For Darkness Shows the Stars Cover Week: Music Video Edition

Yesterday I promised to tell you all about how a music video inspired the cover for For Darkness Shows the Stars.

But that’s not entirely true.

When we last left our tale, I had been sending pictures of starscapes to my editor in hopes that it would inspire the art department. Time passed, as time does when you’re waiting to hear about the publication of a book that’s been moved back three spans because you went and had yourself a baby that totally threw off your production schedule.

Which is to say: like a glacier.

Then, one day, I was watching TV, and I saw a music video. The music video for the song, “E.T.” by Katy Perry. And, in this music video was an image that I loved. An image that I thought would make a very fitting cover for my novel.

It was not this one, in case you’re wondering:

Too much nudity (this is a JANE AUSTEN-INSPIRED YA, y’all) and too many weird faun legs.

Nor was it this one:

Because… wow, the hair. And oosh, the makeup. And of course, blue Kanye. I mean, AWESOME, right, but not really in keeping with my farm girl heroine.

Anyway, I digress. There was an image in there that I found really inspiring. And I said to myself.

“I would like the cover of For Darkness Shows the Stars to look like this Kay Perry video.”

I thought to myself, I should send this along to my editor.

And my husband, Sailor Boy, who is a wise and practical man, said, “Darling, think about this for a minute. Katy Perry is a paragon of bubblegum pop. She has been known to dress like this:

“She is not, for whatever reason, regarded as highly as an artiste as another current bubblegum-pop shilling, outrageously-costumed rockstar. (Even though you, Diana, actually prefer Katy’s music.) I am sure this non naked-butt-nor-faun-leg-nor-blue besunglassed-Kanye image that you claim to have found during the ‘E.T.’ video is lovely and classy and all that, but do you really think the best thing to say to your editor about your book, your lyrical, partly-epistolary, layered tome about class struggles and social justice and genetic engineering set against a post-apocalyptic landscape, a book that you based on a classic work of the Western canon, is ‘I want the cover to look like a Katy Perry video?'”

And I looked at my husband and knew he was right.

Later that day, I got in the car and turned on the radio, and lo, what was playing, but “E.T.” And these are the lyrics I heard:

They say be afraid
You’re not like the others, futuristic lover
Different DNA
They don’t understand you

You’re from a whole other world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I’m ready to go, lead me into the light.

Divorced from the video (in which Katy seems to be the alien; you know, with the faun legs and the gills and the flying through space), the words took on a whole new meaning, one I thought resonated with Elliot. (Yes, these are the things I think about when I’m in the car listening to pop music. About whether or not the lyrics match the mindset of my main characters.) Like the singer, Elliot has been taught to fear the future, and the person who embodies it for her.

(In passing, in college, I once wrote an academic analysis of a Shania Twain song. Pop is poetry, people.)

I could not get the song out of my head. I mentally added it to my ongoing For Darkness Shows the Stars playlist.

When I next spoke to my editor, I thought to myself, “Hey, Kristin’s got a good sense of humor. She’s young. She’s hip. She’ll laugh if I point out how the a Katy Perry song remind me of my book.”

And, during that conversation, I was all, “Heh, heh, you’ll get such a laugh out of this — I mean, I know it sounds so silly and all, but I was watching the music video and I saw this one image, and I thought, wow, wouldn’t that be awesome on the cover? Hee, hee, a Katy Perry video.”

I sent her the screenshot.

Silence.

Then, “Actually, Diana, this kind of does look like the comp for the cover.”

These are the thoughts that proceeded to go through my head:

What? Awesome! Wait, what? Oh no, my cover is going to look like a Katy Perry video.

Be careful what you wish for, folks. That’s all I’m saying.

A few days later, as I was hiking through the woods with Rio and my friend Erica Ridley, I got an email from my editor with said comp attached.

“I can’t look, Erica,” I said, thrusting my smartphone away from me. “You do it.”

She looked. And then she passed it over to me.

It was hard to see, on the phone, on the trail, in the glare of the bright sunlight. But it was very promising, which is great for a comp (which is publisher-speak for a “mock-up” of the cover, using the art, but usually unphotoshopped, and without the final fonts).

And, yes, it looked a little bit like the image from the Katy Perry video.

Tomorrow, I’ll be showing y’all the cover, and you can judge for yourself.

Yes, tomorrow. Because I’m a terrible tease.