Active Voice versus Passive Voice. by Richard R. Draude

Nothing drives me up a wall quicker than people writing in passive voice. How do you teach people to differentiate between passive and active voice and to avoid passive voice?

The first step is to help people understand the difference between active and passive voice. Most writers believe they should avoid the passive voice, but few can define it or recognize it.

So, the first question, Active Voice how do you define it?

In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. A straightforward example is the sentence "Al loves Michelle." Al is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Michelle, the object of the sentence.

The Marvin Gaye song “I Heard It through the Grapevine” is another example of active voice. The subject of the sentence "I" is the one who is doing the action. "I" is hearing "it," the object of the sentence.

What Is Passive Voice?

In passive voice, the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, "Al loves Michelle," the sentence would read, "Michelle is loved by Al." The subject of the sentence becomes Michelle, but she isn't doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Al's love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Al to Michelle.

“It was heard by me through the grapevine,” is how to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive. You would say not such a catchy title, and you would be right.

Many people believe all sentences containing a form of the verb “to be” are in passive voice, but that isn't true. For example, in the sentence "I am holding a pen" is active voice, but it uses the verb “am,” which is a form of “to be.” The passive form of that sentence is "The pen is being held by me."

Notice that the subject, the pen, isn't doing anything in that sentence. It's not taking an action; it's passive. One clue that your sentence is passive is that the subject isn't taking a direct action.

Is Passive Voice Always Wrong?  Passive voice isn't wrong, but it's often a poor way to present your thoughts.

It is important to remember, passive sentences aren't incorrect, though often they are not the best way to phrase your thoughts. Passive voice can be awkward and at times it’s vague. Passive voice is usually wordy. Replacing a passive sentences with an active one, will tighten your writing.

When you put sentences in passive voice, it's easy to leave out the person or thing doing the action. For example, "Michelle is loved," is passive. The problem with that sentence is that you don't know who loves Michelle.

Ronald Reagan said, “Mistakes were made.” when he referred to the Iran-Contra scandal. Politicians are famous for usiing passive voice. It’s a convenient way to obscure the idea of who is taking the action. Other examples of passive voice for political reasons include, “Shots were fired,” and “Bombs were dropped.” Pay close attention and listen for examples of passive voice, when you watch the TV news reports or listen to radio news.

Also, a reader named Priscilla commented that businesses at time will use passive voice. It sounds better to write, "Your electricity will be shut off," than "We, the electric company, will be shutting off your power."

Crime Reports: Is Passive Voice OK?

Sometimes passive voice does have its advantages. For example, if you don’t know who is taking the action, then the person can’t be named. It can be quite common, especially with crime reports. For example, a security guard submitting his report will write "The store was robbed." This is because, if the thief isn’t captured right away, then nobody knows the robber’s identity when the report is files.

Can Passive Voice Work in Fiction Writing?

Passive voice is also sometimes useful in fiction writing. For example, if you were writing a mystery novel and you wanted to highlight missing cookies because they are central to the story, passive voice is the best option. It would make more sense to write, "The cookies were stolen," instead of "Somebody stole the cookies."

The difference is subtle, but in the passive sentence “My cookies were stolen,” the focus is on the cookies. In active voice, “Somebody stole my cookies,” the attention would focus

on the unknown thief.

Passive voice can be helpful if you want to create a sense of mystery in your sentence, which is also a reason that it's not usually a good choice when you're writing nonfiction and you want your writing to be clear.

Passive Voice is Recommended for Science Writing?

Scientists are the exception for passive writing. They are encouraged to write in passive voice. It lends a sense of objectivity to their writing. Passive voice takes them, their actions, and opinions out of the experimental results. I find it odd. It feels as if they are trying to hide that real people did the experiments.

Passive voice has its place. In fiction its place is in dialogue. People speak in passive voice. “I already went to the store.” or “She was here an hour ago.” The use of any “to be” verbs, was, were, had, etc, will render a sentence passive in most cases. In your exposition or narrative, passive voice should and must be avoided. Keep your narrative in active voice and the scenes as seen through your main character’s eyes. (POV) This moves your story along and keeps your audience involved. Passive voice slows down your narrative and can take your reader out of the story.

It can turn into author intrusion. (The author telling the reader what he or she thinks the reader needs to know.) That’s a subject for my next blog.

