by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve written about this before, but I sort of have this on my mind again, so lulz. The heart of this six novel project is a woman who looks like and is about the same age as Oliva Munn. Now, given that I’m a middle age CIS white male, the idea that I would write from a third person intimate POV as a woman is going to be controversial to some people.
And, yet, Stieg Larsson did it and it wasn’t the end of the world. But, on a macro basis, the heart of this huge project is the love of a woman for another woman’s child. We get to see over the course of 25 years the ebb and flow of that relationship.
Now, one thing I’m a little worried about is how the story changes over the course of the six novels. The first three novels focus on the character that looks like Ms. Munn. It’s very much a Mare of Easttown type situation. The later books are a much more a homage to Stieg Larsson’s type writing and I hope that won’t be too jarring to the audience.
But as I write these six novels, in my mind I’m thinking of what Olivia Munn looks like and trying to depict the character in the audience’s mind as looking as much like her as possible. And, yet, of course, you’re supposed to also keep things as open and vague as possible so people can imbue the character’s appearance with whatever they like.
I like the idea that my heroine for so many of these novels isn’t white and that becomes part of the story. And, as I’ve said before, in general, I find developing and writing female characters a lot more interesting to do because of how complex doing so legitimately is. I’m really self-conscious about it all and my greatest fear is I’ll write something from the POV of a female character that is so clueless that women readers will throw the book across the room.
Anyway. None of this matters right now to anyone but me. I feel a lot better about things. I hope — hope — to start writing again around Sept. 1st. We’ll see.
