Cinderella Cover Reveal

Today is the big cover reveal for Cinderella! I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while–Myrrhlynn had the cover made before I sent Cinderella off to The Editor. I think cover reveals are what I love most about the pre-release process.

Myrrhlynn did a fabulous job with this cover. It’s a little hard to see in this smaller version, but Cinderella’s essential glass slipper is there on the staircase. If you look at it close up it’s opaque/see through and everything.  I unfortunately have to limit myself from commenting much on the cover as it depicts the famous ball/glass slipper scene, which is one giant spoiler if I’m not careful. It is safe and noteworthy to say that all those stairs actually are a part of the ballroom scene. (I have no idea how Myrrhlynn managed to find such a perfect picture!)

As you may have guessed by the title, Cinderella and the Colonel, I have made some changes to this traditional fairy tale. Most markedly I added a male protagonist, Colonel Friedrich. Cinderella is an appallingly short fairy tale. (Think about it, the Disney movie takes place over the course of like, three or four days.) so Friedrich’s  addition rounds out the story and gave me more plot to play with.

Once again, I want to give a big thank you to Myrhlynn and The Editor. Without Myrrhlynn I wouldn’t have such dynamite covers, and The Editor did a great job with Wild Swans, and I feel like she’s really helped me fix up Cinderella to make it an even better story. Both of these people work behind the scenes, and they don’t get nearly as much credit as they deserve. Thanks guys!

That’s all for today, Champions. I will see you on Friday. Until then, Happy Fourth of July to all my Champions from the USA. To those of you who are not from the USA, I hope you’re enjoying the World Cup.

Cinderella release date!

The Editor has returned Cinderella! (With roughly a billion punctuation corrections, but still!) There was much celebration in…well…my office. Anyway, I am thrilled to announce that I will be cleaning Cinderella up over the next week or so, and plan to release it July 10, 2014. (That’s a Thursday for those of you who are keeping track.) Later this week I will release the cover art–Myrrhlynn has done another fabulous job with this design.

That’s all my exciting news for today, so I will leave you with this image as my disclaimer:

Cinderella: Once upon a time

I just finished submitting Cinderella to the Editor. I’m very anxious to hear what she has to say about it, but I can share that my test reader enjoyed it. Cinderella was a blast for me to write. There are many reasons for this, but one of the top is this: EVERYONE IN CINDERELLA CAN TALK.

I imagine you’re blankly staring at your screen, wondering what talking has to do with anything, so allow me to review the other fairy tales I have written: Beauty and the Beast, and The Wild Swans.

In Beauty and the Beast, only three people speak out-loud in 3/4 of the book. (Those three characters are: Elle, Severin, and Lucien.) The servants play major roles in the story, but they are mute. They can communicate through writing on chalkboards and paper, but to save time (because it takes much longer to write than speak) they scratch out fairly brief sentences and messages. This means it’s pretty difficult to achieve a heart-to-heart conversation, or to properly joke around.

For The Wild Swans, the lack of talking was better and worse. In this case all of the characters could talk–but only for one hour every night. Otherwise the seven princes and Elise had to be silent. It’s not as noticeable because a lot of the scenes take place in that hour, or hinge on Elise’s inability to communicate. But let me tell you, it’s pretty difficult to have characters bonding and forging relationships when none of them can talk.

Cinderella was a huge relief for me because, as I mentioned before, everyone is able to speak! It does resemble Beauty and the Beast in that the original fairy tale didn’t have a lot of plot to it. (The whole premise of B&B is that a girl is held captive in a castle and falls in love with the beastly lord of said castle. The premise of Cinderella is an aristocratic girl is forced to do housework by her step-mother until she attends a ball and falls in love with a prince.) But, I feel Cinderella expanded very nicely into an interesting story.

That’s all I have to say about that topic today, Champions. I hope you had a wonderful weekend, and good luck muddling through Monday!