WIPWed Knotcaster Cover Reveal!

This week's Work in Progress Wednesday is a special one! I've mentioned Knotcaster in the past, it's a prequel to Threadcaster about the lead characters Cat and Peter when they were fourteen, before they left on their life-changing journey. Except they weren't always fourteen. When I first started this book a year ago, they were ten and eleven. That's the third cover image you see here. By the time I got halfway through the draft I realized the conflict was getting a bit too dark for kids that young and aged them up to twelve and thirteen, which is the second, darker image. By the time I finished however I realized that the themes were even more mature than that! And with my final revision I walked through the entire book upping the age of the characters to fourteen and officially making it a Lower Young Adult rated novel. 

Fourteen is a weird year for a protagonist in childrens media. It sits squarely between the Young Adult and Middle Grade reading levels, the same way kids who are fourteen can either be high school or middle school attendees. Kids tend to read up, so Middle Grade books are often written with even younger readers in mind. The themes are often about self actualization, being brave, and standing up for yourself, in contrast to young adult themes which are more akin to coming of age stories, romances, and high stakes adventures geared at a more emotionally mature reader. The first thing that happens in Knotcaster is a death, and by the time I got to the first age adjustment it became clear that the story wanted to be about the last days of Cat's childhood and her awakening to mortality and the brevity of time. 

So these covers show the path Knotcaster took from outline to final draft. I think I made the right decisions, and I'm proud of the book that resulted. Keep an eye out for it dropping hopefully in September!