection 2020 if you want to support this blog consider donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

[mshelleys-deactivated20221119]

decided i wanted some wip cover mockups…..not sure how i feel about tinf’s but whatever

— taglists under the cut bc its a lot ; send an ask to be added or removed

Keep reading

[hillelf]

im about to calculate all of my ocs natal charts and im gonna talk abt them as i go we’re starting with cain wooooooh

[hillelf]

here’s cain!! baby boy is SUCH a taurus sun its unbelievable. their venus and mars arent the most accurate but mostly everything else is spot on!!

[hillelf]

im about to calculate all of my ocs natal charts and im gonna talk abt them as i go we’re starting with cain wooooooh

[hillelf]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What's the recipe for your favorite OCs? Sugar, spice, and everything nice? 2 parts broody YA hero 1 part magical girl? Equal parts comp character + other comp character? Go wild! Feel free to even write out a whole recipe for them :P

hi this is from weeks and weeks ago but ive been so busy 😭 i’ll do it now even though its monday now

QUINN:

20% water baby

20% maternal instict

20% incredible kindness

25% wisdom beyond her years

10% saddness, she’s been thru a lot

5% insecurity

EMERALD:

10% sass

20% incredible humor

30% stubbornness

20% love for her friends

15% desire to protect her friends

5% insecurity

CAIN:

40% sadnesss / tragic backstory

25% anxiety

10% achololism

15% desire to love and be loved

10% compassion

AERIAL:

40% REDACTED

30% absolute sweetheart!

20% compassion!!!!

5% confusion

5% guilt

:^)

[cogesque-deactivated20210410]

if you’re reading this, it’s totally ok that you’re not writing. we’re all required to pay our dues & stare at the blue void every now and then. eventually it’ll be sated, but not today.

[amare-habeo]

Jack Devilliers (French, 1944-2014)

Hands (Les Mains), N/D

Stone

[officialjimmybuffett]

am i a writeblr?? yes. do i only write between the hours of 1:00-3:00 am??? also yes.

[writingquestionsanswered]

How does one make a reader sympathetic to the main character? Is it just making them relatable, realistic, and/or have something bad happen to them that's also relatable (or just really dramatic)?

Guide: Creating a Sympathetic Main Character

If you want to create a character your readers will love, try including some of the following traits:

1) Admirable Positive Traits

Kindness, bravery, humility, selflessness, optimism, good morals, respect for others, generosity, open-minded, inclusive, problem-solving… these kinds of positive traits, and others, give the reader reasons to like your character. For more help with positive traits, check out the Positive Trait Thesaurus, a super handy reference that I own and recommend.

2) Sympathetic Negative Traits

Real people have flaws, so readers don’t tend to like characters who don’t have flaws, too. But if you want to create a sympathetic character, it’s also important to make sure their negative traits are believable, understandable, and don’t overwhelm or negate any of the character’s positive traits. Think about the negative traits of people you know and love, and there’s also a Negative Trait Thesaurus, which is also helpful. For added benefit, build in something that explains why your character developed this negative trait. For example, if one of their negative traits is that they’re a stickler for being on time and tend to freak out if they’re even a couple minutes late, find a way somewhere in the story to explain why they are this way. Perhaps they went to a school where tardiness was severely punished, or maybe being late once cost them a job they really wanted. Building in an understandable, relatable reason for why they developed the negative trait helps to make them a sympathetic character.

3) Skills, but not Skillzzzz

Readers love it when a character is good at something, but not too good at something, and definitely not good at everything. Maybe your character is a good student who studies hard and gets good grades. But maybe they also get an A- on a paper and are disappointed but happy they still got an A. Or, maybe your character is considered to be the top pilot at the space trucking company where they work, but maybe they also made an error a few months ago that led to a damaged shipment, so they’re currently on probation and could lose their job and pilot’s license if they screw up again.