Does Word Count Really Matter? By Denice Whitmore, Director of Editing for Mystic Publishers, Inc.

As a writer, I worry about word count. I want to meet my writing goals for the week. I want to create a vivid picture for my readers. And, publishers have minimum word count requirements for each genre. So as I’m writing, I keep these things in mind.

But as an editor, the last thing on my mind is word count. As a matter of fact, I frequently remove words. A lot of words. Sometimes I feel as if I have two personalities as writer and editor. I have to remember which hat I’m wearing at any given time.

When I have my writer’s hat on, I love to free write. I let the words flow on the page making all the same mistakes I would edit out of someone else’s work. Getting my ideas on the page and to a place where I can flesh them out is my goal. I don’t worry about rules or word count when I write a chapter for the first time. I may have some bullet points jotted down of things I need to accomplish in the chapter but quite often as I free write a better idea will come to me. Something that never occurred to me in my pre-write process will manifest itself on the page leaving me staring at the screen in wonder. It sometimes changes the direction of my story or develops a character in ways I hadn’t thought of. For me, it’s where the creativity happens. If I rigidly worried about writing rules or word count, I don’t believe I would have the same outcome.

I recently finished the first draft of my first book. My word count fell around 45,000 words. That’s about 10,000 words short of a minimum requirement for my genre. I am working on my second draft. I am adding scenes, changing one character’s personality, adding a character earlier in the book and giving him a bigger part in the plot and cleaning up the narrative. I am also changing from third person to first person point of view so my readers can better relate to my main character.

So now that I have my editor’s hat on, what has changed? I will look for unnecessary words like, that, and had. I will look for weak verbs like was, and replace them with stronger verbs. I will remove ‘ly’ words or adverbs and if necessary replace them with stronger verbs. I will look for passive phrases and make them active. And many other things that an editor should do. It is not uncommon for me to open a chapter that is 20 pages and whittle it down to 18.

It’s not that I am looking for words to delete. That is not the purpose of editing. My job as an editor is to make sure you have clear, vivid sentences that create a picture in the readers mind. To make sure the writing is concise and easy to understand. That the writer doesn’t bog down the story with author intrusion explaining things to the reader. To make sure that the ups and downs flow with the right amount, and right kind, of tension in each scene. That there are no unanswered questions (unless it has a sequel. Spoilers!) and a feeling of resolution at the end of the story.

Editing is so much more than just content or grammer. A good comprehensive editor can take your manuscript and enhance it to be your best work.   They can maintain your voice, identify plot holes, identify character inconsistencies and help build tension in your scenes. A good comprehensive editor wants you to succeed because in turn they succeed.

So in your process, don’t be so concerned about word count. Yes, you want to meet your publisher’s word count requirements. Yes, you want your editor to have some wiggle room because they will cut your word count down. But you don’t want to sacrifice your creativity to meet someone else’s standard. Create the best work you can do. Push the limits, try new things in your writing. Don’t be so worried about details like word count that you stifle your creativity to make it fit in the perfect word count box. Be the best writer you can be and the rest will fall in place. But most important don’t forget to have fun!

Keep writing!

For more information on standard word counts for different genre’s, check out the link below and read Chuck Sambuchino’s article in Writer’s Digest.

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/word-count-for-novels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post

Mystic Publishers Employee Bios: RICHARD DRAUDE, DIRECTOR of GRAPHICS & IT

My first dabble into writing happened in the fifth grade. While riding the school bus, I heard my classmates talking about their book reports. I realized I’d ignored the assignment and was in a lot of trouble. Arriving on the playground I pulled out my binder and penned a fictional book report about a set of twins and called the fictitious book Double Trouble. I added a couple of short paragraphs about the problems they created and handed it in. I don’t remember the grade, but I did complete the assignment.

By eighth grade I was deep into the Hardy Boys. I never read the entire series, having a mild form of Dyslexia, (discovered later in my life, the main reason I did things backwards) Also I probably would have fit today’s definition of a child with ADD. Never-the-less I finished high school. My stint in the Navy was my first contact with Science fiction, E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Skylark series. I devoured it and a lot of other book in the same genre. I also kept up with my love of mysteries. Another series I followed is the Travis McGee series, John D. McDonald.

In 1991 when Jo Wilkins approached me with the idea of co-authoring a science fiction book, I jumped at the chance. (I had to relearn how to write properly, but I did, with a lot of help. We’ve reissued our first book after a complete rewrite. The first book in my new series The MacKenna Saga is out. The second is due to be released in November.

