“Identity is such a crucial affair that one shouldn't rush into it.” ~ David Quammen
Sorry about being gone so long. The cobwebs were SO THICK on my blog, the spiders had to wear miner's headgear. Not to mention the feral dust bunnies; I wasn't about to wage a war with them. So, I decided just to change the journal's style instead. Heh. I do plan to stop by everyone else's blogs later this week and see what's new with you.
Quick update: I finished the second book in my "historical romance with paranormal elements" series. It's sitting on my agent's desk awaiting her approval. I'm now officially in the research / writing phase of my third book of the series, and DANG this one started out with a bang. I FREAK out anytime I have to write an action scene, and this book decided to make me start smack dab in the middle of one. That muse can be a sadistic mistress, can't she?
Okay, onto my subject. Identity. My post today stems from the feedback my agent and I have been getting on the first novel in my series (the one that's being subbed at the moment) ... the novel that might just end up coming at the end of the series instead, as a prequel. Why?
Because it's "not commercial enough" due to the POV. Apparently, first person POV is a hard sell in historical romances. Huh. Go figure. I guess because readers like to know what the hero is thinking as well as the heroine. So, my POV choice ... my book's very identity, is what's holding it back. Other than that, we've had glowing reviews on the story itself and for my writing style. Sigh.
Unfortunately, the POV is the one thing I refuse to change about the book. It's the very reason the story has this unique melancholy / almost musical quality that the editors seem to like so much. It is in fact the first book I've ever written in first person. In the past, I always wrote in third. And I didn't rush into first for this one. It was a very conscious, if not difficult, decision to stray from the norm. My heroine is deaf, so in order to saturate the reader in her world--a silent world where all of her working senses swirl around her in a viscerally intense rainbow of sensation--I had to have them in her head for the duration.
Yet it appears, in spite of my careful consideration as to what was best, the odds are stacked against this story. FOR NOW. The second book of the series follows a more conventional layout for romance (third person all the way), so we'll see if we can't just take a little side trip--reconfigure the order of the books. I'll never give up on the first story. I really do believe in it. And it would be the perfect ending to the series, since I'm dropping hints of it in all of the others to entice the reader.
So, how about you? Do you stop and consciously choose the POV before you start a story, taking into account the marketing aspects of such a choice? Or do you just dive in and let your characters have their voice in whatever form they choose, hang the rules?
Historical Romance Series Book III: