Friday 6 January 2012

CO2: THE PREVIEW BOOK IS READY FOR PRINTING!

This is the cover of the preview book of CO2. Do you like the artwork? David, the artist, has done an excellent job of bringing my words to life. I have never worked with another person before, usually I am sat in a small room typing away, but I am really enjoying working with such a talented individual. Can you tell what the photograph of the building is on the cover? Those of you who have never been to Liverpool will be at a disadvantage, it is the Liver Building. Liverpool features in one of the books that make up the first CO2 quartet: The Maplin Heresy.

Over the coming weeks I shall write about the characters and the history of the world in more detail. On the front of the book as well as the Liver Building are Shaj and her opposite Ernesto Mendoza, a Balancer, officer of The Church of The Holy Footprint. It is Mendoza’s job to ensure that the world is balanced, he is not an evil man, most people are not. He is a sincere man who believes in his faith and wants to see the whole of the world returned to a state of grace. How do you write characters? How do you give them credible motivation? The reader has to believe the actions of the character for the character to come alive, in fact, for the story to work.

There is always a tension for me when I write between developing the plot and letting the characters “live”. I think for a story to work the motivation of the characters must be believable as must their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses. Usually I have a rough idea of where I want to get to but let the characters find their own way there. How does it work for you? Are you plot or character driven?

As I write the preview of CO2 is being sent to the printers, it will soon be available from Corvus Press (http://corvuspress.blogspot.com/). We shall be launching the book at the Cardiff International Comic Expo (http://www.fantasyevents.org/cicae/index.html) which is happening on the 25th and 26th of February. It will be a great weekend, even better than the one last year. I am really looking forward to promoting CO2 why don’t you come to the show and say hello, I'd love the chance to talk to you. Just a word of warning, it is an all ticket event and there will be no tickets available on the door. 35% of the tickets are already sold so you’ll have to get your skates on if you want a ticket. This is the second year of the Cardiff show and it is fast becoming the premier comic and small press event in the UK.

The weekend before I shall be at the Exeter Comic Expo, which is on Sunday 19th February, (http://www.fantasyevents.org/exetercomicexpo/index.html) at the Rougemont Thistle Hotel and it promises to be a good day out, I am looking forward to meeting some of the artists. I've never been to the show before and I am sure it will be really good fun. Why not come and join me.

7 comments:

  1. When I was doing some writing (unpublished), I always found the best characters wrote their own parts and lead the story. Unfortunately, that made me a reader more than a writer and never really took much of it past first draft.

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  2. That really is a nice cover! I could see myself staring at it for a long time before opening the book. You catch the reader right off!

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  3. I love it! I'm so excited for you!!

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  4. I like the cover art. It gives a very diverse perspective.

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  5. CW: I find that I need to know the character and I tend to use collage and write a potted biography of the character that usually helps for them to be alive in my head, then I sort of know which way they'll react when faced with the next plot development.
    Kelley: Thanks, that's what I did when I first saw it. David is really talented.
    Peggy: Thanks-so am I!
    MSMariah: I agree, David has really captured the richness of the world.

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  6. I love the cover! It's very intriguing.

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  7. Golden Eagle: Thanks I'll pass it on to David, the artist. I like it because there are lots of clues to the quartet of novels in it.

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