The Adverb Crutch by Richard Draude

Amateur writers wind up succumbing to at least one major pitfall, the use of adverbs in dialogue tags.  Adverbs are those pesky –ly words that modify verbs.

For example:

happily replied.

said angrily.

quickly asked.

pensively said.


In fiction, adverbs tend to weaken your writing. The general rule for fiction of any genre is to eliminate as many adverbs as possible, replacing them with stronger, more specific words.

What do we do with adverbs. (In a perfect world they would cease to exist.). With dialogue, you cannot just replace the adverb. An adverb in a dialogue tag means, in most cases,  you’ll need to rewrite the dialogue itself.

Here’s why:

Amateur writers (but not limited to them) often rely on adverbs in a dialogue tag to convey emotion and tone. That is wrong. A good writer will make that happen in the dialogue itself, and will not rely on the dialogue tag.

For example:

“I've had enough of this,” Karnic shouted angrily.

This tells us Karnic is angry. But that emotion isn't demonstrated through his actions or the dialogue itself.

Remember, dialogue tags have one purpose, to tell the reader who is speaking. Readers read right over them. If you want your reader to feel Karnis’s anger, you have to show them–through the dialogue itself.

Here’s how you might accomplish that:

“You disgust me. This conversation is over,” said Karnic.

Karnic’s dialogue is stronger and his emotion is clear.  Karnic’s words are angry, so you don’t need to rely on the adverb angrily to convey that.

Including some brief actions or descriptions to eliminate the adverb and convey the character’s emotion brings more depth to your story and power to a scene.

For example:

Karnic shoved his chair back and slammed his fist on the table. “I've had enough!” He clenched his jaw. “This discussion is over.”

The actions and description here help show how Kaenic feels, eliminating the use of the word angrily from the dialogue tag.

Here’s what you don’t want to do, however:

“I've had enough,” Kaenic said, angry.

This replaces the adverb, but we still have the same basic problem: You are telling the reader  instead of letting the reader feel the characters emotions through their actions. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re all set just because you don’t have one of those pesky –ly words in there.

Adverbs become crutches, even for accomplished writers.  They're lazy writing and a huge red flag for agents and editors.

Here’s a good way to test your writing. Read your dialogue out loud without any dialogue tags. If the lines of dialogue by themselves don’t convey the emotion you’re trying to draw from your readers, that means you're relying on adverbs and your dialogue needs to be rewritten.

Every Rule has An Exception

Of course, there’s always an exception to every rule. Here’s the one for adverbs in dialogue tags (though a good editor will flag it and ask you to rework the sentence). If the tone or emotion of the dialogue is confusing or unclear to the reader, you might use an adverb in a dialogue tag. This strategy is most often used when the character speaks sarcastically or ironically, jokes, or struggles to be polite.

For example, consider this piece of dialogue:

“Maybe I should come upstairs for a while,” Martin said.

“No, thank you,” Alicia said.

Let’s assume your protagonist is at the end of an awful first date, when he suggests he should come upstairs with her. He reply of,  “No, thank you.” could be taken many ways. So in this case the “No, thank you.” doesn't tell us much, of Alicia’s emotional or mental state, does it? We’d have to assume she’s politely declining. But what if the same line of dialogue were rewritten as the example below?

 “No, thank you,” she said emphatically.

Now the reader gets there’s force behind her words, she's making sure he doesn't come upstairs.

The adverb makes her tone clearer even though her words are exactly the same.
As I said, there are other ways so as to eliminate the adverb.

“No-thank-you!” she said, then turned and stabbed the elevator call button with her index finger.

Linking the words with dashes and using the exclamation point add emotion to the sentence. The action of turning and stabbing the call button shows frustration, anger, etc.

Bottom Line

You want to use adverbs as sparingly as possible. In general, it’s better to use stronger, more descriptions and specific words to move your readers and fans.

