Covers vs. Text

Kelly Parra, whose new book, Invisible Touch, never fails to earworm the Genesis song in my head, was on Melissa Walker’s blog yesterday talking about the genesis (ha! See what I did there?) of the book’s fabulous cover.

“I knew a girl would be on the cover but I wasn’t quite sure what she would be doing! I told them Kara had short hair and she had light brown skin….obviously, they didn’t give Kara the short hair. Haha! So Kara’s hair suddenly changed in the book. *wink* I did not have to change Kara’s hair, but it would have bothered me otherwise and it was an easy fix.

“We all agreed on the cover, writer, agent and editor. It was very eye-catching and portrayed the feel of the novel and that’s what counted….”

[Melissa] Thanks, Kelly! This might sound silly, but I’m so glad the hair descriptions match the cover! I get so bothered by covers that look nothing like the character I know in the book, so I’m with Kelly on that change.

Interesting. I’ve heard this before, about authors changing the descriptions of their characters to match the covers they’ve received. I know Leslie Kelly has done it, too.

We don’t have any control over what appears on our covers. But does that mean we have an obligation to change our text to match?

As those of you who have read the secret society girl books know, Amy doesn’t really look like the girl on the cover of the novel. Unlike Kelly, I couldn’t even make the choice to go back and give Amy long hair, as the novel had already been published in hardcover at that point. In the first book, Amy is depicted as having “a shoulder-skimming bob.” The hardcover didn’t have a girl on it, but when the paperback came out, this is what “Amy” looked like:

Hardly a bob. But I’m not going to change what Amy looks like between the hardcover and the paperback because of the model’s barely-seen hairdo. I’m also not going to change her clothing style. Amy wouldn’t be caught dead in the outfits she wears on the covers of SSG or UTR. Way too preppy for our jeans and t-shirt girl. If it’s too hot for her sweater, it’s probably tied around her waist or stuffed at the bottom of her messenger bag.

Fortunately, Amy doesn’t cut her hair in Under the Rose, though she does dye red streaks in it that are not visible in that cover.

Amy’s hair keeps getting longer and longer in the covers. It’s all the way down her back on the cover of Rites of Spring (Break). She must have the fastest-growing hair on the planet! And if we’re going to talk about inaccurate, her tattoo is in the middle of her back, not the side.

But that’s not the point. Whether or not Amy’s hair is long or short, if she’s in prep-school clothing or something more like what she’d wear, or the precise placement of her tattoo does not matter. I love the Rites of Spring (Break) cover because it so perfectly captures the essence of Amy. The tattoo in this picture looks better off center because of her proud, go-get ’em hands on her hips stance. Her hair drifting across her bikini straps (yellow! I was so excited, though I’ve been told it was a choice based on aesthetic, not necessarily accuracy) looks wistful and romantic and girly.

So it’s not important to me that a cover be literally accurate, as long as the mood it captures is the right one. (And we can argue all day about whether or not the mood of the prep school outfits on the cover of the first two books are the right mood.)

And then we come to Rampant. Rampant was in copy editing when I first saw pictures from the cover shoot. I’m not big into lengthy descriptions of my characters (always tiresome in first person) but I had made one point very clear: Astrid has very long, very straight cornsilk blonde hair. The model they had chosen for Astrid was positively stunning, and really captured the essence of the character. The shots I was shown took my breath away — she was such a perfect Astrid! But her hair was…. not long.

Like Kelly, I returned to my manuscript. Should I chop off her hair? She would still be Astrid without the long hair. Like Jo March. Like Anne Shirley. I could do it. I took out my shears.

And then I looked at the manuscript. Oh, look at this scene where her hair plays a role. And what about this part, where her hair… well, I can’t tell you. But believe me, it’s got to be long for it to work. Away went the scissors.

Evocative. Essence. Accuracy? Eh, not so much. And I’m cool with that. The cover is still gorgeous. And it’s still Astrid, no matter what length her hair is.