Chris Baty's Blog, page 174

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 20 with Designer Tony Pinto

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: Story of My Life

Holly Odell is fed up with small town life and is itching to get out and see the world. The only problem? She’s fictional, and her author has writer’s block. Deciding that enough is enough, she takes destiny into her own hands and attempts to escape the book to confront her author once and for all.

Upon finding the writer heartbroken and stalled, Holly resolves the only way she’ll get her story told is if she can get this stranger back on her feet. As they embark on a motorcycle journey across America in search of some grand purpose, answers, or perhaps even just a decent cup of coffee, these two unlikely companions discover they have a lot more in common than they could ever imagine.

The Genre: Adventure

The Author: Davi Lancett in Europe :: England :: Devon

The Designer: Tony Pinto is a designer, educator, and fine artist living in Southern California. He teaches graphic design at several colleges, and well as being co-owner of Grace/Pinto Communication Design, with his wife and business partner, Adrienne Grace.

High-Resolution Book Art:

NaNo Coach: 4 Tips for Ending Your Story

This season, we’ve brought on published authors to serve as NaNo Coaches to help guide you to reaching 50,000 words. This week’s NaNo Coach, Cari Noga, author of the soon to be re-released novel Sparrow Migrations, shares how to find an ending for your story:

During my first NaNoWriMo win in 2010, sometime after Thanksgiving, I distinctly recall typing the sentence, “Their relationship progressed quickly.”

Ugh. Talk about a horrible sentence. Telling, not showing. Stiff, formal language. And the cardinal writer’s sin: An adverb.

What that sentence did do, however, was cover a heck of a lot of ground in a mere four words. November’s days were dwindling. Somehow, I had to get there from here. Even if it took boring, unsubstantiated sentences.

This week, a lot of your #NaNoCoach questions have focused on how to get to the end. How do you know if you’re on track to finish with a bona fide beginning, middle, and end? Let’s check in on your story arc:

Is your core conflict heading toward a peak and resolution? 
If not, can you see yourself clawing your way up to the climax after a few more plot turns? 
Are you still introducing characters and filling in backstory?

If your answers aren’t yes, yes, and no, it may be time to recalibrate that arc. Some suggestions:

Take a giant leap forward for story kind. That’s what my skeletal sentence accomplished. In December, I could flesh it out, truly show the reader how and why my characters became fast friends. But on November 26, all I really needed to do was have one reveal her lifelong secret to the other to help wrap up the whole novel.

Envision your characters where they need to be to resolve conflicts. Maybe that’s a physical place, an emotional place, or both. Write the bare minimum to get them there, then focus on the ending.

Follow the first rule of getting out of a hole: stop digging. Assuming you’re on-pace with word count, if you find yourself mired in new characters and backstory, impose a moratorium. 

Realize your plate is finite. One Wrimo tweeted this week that he had no ending.

"Were his characters mid-action, facing a decision, or poised for a discovery?" I asked.

“Yes, yes and yes!” he replied.

Your novel may feel like a literary buffet, filled with tempting plot possibilities. But eventually you must pick something and sit down with it. The end of week 3 is an ideal time to choose.

Look to real life. If your characters aren’t on a trajectory to resolve their conflicts, something must change. In real life, new jobs often trigger other changes. Birthdays inspire moments of reflection and assessment that inspire change. So can illness. Try throwing one or more of those at your characters.

Can your character get a new job that requires a physical that happens to be scheduled on her birthday? Boom, you’ve hit the trifecta.

See you at The End.

Cari Noga independently published her 2010 NaNo-novel, Sparrow Migrations , a literary fiction semifinalist in the 2014 Best Kindle Book Awards. The book is now under contract to Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, for re-release in spring 2015. Sign up for her author newsletter and read her blog here.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 19 with Designer Adria Robles-Morua

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: Death: A User’s Guide

Addison Bishop is kind of a loser, though one that people always said had potential. It’s a shame, then, that she’s just been murdered.

But when the reaper assigned to her death finds that she was not meant to die that day, Addie is given a choice: accept her death and pass on before her time, or continue living by working off her death as a reaper.

Soon enough Addie realizes the magical realm is not as wondrous as she assumed and being a reaper mostly entails doing a whole lot of paperwork. Trapped in the red tape of The Realm’s bureaucracy and surrounded by magical beings more frustrating than anything else, Addie tries to work out the circumstances surrounding her death when more strange murders crop up.