Improve Your Writing with Readability Statistics By Denice Whitmore and Jo Wilkins

In this computer age of instant gratification, readability statistics are a great tool to keep your writing technically on track. What can this option do for you? Take a look at the graphic below:

                                               

•              The top of the chart tracks your counts

•              The middle of the chart gives the averages found in your document

•              The bottom gives the passive percentage, reading ease and grade level

The bottom is the most important. Industry standards for today are 5th to 6th grade level of writing, 5% or less passive voice (Mostly reserved for dialogue because we speak in passive voice) and a 75% to 85% readability on the Flesh reading scale. As for the grade level, keep in mind that:

o                  The Gettysburg Address was written at a 6^th grade level

o                  Hemmingway wrote at a 5^th grade level. Old Man of the Sea is at 5.3.

o                  Newspapers are written on a 3^rd grade level so everyone can understand them.

It’s not the words you use, but the complexity of the sentences that determines grade level. A few years ago a member of the Henderson Writers' Group approached Jo and asked why his book wouldn’t sell. She took it home to read and ended up throwing it across the room during the third chapter With an average sentence length of 62 words, Jo would finish a sentence and have to go back to the beginning since it had changed directions so many times she had no idea what it was about. So, she investigated why. The back blurb ─ first sentence was 56 words, has 4 commas and changes direction after each comma.

Jo typed in the first few pages to check the readability score. It was 27% passive voice, Read on a 12.6 grade level and had scored a 36 for readability. She told him he needed to dumb it down. He said he couldn’t, his three college professors had edited it for him and he didn't want to upset them. She told him that was the only audience he would attract. A couple of years later, after he heeded her advice, he wrote a killer fiction book that fell into the proper readability scores and it sold well on Amazon.

Here is how to set up the readability statistics for Microsoft Word and Corel Word Perfect. If you would like a tracking sheet that will help you keep track of your statistics email info@mysticpublishersinc.com. 

To set up your computer to give you the readability scores for any document in Microsoft Word 2003, you need to take these steps.

Drop down the Tools menu from the standard toolbar.

Click once on Options at the bottom of the list.

When the Options dialogue box comes on the screen click on the top tab that reads Spelling & Grammar.

On the Spelling & Grammar page, go to the bottom of the page in the grammar section.  Check the boxes that say Check grammar as you type – Check grammar with spelling – Show readability statistics.

Click on the OK option at the bottom and the dialogue box will close.

After this is set up, every time you hit F7 to check the spelling and grammar, a box will come up to show you the word count and the readability scores for the document on the screen.

To set up the equivalent of this feature in Corel’s Word Perfect, there are a few more steps, and it must be done manually with every document.

Drop down the Tools menu on the application toolbar.

Click on the Gramatik option (or use Alt+Shift+F7) to open the grammar checker.

On the right hand side of the grammar checker dialogues box, tag the options button.

A square menu will come on screen.  In the center of that menu you will find the selection, Analysis    ►.

Place the mouse arrow on either the word or the arrowhead, and another box will come on screen.

In this box, scroll to the bottom of the listed features to readability.

Click once on readability and a dialogue box will come on screen.

In the readability dialogue box, you will see the scores of your document compared to a Hemingway short story.

You can change the comparison to the Gettysburg Address for speeches or to the 1040EZ instructions for an instructional document.

The Flagged button at the bottom of the box takes you to a screen that outlines the grammar rules you may have broken.

The Basic Counts button takes you to a screen where you can view the word count—Sentence structure—etc.

 To set up your computer to give you the readability scores for any document in Microsoft Word 2007, you need to take these steps. 

Step 1.            Open Word and click on the Microsoft Symbol in the upper left-hand corner.

Step 2.            On the drop down menu click on the word option button in the lower right hand corner next to the exit button.

Step 3.            In the next menu box, click on PROOFING (the third option down) in the left-hand side list of options.

Step 4.            In the next menu box, go the bottom of the options displayed and place a check in the box next to SHOW READABILITY STATISTICS.

To set up your computer to give you the readability scores for any document in Microsoft Word 2010 &2013

1.         To initiate the Readability Statistics, open a word document and clicked on FILE at the extreme left side of the screen.
2.         Scroll down the menu on the left side until you see OPTIONS. A new menu comes out.

3.         At this point in 2010, you must go into the Proofing menu to find the readability option. In 2013 just scroll to the bottom of the menu.      
4.         Check the box for readability. If the box is ghosted and will not allow you to put in the check mark, put a check in the Grammar & Spelling options and it allow you to initiate the option.