4) Sympathetic Motivation and Admirable Goals

Every main character needs internal and external goals and motivation for wanting to reach those goals, but if you want your character to be sympathetic, it’s important to create goals and motivations that a reader can understand, even if they may not agree with them. For example, maybe your character witnessed a crime and is now in danger as the key witness. Maybe they are afraid they now present a danger to their beloved family, so they decide to disappear and take dangerous work in a remote mining operation so that they can keep their family safe and also save up money to give them a better life. Your reader may not agree that leaving their family is the best option, but anyone can understand wanting to protect one’s family.

5) Quirky, but Not QWIRKIEEEE♥!!!

Readers tend to like characters who are a little bit quirky, but “quirky” can get annoying really fast if you go overboard. Maybe your character wears their hair in a rainbow-colored beehive, wears cat-eye glasses, and has a few piercings. Maybe they have an unusual hobby, like collecting seashells or medieval coins, and they can identify almost any specimen by sight. Perhaps they’re a lovable geek who wears a different sci-fi movie/show t-shirt every day and can’t go an hour without quoting a favorite movie. Or maybe they’re obsessed with cats, are fluent in ten languages, run a medieval smithy in their backyard, or have an enormous doll collection. A few of these can make for an interesting character, but too many will make your character unbelievable and annoying.

6) Conflict with Aspects Anyone Can Relate To

I’d wager that most readers have probably never been stuck in an arena and forced to fight other people to the death, but that didn’t stop readers from sympathizing with what Katniss Everdeen had to go through in The Hunger Games. Maybe we couldn’t relate to the reality of what she faced, but we could identify with aspects of it: having to be away from friends and loved ones, facing uncertainty and danger, being pitted against someone you don’t want to be pitted against, being in an unfamiliar place, being in a situation you have limited control over, being forced to do something you don’t want to do, wanting to do the right thing but knowing it will come at a great cost to yourself… These are all things a lot of people can identify with on some level or another, so because we’ve “been there,” even though we haven’t been *there* (in the arena, facing down Clove and Cato, and all those other tributes). There are things about Katniss’s struggle that we can identify with, which allow us to sympathize with her even though we haven’t experienced exactly what she’s going through.

The bottom line when creating a sympathetic character is to go with your gut. If you’re worried that something will diminish your reader’s ability to sympathize with the character, skip it. Or, at the very least, see what your beta readers think. Remember, part of the point of the beta process is to give you feedback that allows you to tweak things like this. So, as much as you should follow your gut, also don’t be afraid to take risks. Create the character you want to see, and everything will fall into place. :)

[winterhill-aria]

Dolce Gabbana Pomegranate Stickpin Brooch in yellow, white and pink gold with rhodolite garnets, rubies and diamonds

[whitepeopletwitter]

[aletheiawriting]

why you should keep writing your story

because it’s a puzzle no one else will ever arrange the same way as you.

because there are ideas that simply won’t come to you until you write down the wrong words.

because all the bad scenes are the bones of the wonderful scenes.

because someone will love it: someone will read it once, and twice, and thrice; someone will ramble to you about the complexity of it; someone will doodle your characters out of love; someone will find it in exactly what they were looking for with or without knowing it.

because they have things to say, your characters. they’ve told you all those secrets and they have more to tell you, if you will listen.

because you love it even when you don’t; even when it drives you mad or when it accidentally turns into apathy; even when you think you’re doing it all wrong; you love it, and it loves you back.

because you can get a treasure even from things that go wrong; because if a story crumbles down you can build a shinier one on the same spot; because you won’t know where it will take you until it takes you there.

[valtsv]

are my prophetic visions a joke to you

[writeness]

writing style game!

put ur answers in the tags!

google docs or microsoft word? character moodboards or character playlists? writing with music or writing in silence? lots of half finished wips or one project at a time? plotter or pantser? more dialogue or more description? character-driven books or plot-driven books? enemies to lovers or friends to lovers?

[iphone-aesthetics]

#162 Gods

Sorry for my hiatus! I will get back to doing some requests on this account x

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

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

[ettawritesnstudies]

NEED THIS BLESS YOU OP

[opalsandcream]