The Genre: Fantasy

The Author: Blair Prater in USA :: Oregon :: Eugene

The Designer: Adria Robles-Morua is head designer at Arto Studio in Mexico City. Previously she was a History of Graphic Design lecturer at the University of Sonora in Hermosillo, Mexico and worked at Kitchen Sink Studios in Phoenix, Arizona. She holds a BSD in Graphic Design from Arizona State University and a Masters in Advanced Typography from EINA, Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art in Barcelona, Spain.

High-Resolution Book Art:

Wrimos Around the World: Of Fresh Ideas, Deserts, and Writing without Judgment

One of the best parts of NaNoWriMo? The incredible community of writers that gathers every November. Today, we spotlight Ellen Riddle, who’s writing as she travels across the United States :

Tell us about where you’re writing from!

I will be writing from our RV as we are full time RV-ers—we live in our RV as we travel around. You can find me writing outside our RV… comfy in my recliner or sitting in our bed. Possibly sitting under a tree, a cactus, or in a park.

I believe that writing from so many different places will make my writing experience unique: I expect a more relaxed approach to my writing. Secondly, it will demand more discipline to write my 1,500 words a day, as distractions are plentiful…

Lastly, as I change my own scenery and interact with different people, fresh ideas will be there for the picking. Every day, where I write has the potential to be different. A new campground, a new view, different people. 

What is your favorite place that you have visited?

This is a tough question to answer as every time I pick a favorite we move on and I have a new favorite. I love the Pacific Northwest, the mountains, and the gulf coastal areas.

But, if I have to choose, it’s anywhere in the desert as the land simmers with creativity and speaks to my soul.

Tell us about your NaNo novel this year in six words.

Gypsy in all, reflected by wanderers.

What is one piece of writing advice everyone should hear?

Allow your characters to be who they are without casting judgement. Follow their lead so they can grow as they respond to the situations you put them in.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 18 with Designer Karen Kurycki

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: The Pink-Haired Novelist

It’s a universally acknowledged fact that life sucks, and nobody knows it quite like Elizabeth Averill. Left to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousin while her mother heads off to “find herself” (whatever that means), Liz is pretty sure her life has officially lost all of its redeeming qualities. That is, until she joins her school’s writing club.

Sometimes, all it takes is some new friends, a dragon-slaying cyborg, and lots and lots of pink hair dye to realize that while life may suck, it keeps moving on, too.

The Genre: Mainstream Fiction

The Author: Sammy3700, Young Writers Program participant in the United States.

The Designer: Karen Kurycki is a designer/illustrator in Jacksonville, FL. She admits that in her view of the world, she usually sees the humorous, the quirky, the slightly off “normal”, which she tries to communicate through her design and illustration. She’s currently a member of AIGA’s Chapter Advisory Council, AIGA Jacksonville’s advisory board, and the 2015 AIGA Medalist selection committee. Find her homegoods here.

High-Resolution Book Art:

"You could be writing the book that changes your life. The spark could be starting a fire for you as..."

“You could be writing the book that changes your life. The spark could be starting a fire for you as well. You don’t know, and you can’t know. That is the thrill of being an artist, of working for yourself, and of telling the stories you want to tell.


Don’t give up.”

- Brandon Sanderson, on valuing every writing experience.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 17 with Designer Seth Johnson

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: Ruthless

Whitman Parker Blake is the geeky high school senior senior, happy to sit in the background and let his gregarious best friend take the spotlight.

Ruth McKenzie is the high school quarterback better known as Ruthless, with a reputation as fierce as her nickname.

What do you get when you reverse the most cliché of all clichés? Apparently, elf costumes, disastrous theatrical productions, multiple slaps to the face and maybe—just maybe—a happy ending.

The Genre: Satire, Humor, & Parody

The Author: Ciara Canavan in Europe :: Northern Ireland

The Designer: Seth Johnson is a designer, strategist, writer, organizational leader, and educator. In his current role at IBM Design, he creates and delivers active learning experiences to IBMers during a new era of design-led innovation within the world’s largest technology company. A past president of AIGA Minnesota, Seth also served as its co-director of education and founded its mentor program. Through his volunteer work, he strives to help emerging designers bridge the gaps between education and professional practice.

High-Resolution Book Art:

5 Tips for NaNoWriMo from Stephanie Perkins, Writer Extraordinaire

Need tips for making the most of NaNoWriMo? Every week, we’ll bring you five tips to turn each week of writing into a 100% success. Today, Stephanie Perkins, author extraordinaire of Isla and the Happily Ever After and many more, offers her pro tips for pushing your novel forward:

You’ve been staring at your last sentence for too many hours without adding a new one. The clock on your laptop is judging you. November—and your buddies—are passing you by. You’re frustrated. Exhausted. And, most sinfully, you’re bored. You could be barreling through your Netflix queue right now, for goodness’ sake!