5.         Hit ok & you are done. 

Why Write? by Janelle Evans

            Someone once asked me why I choose to be a writer. The cocky answer: because I’m good at it, isn’t entirely true. I’m a writer because I choose not to ignore the seeds of imagination that are always floating around in my head. The whole “good at it” ebbs and flows, depending on the day. Sometimes way more ebb than flow, but I keep at it. That’s what catapults me out of a this-is-a-hobby mentality into serious writer. I spend time, money, and uber-amounts of effort to learn and grow in the craft.

            The world tells writers we are only successful once we’re published. Not true, and I’m speaking from experience here, my first published book came two years ago.

            Every time I find a surprising thread in my plot that keeps a story going, I’m smiling for days. Finish a book, and I’m dancing around the house. Sure they’re private victories, but they keep me coming back to write more. And coming back is more than half the battle.

 

Read more blogs by our guest blogger at authorjanelleevans.com

You’ve got a Blank Space, Baby by Mary Einfeldt

            You’ve always known you wanted to be a writer. You’ve scribbled down twiddles in notebooks and toyed with some bad poetry in your teens, but now it’s time to get serious and get the book that’s been floating around in your subconscious down on paper. Maybe it’s National Novel Writing Month and this is finally the excuse you’ve been looking for to get started. So you open your computer and stare at a Big. Blank. Screen. Now what?

            If you’re a smart writer, you’ve read enough books to know that the first page, the first sentence, is crucial. If the first page is brilliant, the reader will naturally continue on to page two and so forth. The first few lines can establish the whole tone and voice of the book. But that glaring white screen is intimidating. The pressure of putting your best self forward from the start can cause pressure on a writer that leads to frustration and ultimately self-doubt. If anything, a writer should approach a story with confidence.

            So how to begin? While starting at the beginning of the story is a good idea, this does not mean you have to start with that all-important first line. Focus instead on starting with the first third of the book. If you were to partition your story into three chunks of beginning middle and end, go ahead and start somewhere in the beginning. Work on introducing your characters and setting, hint at the conflict that is to come, and refine your unique voice. Rather than stressing out about a good first line, spend your first few days on fleshing out that beginning chunk. Chances are as you start writing, you will stumble across a line that demands to be front and center. And if you write and write for days and still nothing stands out to you as a solid opening? Remind yourself that writers have the luxury of going back and changing things that may not have worked the first time around. Lucky writers.

            If at any point you get a little stuck, try one, or all, of these go-to exercises that will help you craft a strong opening:

 

·         Grab a notebook, a pen, and your ten favorite books of all time. You don’t need to overthink this and look for the ten best or most critically acclaimed books of all time, just ten that you personally love. Read the first page of each book and jot down notes on phrases or other elements that stand out to you. Look for lines that set the tone for the whole story, or bring your favorite character to life. Taking the time to notice what you like is one of the best ways to help you create something you like. You’ll be tempted to look up famous first lines, like those from 1984 or Neuromancer, and see what smart people have to say about them. Don’t. Other people’s opinions on first lines are great but they won’t give you as much fresh insight as looking at something you love and figuring out why you like it will.

 

·         Put yourself in the shoes of your main character, then plop them into the first scene in your story. Write down the first thing they notice. Maybe it would be the first thing you as the author would notice, maybe not. If your character is particularly observant, perhaps they would notice something that was missing, rather than something present. Perhaps if they are perpetually hungry, they would notice the smell of roasting chicken and herbs in another inaccessible room. If he has put himself in a dangerous situation, would he focus on the obstacles? Or on the ultimate goal? If you don’t know your character well enough, take a break from this exercise and spend a few minutes writing just about your character on a deeper level than surface appearances and personality traits.

 

·         Write a few terrible openings. Sometimes the best way to get creative and find what works is by starting with what you know doesn’t work. Not only will this get some bad ideas out of your system to make room for the good ones, your brain may start firing in some unusual unfamiliar pathways that could potentially break you out of the deep ruts of well-travelled ideas.

 

            The most important thing to take away from this, is to just start writing. Focus more on getting that beginning chunk of story down than putting your best line down first. Keep filling up that blank space until you’ve got a mass of raw material to go and play with.

Mystic Publishers Employee Bios: Jo Wilkins, President

            I started out as a closet poet in 1972 and over the years evolved into an author of Science Fiction novels (first one published in 2003). Because of the vanity press trap my co-author and I fell into, I also started helping authors self-publish that same year. That self-publishing aid, Mystic Publishers, also evolved. By 2013, it became the parent corporation of our new company, Mystic Publishers, Inc. Under this corporate name, we organized the three divisions of the company.

