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.

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