But you’re here. At your computer. Because you chose this.

You are not allowed to give up.

You hear me? Okay.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m here to guide you out of this mess. Here are my credentials: I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo three times, all three times I’ve completed my novels, and all three novels have been published. So how did I do it?

Not by writing good NaNo-novels, that’s for sure. Good comes later. (In my case, over twenty drafts later!) Your only goal this month is to finish. And if you have publishing aspirations, your job is to search for those sturdy little bricks that might hold up a bigger building someday. So stop looking for the next right sentence, and just write another sentence. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Skip ahead to something interesting.

If you already have an exciting idea for a scene or character, but your story isn’t supposed to go there yet: go there anyway. Type something like:

“And then more boring stuff happens, and then the kickass warrior princess arrives!!!”

2. Add in something interesting.

If you haven’t been writing toward something specific, this is the perfect opportunity to add in something new. What are you daydreaming about?

Benedict Cumberbatch? Cool! It’s time to give Sherlock a cameo.

Pickling vegetables? Awesome! Now it’s time for your protagonist to can some okra.

Whatever you’re interested in—now matter how silly or how small—put it in there. Your brain will be excited to see it.

3. Take an inspiration shower.

My best ideas often come to me in the shower. (Also, I’m guessing your personal hygiene isn’t what it was in October.)

Neighborhood walks are also effective, as is talking about your problem out loud—to yourself or to a friend. Just… stand up. Move around. You’ve been sitting in that chair for too long, trust me.

4. Interview your characters.

This is one of my favorite tips, and I think it came from Chris Baty himself. This one simultaneously boosts your word count and helps you get to know your characters better: send them to an interview.

Start the conversation any dumb way you want (“Why are you so lame?”) and see how they respond. It might take a few pages for the conversation to get going, but you’ll be amazed at what comes out of their—your—mouths. I’ve had so many incredible insights while doing this exercise. I’ve also gotten massive daily word counts.

5. Remember: Your novel is supposed to suck right now.

The only way you can mess this up? That’s if you stop writing. So keep going! Keep sucking! You’re doing great. I’m proud of you.

Stephanie Perkins is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door, and Isla and the Happily Ever After—all of which started as NaNoWriMo novels—as well as the editor of the holiday anthology My True Love Gave to Me. She and her husband live in the mountains of North Carolina.

Top photo texture by Flickr user calebkimbrough.

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 16 with Designer Kris Olmon

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: The Boy Who Had Words

Samuel Avery Bekyn is a word collector. He takes the words right out of your mouth and stores them in his very organized mind. Sometimes words are fragile, like “tragic” and sometimes they are damaged, like “shadow”, but mostly the words are beautiful, and they belong to Sam.

When he meets a girl with hair that changes color with her moods, his world is changed forever. They embark on a journey where they find others who collect colors, music, even emotions.

When an evil force steals their powers to make an alternate world that will slowly kill the one they are in now, the group must find and stop it. It all ends in battle that determines the fate of the world.

The Genre: Mainstream Fiction

The Author: olliekinz423, Young Writers Program participant in the United States.

The Designer: Kris Olmon is one part In-House Designer at U.S. Bank, one part AGIA Seattle Board Member, two parts creative, one part adventurer, and a sprinkle of magic.

High-Resolution Book Art:

30 Covers, 30 Days 2014: Day 15 with Designer Angela Flores

30 Covers, 30 Days is back! What is 30C30D? We match up 30 professional designers with 30 NaNoWriMo participants, and challenge the designers to create a book cover in 48 hours or less, based solely on that participants’ 2014 NaNo-novel synopsis.

The NaNo-novel: Saving Haven

Years ago, Sam’s great-granddad had stowed away aboard a giant steamship that was part of a convoy erecting a giant underwater city for The People…

Now? Sam is a thief in that city. When he’s caught trying to steal from the Mayor, in exchange for not being arrested, Sam agrees to take on the oddest job he’d ever pull. He has until the Mayor’s retirement party to work out what a pineapple is and find one if he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a leaky preservation suit scraping barnacles off the city dome in full view of the hungry sharks…

The Genre: Adventure

The Author: Tonks in Europe :: England :: Yorkshire

The Designer: Angela Flores is a 36-year-old painter/illustrator who grew up in the Bay Area of California. Her biggest influences include Edward Gorey, Takato Yamamoto and most recently, Jillian Tamaki.

High-Resolution Book Art: