Stark and abstract cover for a fantasy novel

The Outside

Jack Batchen

I live with my wife and one-year-old daughter in Canberra, Australia. I have a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing, and stubbornly wrote fantasy throughout my course, much to the bemusement of some of my professors and class-mates. Outside of writing, I have a love for post-rock and ambient music, an unreasonable dedication to Southampton Football Club, and a passion for biblical Greek and Hebrew.

The Vale is safety. The Vale is prosperity and protection. Yet the Words of Life themselves state that every young man must leave the safety of the Vale at age sixteen and cross the deadly wasteland that is the Outside. Kaere has lived her whole life within the mountains walls of the Vale, dreaming of somewhere else, anywhere else, dreaming of a future that is anything but being one wife among many to a husband she barely knows. So when her oldest and dearest friend stumbles back through the mountain pass seven years after he left, battered and bruised, declaring that the Outside is alive, moving, eating places of safety like the Vale, all Kaere can see is a chance at another life, a life Outside the Vale Walls. But when she follows Janzen back Outside — against his wishes — she realises that everything she thought she understood is not as it seems, including her oldest friend.

The book is aimed at frequent readers of fantasy, both men and women.

My preference would be for a more abstract design, using graphics as opposed to photos. Please see the attached designs for what I have roughly have in mind, particularly Tess of the Road. I'd like the design to clearly show this is a fantasy novel, but at the same time indicating it is neither an urban, military or political fantasy. As in, it's fantasy, but definitely not A Game of Thrones, if that makes sense. In terms of imagery, the inciting incident sees the protagonist (a young woman) leave her sheltered home, which is surrounded by mountains, to explore a vast and barren wilderness. I'd love to have this depicted on the cover somehow, perhaps including a silhouette as well. Another key image in the novel is of a black thundercloud shaped something like a wolf striding across this wilderness, casting golden shadows in its wake. The image I've always had in my head for this is something like the plasma elemental artwork attached (from an old Magic the Gathering Card I think), but black rather than blue. Note that I see this as a wolf's body viewed from side-on, and not necessarily as a wolf's head or jaws, and no actual wolf appears in the story, just that the storm cloud is vaguely reminiscent of one. One of the key themes is how people change over time, and how this can mean that two people who were once close can drift apart. I'm not sure how to depict this on a cover, and will be impressed if you can do so somehow! Other key themes include the contrast between life and death, or between growth and decay.

Please don't use stock photos of models or faces.