HEART OF BRASS novel to be published May 2016
Making a Cover
At the moment, I’m designing a cover for my interactive pirate fantasy adventure, Scarlet Sails – the same Scarlet Sails that placed 7th in the Interactive Fiction Comp 2015, and has since been edited so much that it’s now twice as long (mainly due to greater branching – you can actually play almost the same game if you like, except it’s better written now). One of the conditions of the competition is that the game must be available for free, so although the game was as good as I could make it at the time, I’m highly motivated to make the post-comp version significantly bigger and better. Having a different cover (and a significantly higher word count with various completely new chapters) sends a clear message that it’s worth paying a few dollars for a whole lot of extra content.
The original cover was made by using a public-domain skull and crossbones and adding a red background:
It was always perfectly obvious how the cover was created, and that no artist was involved, but it also communicated the basic points of the story rather well: pirates, clichés, and violence. It worked well in any size, too.
This is the current version of the new cover (it comes in various dimensions depending on the device):
In fact, since posting those images I made the woman darker and got rid of the distant flag altogether:
The woman is darker because sixteen years ago, when I first conceived this world, it was in part a reaction against the white man-dominated fantasy worlds I’d grown up with (and that I still love), and I was living in Indonesia – a land of 13,000 tropical islands, and roughly as many different cultures – at the time.
So, dark skin was important. Part of the reason the image originally appealed is because it was black and white, so she could theoretically be any skin tone. I tried a darker tone originally but was afraid it obscured her features so I overcompensated in the other direction. Today I tried a bit darker, and I think it works. She may get darker in later drafts; we’ll see.
These are the three main images the picture is built from (I took several hours finding them on shutterstock, and discarding many others for various reasons – obviously the ones I used were paid for and therefore had the watermarks taken off legally):
By three different artists 🙂
The cover image journey also involved these ladies (who are a tad too sexy and/or Freudian, and implausibly dressed and built, but nonetheless portray piracy and fun and non-realistic adventure violence rather well):
And then I kept looking, and I found these:
Even sassier and more fantastic.
The same problems kept cropping up over and over again: Artists who drew men didn’t tend to draw women (and vice versa). There were only a few dark-skinned pirates (either in photographs or artwork) – although to be fair, I was only about 100 pages through 500 shutterstock pages of images (the skin-tone colour is what led me to the wood-cutting style of illustration). And often when a picture captured the attitude of the book perfectly it fell down in another area eg the cover I’ve worked on above works well proportionally, has both a man and a woman (in the story, you can pick your gender) in a similar style, and has a sense of nautical adventure – but the actual pirate symbol has to be tacked on. And there’s not much sense of fun.
I really love the red-head with the eyepatch and I suspect I’ll change either her hair colour or the text to imply darker skin*, and use her as a splashscreen image (it displays briefly just before the game begins). Or possibly start over, and make her the entire cover image.
I’d certainly still consider using the women with the cutlass over her shoulder as a cover, especially if I could darken her skin and/or add a dress-up scene into the story (in the world of interactive fiction, anyone who saw a cover like that would expect it!)
*It’s possible for dark-skinned people to have red hair, but rare (especially for that wavy style). It’s more likely to be done with magic, in which case it would be referenced in the text.
My top secret project
A little while ago, I signed a non-disclosure agreement.
I’m not good at keeping secrets.
I sure hope I don’t get in trouble for this entry.
It’s just… I’m very excited about this…thing… that I’ve just finished. It has a vampire or two, and a forest with a mind of its own, and shapeshifters, and love, and death, and Queen songs (if you know where to look), and it’s going to drive people crazy and they’re going to love it.
Here’s a suitably mysterious photo that has literally nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
When I can say more, I will.
Believe me.
Starship Adventures
The square picture is for icons, the wide ones with the title are…er…title screens. The pointy ones just show up for a second as the app opens.
Or something like that.
Party Post-Mortem
At a typical book launch, this is what happens:
Someone does an intro; the author talks a bit and reads a bit; people buy the book; the author signs it; people mingle and eventually depart. There’s food and usually wine. A lot of launches happen at conferences, where new fans are everywhere… but mostly those potential fans ignore the launch and walk on past.
I hate book launches.
At a typical book launch, this is what happens (redux):
A desperate author silently screams for the fame and fortune that will never come. They dance like a chained monkey at the whim of social expectations and a necessary gamble.
An apathetic audience squirms inside, watching the slow death of dreams and wondering if the brie is still fit for human consumption (and if so, then for how much longer?) The cut-price chardonnay slowly warms to room temperature as the red wine and last hopes of artistic survival attempt to breathe.
Everyone (who knows what’s good for ’em) buys a book and the author signs them. There is an awkward pause, and then everyone goes home.
The above is not at all true of course; but that’s the experience as seen through a social anxiety disorder (combined with chronic illness and the associated financial problems laid on top of the pre-existing artist poverty). So, although book launches are legitimately fun, I just can’t handle them. There are only three possible social occasions more awful: a doomed wedding; a musical performance by someone I know (regardless of their talent level); a poetry reading.
One of the peculiarities of my anxiety disorder is that I’d rather BE the desperate author than watch them. I feel more in control; I am certain that whatever I feel is entirely delusion-free (even if I thought something quite different five minutes earlier); and adrenaline works with me instead of fighting against me.
In any case, with “Attack of the Clockwork Army” I decided to do things my way. So I had an epic book launch party that ran from 10 in the morning until 9 at night (that’s eleven hours) so people could drop in and drop out whenever. I hosted it at my own home, and welcomed both small children and strangers (an interesting combination). There was a room just for duplo, and a designated reading room.
In this picture there are phones (including one toy phone), ipads, and a kindle. It’s not even the reading room, and that was fine by me! (I did spent some time in the reading room with two people showing them the mechanics of ChoiceScript. They and I enjoyed it thoroughly.)
I prepared various foods in advance, and cooked several low-maintenance things during the party – a chocolate fountain, sausage rolls, a terducken roast (duck and turkey and chicken), pre-mixed cookies.
And, to my amazement, people actually came. Here’s some interesting (to me) stats on the attendees:
People related to me (not counting people that live here): 10
People from Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (and their families): 11
Assorted friends and their families from various schools (including Louisette’s school): 9
Miscellaneous: 12 (including an ex, two complete strangers, one of Louisette and TJ’s babysitters, an ex-workmate, a role-player, a ballroom dancer, and someone I met at a party one time).
Total number of people in the house throughout the day: 46.3. And a cat. There was a moment after lunch when there was no-one there for about twenty minutes, and then the arvo crowd flowed in. Other than that, it always felt like a lot of people – but never so many that it was unpleasantly crowded (although in the morning there were 8 kids at once, which is a LOT – having a bucket of chalk outside was absolutely perfect.)
-People who’d never been to my house before (from the above lists): 16 (one of whom I hadn’t seen for over ten years)
-In costume: 8
-Kids: Twelve; all but one aged 5 or less.
I didn’t do any official reading of the book at all (but encouraged people to read the book for themselves – it’s very easy to find on any app store; you just search for “Attack of the Clockwork Army” and it comes up with gratifying readiness).
But. My writerly friend (pictured here showing off his “Cat in the Hat” tattoo while playing with play-dough) decided to do a live reading of the romance scene. He was reading it for the first time, and he happened to have chosen the character of a lesbian woman.
That was an unforgettable experience.
Not long after this photo was taken, Superman and Supergirl were having adventures outside when Superman decided it was That Kind Of Party and promptly got naked, immediately followed by Supergirl. Superman’s mum and I nearly died laughing.
As evening closed in, new clothes were applied and the party calmed down. TJ decided it was the perfect time to perform the famous “why-are-you-people-still-here-the-party’s-over” manoeuvre. He fetched his sister’s toy vacuum cleaner and got to work.
He and Louisette had a marvellous day; I discovered the sheer culinary glory of double brie dipped in a chocolate fountain (DO try this at home, if you possible can); people discussed interactive fiction, famously awful parties I’ve hosted in the past (the one with the fake guests was only the second-worst); steampunk, gaming, when plates were invented, and data collection laws; my historical food expert friend discovered terducken (and white chocolate raspberry sorbet); a few people left reviews of the book in various places; and I had fun.
Pretty sure that means it was a success.
Every book launch should have a chocolate fountain, a lesbian man with a Dr Seuss tattoo, and a pair of buck-naked superheroes.
“Worst one I’ve played”: Reviewing the Reviewers
Or you can play directly through the publisher’s web site, here. That’s the simplest if you’re not tech savvy (although you’ll need a credit/debit card there).
On most sites, it LOOKS like the game is free, and has in-app purchases. This is just a backwards way of saying, “You can read the first bit before you pay for the rest.” It’s a one-off $5 payment.
I’ve started up a facebook page just for this specific gamebook (discussion, reviews and steampunk/Victorian-era fun), at https://www.facebook.com/attackoftheclockworkarmy/
The marching of metal feet
It’s been a long journey to publication (although laughably short compared to, say, STORMHUNTER) but ATTACK OF THE CLOCKWORK ARMY will be released very soon.
I am, naturally, delirious with excitement.
This is it! The steampunk Australia story I’ve been working on since before Louisette existed.
[The novel HEART OF BRASS is chronologically first in-world, but although I promise it will be available someday it’s still at least a year away from release. You can play with or without spoilers depending on what name you choose – the last name “Muchamore” means you are playing a character from the print book.]
