If you received two blog emails from me this morning, please disregard the one called “Ideas.” My website glitched and sent out a drafted blog for next week instead. The blog called “One POV” is the blog for this week. Sorry for the double emails and the confusion.
Writing from one POV isn’t something I do very often. I’ve done it only once in a published book and once in an unpublished one (you’ll get to read that one when it comes out). Usually, I write from the perspectives of both main characters because it’s helpful for character-building and understanding their decision-making.
For LOVE FORGED, I chose specifically to write from Tate’s perspective only, and there’s a little unknown fact that led to that decision. I was initially going to make Tate be in love with Flynn and Flynn not be aware. I wanted the novel to be from Tate’s perspective for the unrequited love factor, but primarily because it’s her journey to get to know her dad through his art and on this trip with Flynn. When I first thought about Love Forged, I had this image of two girls standing in front of a giant painting in a museum, and one of them takes the other’s hand. That was it. So, as I built out the plot and the characters, I decided it would be one POV. The third reason was because I like to challenge myself as a writer when I can, and I’d never written from one POV prior to that book, so this gave me the chance to stretch my skills a bit.
When I started my outline, I was still planning on making Tate be in love with Flynn, but one of the reasons to write from only one perspective is that you can hold things back from your readers until you’re ready to tell them. You’re not going to Flynn’s chapter where she’s internally monologuing about how she’s in love with her best friend and it gets revealed too soon, and you aren’t forced to have their actions not match their later words. For example, had I written from Flynn’s side (and she’s going out with boy after boy and sleeping with them, with Tate in the other room all the while she never reveals that she’s in love with Tate) when she suddenly tells Tate, it would come out of left field. It can be difficult to find the balance of what to reveal and what to hold back as a writer, so going from Tate’s side gave me the chance to have it slowly revealed to the reader that while Tate is going on this journey of self-discovery about who she is as a person and where she comes from, she’s also figuring out that she’s in love with her best friend, and the reader finds out that Flynn loves her, too.
I loved writing their story in this way because even though I couldn’t type Flynn’s inner thoughts, I could hear them in my head, and it gave me a creative way to try to get them in the story through her words and actions. When she starts to pull away from Tate, there’s a reason. When she sees Tate’s haircut and she reacts the way she does, there’s a reason. Even when she’s telling Tate at the beginning of the book about the boy that didn’t work out, there’s a reason. Every action Flynn takes and the words she says all lead us to knowing that she wants more than friendship from Tate, even though our little Tate takes a while to figure it out for herself.
Love Forged
Stand-alone Novel
Genre: Contemporary Lesbian Romance
Release Date: March 19th, 2021
Formats: Kindle, Audible, Paperback
Length: 62,870 words
Listening Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
Komentáře