Thursday, June 14, 2012

Elana Johnson on Hairstyles in Dystopia + Giveaway: Signed Possession and Surrender

Hi everyone! Today, I have the awesome Elana Johnson for a guest post about…hairstyles in her dystopian novels. Stick around for a giveaway. 


The Hairstyles of POSSESSION and SURRENDER
A guest post by Elana Johnson

Okay, so my novels (POSSESSION and SURRENDER) are set in the future. A dystopic future, with many and varied rules. Everything is decided to the main characters, to what job they’ll have to who they’ll marry.

In SURRENDER, the control is taken a bit further in that each Citizen has a meal plan they can’t deviate from. Snacks are regulated. The whole nine yards.

At the same time, there is a little bit more leeway in SURRENDER also. Students can save up their “good choice” points and use them to skip a single class. They test into their educational tracks, causing them to usually end up with something they enjoy and that they’re good at.

I also added in the hair enhancement wand. Because I think hairstyles are one of the easiest ways to express personality. I’ve seen example after example of teens acting out against their parents—with their hair.

And I thought it would be a perfect way to plant the seeds of rebellion in my main characters. So Gunner—the male MC—wears his hair just a little bit too long. And it’s obvious, because it curls when it gets too long. Raine Hightower—the female MC—has normally changed her hair everyday, setting it on punk-ish colors like lime-green and fuschia.

When SURRENDER opens, Raine’s got her hair on snow white, because that’s how she’d enhanced her hair the day Violet Schoenfeld came to live with her…

Gunner and Raine show their distaste for such strict rules through a simple act of disobedience. After all, hair is easy to fix. It grows back, and it can be colored instantly—especially in SURRENDER.

But it definitely means something in the world of POSSESSION and SURRENDER.

Have you ever rebelled by doing something crazy with your hair?

About the Author:

Elana's work including POSSESSION, REGRET, and SURRENDER is available from Simon & Schuster wherever books are sold. She is the author of From the Query to the Call, an ebook that every writer needs to read before they query, which can be downloaded for free on her website. She runs a personal blog on publishing and is a founding author of the QueryTracker blog. She blogs regularly at The League of Extraordinary Writers, co-organizes WriteOnCon, and is a member of SCBWI, ANWA and LDStorymakers.

She wishes she could experience her first kiss again, tell the mean girl where to shove it, and have cool superpowers like reading minds and controlling fire. To fulfill her desires, she writes young adult science fiction and fantasy.

Follow Elana: Twitter | Facebook | Blog

Giveaway: Signed Copies of Possession and Surrender by Elana Johnson

Raine has always been a good girl. She lives by the rules in Freedom. After all, they are her father’s rules: He’s the Director. It’s because of him that Raine is willing to use her talent—a power so dangerous, no one else is allowed to know about it. Not even her roommate, Vi.

All of that changes when Raine falls for Gunner. Raine’s got every reason in the world to stay away from Gunn, but she just can’t. Especially when she discovers his connection to Vi’s boyfriend, Zenn.

Raine has never known anyone as heavily brainwashed as Vi. Raine’s father expects her to spy on Vi and report back to him. But Raine is beginning to wonder what Vi knows that her father is so anxious to keep hidden, and what might happen if she helps Vi remember it. She’s even starting to suspect Vi’s secrets might involve Freedom’s newest prisoner, the rebel Jag Barque…. 

Rules:

Follow Fragments of Life
Open internationally.
You should be at least 13 years old.


a Rafflecopter giveaway





51 comments:

  1. I haven't rebelled but I did cut it really short one time :)

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  2. I died the bottom half of my hair bright red, the top half black. I wish I was a blond, it would be SO much easier to do crazy colors.

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  3. Thank for the nice post and giveaway!
    I've never done anything crazy with my hair. I've thought about doing dreads, though, but I'm not sure how they'd actually work out.

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  4. No, not really! Unless cutting it short after my finals at High School counts?

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  5. No! I'm such a creature of habit....I never change my haircut... how boring is that? Great post and giveaway!

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  6. I'm wayyy too chicken to do anything dramatic to my hair!

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  7. Yes. Years ago I just decided to cut my hair really short and dyed it purple and pink. Good times :D
    Thanks a lot for the giveaway!

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  8. No, I've never done anything to rebel...I was and still am what you'd call a "good girl." I've always wanted to put blue in my hair for fun, though, but that never happened. So nope, my hair is normally just brown. I have tried red highlights but they didn't show up much.

    -Lauren

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  9. Not technically rebelled, since my mom helped dye it, but my hair has had pink, green, blue, purple and red in it! (No, not all at the same time, lol!) :D

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  10. Not willingly, haha, this past year my hair was cut by a drunk woman. Granted I'd been going to this woman to get my hair cut for about a year, and she was never drunk, and she wasn't drunk when she started my hair, but she went to the back room, and came back... and my hair was horrible. School was starting the next week as well, and We had yearbook pictures a couple of weeks after that, and my hair still hadn't grown to what I was used to... Let's just say I switched barbers lol. :D

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  11. Such a great idea to choose hairstyles as the way Gunner and Raine rebel. Because you're right, teens can so relate to it.

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  12. I've dyed my hair different colors and once when my hair was super long I cut it all off into a pixie cut.

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  13. Hello Precious and (maybe) Elana :)
    I am NOT that daring, haha. The craziest action I've ever done to my hair is accidentally cutting it too short. Other than that: no. My skin is dark, so dyeing my hair to any bright or strange colour would not work!
    Thank you for the amazing and generous giveaway!

    -Kirthi
    I (sadly) haven't read either of these two books. But Gunner sounds very...attractive. Males with slightly long hair...sigh :)

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  14. In high school, I really wanted to dye my hair. My parents finally relented, as long as I could find the dye at Target. Basically, they didn't want me going to Hot Topic and coming home with green or blue. So I finally chose a burgundy, and they flipped. I got my way in the end, but it wasn't really rebellion (although it came out a much brighter red than we all thought it would).

    I streaked it pink in college, but I don't think anyone noticed. They were too busy freaking out about the lip ring I got myself for the 18th birthday.

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  15. Well, no, I have not. :) My hair is brown, as is my eyes. I colored it very blond once, but I liked it. :) And I did it for me, not for anyone else ;p Hih. Thank you for this awesome giveaway :D <3

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  16. I chopped my hair short "Pixie" about a year ago. Thanks for cool giveaway. -TheUnseelieNerd

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  17. Not really. My hair is kinda bad so I don't dare to do anything drastic. D: also, I'm far from daring. D:

    Anyway, thanks for the giveaway!

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  18. I've never rebelled by doing anything crazy to my hair before; I'm not brave enough to cut it really short or dye it an outrageous colour :D

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  19. I dyed mine blond! Got grounded because of it. -sigh-

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  20. Not because I was being rebellious, but I once cut my own hair to try to give it a trim and really messed it up.

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  21. No, not yet anyway. I kinda want to put in blue or red streaks in my hair. :D

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  22. No! Sadly enough. :( But I DO intend to get a drastic cut sometime relatively soon. Probably a pixie cut.

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  23. No. I'm not the rebel type :)

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  24. I haven't and so want a change now but am getting married in a few months so I can't1

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  25. No. Bc i love my hair too much lol. BUT once i got a comb stuck in it(dont ask) and i had to cut it out.... :/ Kinda had a bald spot for while
    -JennyC

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  26. Of course first I shaved my half side off, then when it was long enough I bleached it XD
    now I'm tenaciously growing it , just it doesn't want to!!!

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  27. I dyed part of my hair blue once...it didn't turn out so well, and I vowed never to fight genetics on that issue again.

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  28. I've never done anything that crazy. After Emma Watson cut her hair really short, I thought about it really hard. But could never muster up the will to go through with it.

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  29. i've dyed part of my hair purple, but it wasn't to rebel and it really wasn't all that crazy. it was just because i love the color purple and wanted to do something different with my hair : )

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  30. Nope. Same old hair since I was little. Brown and curly :) I'm not really a rebel.

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  31. No, I'd be too scared to do anything drastic with my hair.

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  32. The craziest thing i've done with my hair is cut it super short and i've also dyed it against my parents wishes vxD

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  33. no, I didn't do anything extreme with my hair YET ;)
    Thank you for the international giveaway!

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  34. No. Not yet anyway. I consider myself a coward when it comes to my hair. I never had it styled too short because of the thought that it won't suit me. But next summer maybe I'll have the guts to try anything different. :)

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  35. Well..I dyed it blonde once..nothing too dramatic.

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  36. I've put green spray paint in my hair for a sports carnival once - and I've got blonde hair!!! I looked mouldy for weeks...!

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  37. I've streaked my hair red, but that's about it. I'm too worried to do much else to it.

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  38. I totally rebelled by using Sun In during the summer! haha
    And my hair was always cut short, like, boy short.

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  39. Nope! I love my hair just the way it is (and I'm a total chicken!)

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  40. Besides dip dying my hair blue? No.

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  41. I have basically chopped 3 inches of my very long hair..and that way too crazy for me to do

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  42. Yeah. I cut it myself a lot. My parents hated it. I want to dip dye it red or blue or pink or green or purple some day, but I can't because school uniform rules would probably make me cut it out.

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  43. Uh, no. I like my hair the way it is. I want to get really bright highlights some day, but not to rebel. I just think it'd look cool.

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  44. I have never rebelled with my hair. I really like my hair the way it is, and couldn't see changing it to go against someone else.

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  45. I dyed my hair bleach blonde and then I had to wait for it to grow out because the color wouldn't stay when I tried to dye it back.

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  46. I just cut it myself, sometimes I just was tired of wearing it long, of they go! (ileana-rafflecopter)

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  47. My hair is crazy enough on its own. Think of that chick on Brave, just not quite so red. ;-)

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  48. No it wouldn't have done much for me. I am sure my mom would have just laughed it off and praised me for being unique.

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  49. I've cut my hair really short and have dyed it super red (like nearly purple red), but it wasn't really to rebel to anything.

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  50. Not really. I usually use words to rebel.

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