The cover for Starless Night went through several iterations before Isaac and I landed on one we both liked.
Back in October of 2020…
With the rough draft for Starless Night complete, and the rough draft for Changing Tides a third of the way there, in theory, (at the time I’d hoped to have it complete by the end of October because I really wanted to write something new for NaNoWriMo), I had the first “final” version of the cover made for Starless Night. Polished and everything!
(Spoiler… this isn’t the cover that ended up on the book)
I had focused on a scene at the climax of the story, a masquerade, but with Jenna’s shadow as the thorny tree representing the brain seed in her head (also part of the climax).
But feedback suggested the model didn’t quite work and the dress wasn’t quite right (I mean, it wasn’t going to match the story perfectly anyway because I was working with stock photography), but Isaac pointed out that the dress wasn’t particularly fitting for a ballroom masquerade (especially one set in the near future).
Cue a bit of Daz work, and I changed up the dress and did more retouching on the background.
This is where I ended up. (Poor Jenna, who doesn’t usually like dresses, is now on her third dress description for this story). She got more vines and a more modern dress (as much as I liked the original).
But after asking other authors their thoughts on the cover’s genre, I came to the realization that the background was giving the wrong impression.
While there are definitely fantasy elements (even more so in Starless Night than Fractured Skies), it should still be hitting sci-fi adventure elements, and not so much urban or contemporary fantasy.
At least… I didn’t think it should?
Given that it’s a mixed genre story, I’d been having a hard time placing exactly what I should be marketing it as.
So I took a look to see if I could add something with a little more sci-fi or dystopian flair. (Either a more modern ballroom that better represented where the scene takes place, or maybe a destroyed city street that could represent a couple different scenes aside from the masquerade?) Either way, I figured the tree would likely stick around, and I was still hoping to hit a surreal look more representative of the brain seed’s attacks.
And so… I might have thrown in the kitchen sink…
Oiy.
Someone pointed out the background had been signaling “Fae court” vibes ((to be entirely fair here, that isn’t precisely wrong. I got a lot of influence from fae court intrigue vibes, thank you) and that it was hitting either urban fantasy or contemporary fantasy.
Not so much sci-fi (with a lot of fantasy elements).
So I updated the background to something more accurate to the scene…
Which turned into an outright mess. *Face-palm*
I mean, it definitely shows the ensuing destruction.
But it still didn’t feel like it matched the goal.
(Or made for a good cover).
So I abandoned the masquerade scene altogether. I decided to really lean into the sci-fi side, and I jumped to a scene early in the book, one where Jenna returns home once more and has to deal with legionaries:
And you know what?
I was happy with this. Even beyond the rose-colored glasses period of having just made this.
This is the version that made it onto the book.
Now… ultimately, I should probably change the title font on all of them to better meet genre expectations. Having a more dynamic image might also be a good idea. And technically, the legionnaires should probably be more dark/wispy… but I’ll take this as a workable answer, at least until I level up my Daz and Photoshop skills.
On the bright side, it still comes from a scene in the story. 😀
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Read the genre mash-up of a fantasy story dressed in sci-fi aesthetic…
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Happy reading and writing!