The pictures above are strangely relevant. There is a particularly steampunk (and literally magical) hot air balloon in all three of the steampunk Australia stories I’ve written so far (the third is AFTER THE FLAG FELL). I used “research” as an excuse to go in a hot air balloon ride with my partner Chris years ago, and he loved it so much we later gave his parents a voucher for the balloon flight pictured above.
With the exception of a fanfic short story I wrote for friends some time ago, ATTACK OF THE CLOCKWORK ARMY is the first interactive story I’ve ever written. I set out to use the coding system of ChoiceScript (more on that system later!) to represent the emotional journey of a character in a novel.
A lot of interactive fiction features a protagonist who begins as a blank slate. This implies either a lack of agency or an inevitable “Mary Sue/Marty Stu” (boringly perfect, superpowered main character) but in fact the opposite is true.
I think of the reader as a co-writer. Would the protagonist be better played as a male or a female? What romantic relationship is the most interesting? Is the protagonist especially brave, skilled, clever, or kind – because it’s impossible to be all of the above at the same time? Is their family more important, or their patriotism?
Probably my favourite aspect of CLOCKWORK ARMY – other than the story and characters, which of course I’m in love with – is the fact that the protagonist has to choose a “fatal flaw” that has an effect on their abilities, experiences, and relationships. It is possible to overcome any of the fatal flaws, but it’s not easy to figure out how (each fatal flaw can be overcome in a completely different way). As far as I can tell with my noob knowledge, I’m the first person to do this in interactive fiction.
Unlike old-style Choose Your Own Adventure books, Choice of Games (the publisher, and the creators of the ChoiceScript program that I use) uses what they call “delayed branching”. Instead of numerous wildly different stories (most ending in startling death), the protagonist WILL make their way towards the same climax every time… but they will have a variety of different experiences there depending on their choices, personality, and skills (most of which are expressed through statistics, which you can click a button to check on, especially if you suspect a choice requires a particular ability).
So in the first chapter or two, you mostly get “free” abilities. As the game progresses, your choices are much more likely to involve success or failure depending on whether you’ve built up the right skill set to succeed in one way or another (eg if your swordfighting is rubbish but your chess-playing is masterful, then you really should choose the chess option to challenge your baddie). I like to have trickier choices at the end, where two abilities interact to decide whether your decision ends well or… not.
It’s possible to die in CLOCKWORK ARMY (in fact there are six different ways, I think) but it’s really quite difficult. So if you died, congratulations?
I find as a reader that I can ignore the statistics if I want, and simply make choices depending on my mood. I often play as a “nice” person, and the best interactive fiction I’ve read goes ahead and gives me a “nice” ending (say, befriending your enemies instead of killing them all).
A lot of interactive fiction is more about giving an experience (such as the experience of being mentally ill or transgender) rather than telling an action-packed adventure story. Not mine though – at least not yet. I just write adventures, like I always have.
If you like the idea of a steampunk romp set in Australia, you’ll love ATTACK OF THE CLOCKWORK ARMY.
Also, you can read it on your phone. You can even fight against the Australian independence movement if you like – just don’t tell the author. She might sic a pack of iron-fanged dingoes on you.
Braaaaaiiiiinnnnsssss!!!
A little while ago I had an MRI (to investigate possible causes of migraines and confusion). Other than not having brain cancer, the best part was the pictures.
Update
For those stumbling across this (retired) site, I’m at felicitybanks.wordpress.com
Space! Etc!
I promised to post a link to STARSHIP ADVENTURES when it was a fully-functional gamebook. It is now… go play!
It was written by five people, including me, and is a cheesy sci-fi romp through time and space. You can choose to be male, female, or of a non-specified gender, and you can choose to be an awesome jetpack-wearing hero or a hard-nosed space captain wearing a unitard (or any combination of the above). Just watch out for brain leeches, nanobots, and carnivorous plants.
At the moment it’s easy and free to play it online through the link above AND editorial comments can still make a difference… so if you have any issues with it, tell me!
The enormous and impressive Interactive Fiction Comp is now online… and you can help judge all the entries!!
The Windhammer Prize is also open, and you can judge that too!! People new to IF can start there, because the stories are short and they’re in the form of ordinary documents, like old-style Choose Your Own Adventure (you’ll likely need pen and paper, however, as they do have some kind of game mechanics – each game will teach you from scratch how to play it).
Full confession: You don’t actually have to judge any stories in either of these contests (and you need to rate several for your vote to count, which helps to keep things fair)… you can just read them for free.
NB Please DON’T try and judge in such a way that you give my stories an unfair advantage – firstly because these are not popularity contests, and secondly because I believe my writing is good enough to do well on its own.