            Being associated with Mystic Publishers, Inc. has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my life. The other rewarding portion of my life was starting the Henderson Writer’s Group in August of 2000. Through the group, I became dedicated to assisting writers become published authors by starting the Las Vegas Writer’s Conferences. As president and founder of the group, I discovered there are good stories that were only in need of a little help. They were passed over because they are new authors and have no established audience to automatically bring in returns for a publishing house. So why not bring the publishers here to see these talented writers.

            As a publisher now, myself, I love finding authors that are 90% ready for publication and working with them until their manuscripts are print-ready. To hold the printed copy of that book, that we all helped produce, brings on a feeling almost as good as when I opened the first box of my first novel. It is an accomplishment that all involved work very hard to bring about. 

 

            Favorite Author: Isaac Asimov

            Favorite Book: The Foundation Trilogy and the books that preceded and followed it. The story arc incorporating the robot from The Caves of Steel was truly mind-blowing.

            Writing inspiration: Science, learning new things and thinking how they could be used in the future, the stars, creating future societies that have no biases against their fellow man.

Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover by Richard Draude

            The popular idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” might be true in an idealistic sense, but it usually refers to judging people by their appearance. There is a reality for publishers and the book industry in general. For the vast majority of readers the cover of a book is a deciding factor in not only whether or not they should buy the book, but if they will enjoy it as well.

            There are literally millions of books for a reader to choose from, Your cover is the first “sales pitch” so to speak. If it doesn’t catch a buyer’s eye, their imagination, or their attention, he or she will pass it over in favor of a book with more appeal on either side.

 

            Text and Font

 

            If the title is not clear enough to read from a distance, or when it becomes a thumbnail image online, then a great sounding title will be lost on a potential customer. Your font is critical. If it’s sloppy, illegible, unappealing, or just unprofessional, such as the overly-used, you could even say abused fonts of, Comic Sans or Papyrus, it will immediately turn off most readers.

            Not only is your cover a billboard for the book, it is in a sense, the first page of your story. The graphic chosen can communicate, at a quick glance, the style and mood of the tale inside. A dark cover, with lots of shadow, can suggest a danger or even horror. A bright white cover with clouds could suggest a motivational text book. Why is this important? It speaks to the emotions of the reader, engaging them on a deeper level, and thus potentially securing a book sale. A sale sets the stage for whether or not any reader will like the book in the first place.
            A cover can also create preconceptions in a reader’s mind about what the characters or the setting look like. It is debatable whether or not this is a good thing, as the cover design may not match the author or reader’s ideas, but it could act as a visual aid where necessary. Romance and erotica obviously make good use of this fact with appealing models on the front cover, enticing readers as much as they might entice each other as characters in the story.
            A reader’s first assurance that the book is of a high quality, is a well-designed cover. The cover can scare away a customer or lure them in. Bad covers, with pixilated images, watermarks clearly visible, text badly formatted or aligned, and so forth, suggest to the reader that the interior of the book will be equally sloppy. A poorly designed cover creates preconceptions in the mind of the reader, setting them in “critical” mode instead of “enjoyment” mode. With their attention already drawn to errors and sloppiness, they will more easily spot mistakes in the text, and might even go looking for them. They are also likely to be less forgiving of typos than they would of what appears to be a more professional work.

 

            The importance of cover design

 

            Big publishers come up with different covers for different markets, catering to the unique culture of each region. Design principles are not the same the whole world over, leading to, for example, simpler designs on many UK covers, with more frequent use of negative space, and more detailed designs on US covers that cram in more imagery, potentially speaking to different cultural perceptions of “value for money.”

            Due to different meanings of words in different countries, titles on covers can also change. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a classic example of this. The book was renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States. The word “Philosopher” does not have the same connotations with magic here as it does in England. The artwork also changed, helping reinforce the magical themes of the book. The font itself became much more mystical, ending up being the font not only for the books, but employed for the movies as well.

             Great cover designs need to draw the reader’s attention, engage them on an emotional level, suggest the tone and style of the work, and showcase the quality of the book itself, all the while taking into consideration the potential cultural expectations of the reader. This is a monumental task, without doubt, but one that could be a deciding factor in making a book a best-seller.