by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve heard recently the occasional stray comment that there is a growing trend on the part of the publishing industry for single POV novels. This is a problem for me because when I was thinking about how I do my first novel, I simply used Stieg Larsson as a guide.
In general, however he did it, I did it.
And Larsson repeatedly during his Millennium books used more than one POV. Now, one key thing that I’ve gradually come to realize is if you use a POV other than your heroine’s, it has to be meaningful. But, from what I’m hearing, lulz, just have one POV if you want to get published.
I’m just not prepared to change to that MO in my novel at the moment. Momma aways said I was special, after all. I have a vision for this novel and if it makes it more difficult to get the novel published, so be it. I really, really like what I’ve come up with and, if all else fails, I’ll simply fall back to a second or third tract novel where I do use one POV and try to leverage that to sell the novel I’ve been working on all this time.
I have to admit that I’m feeling pretty insecure about this whole thing the last few days. But this happens to me all the time, usually a very specific moments in the month that I can predict. I usually don’t have anyone to bother me when I write and occasionally I do and it scrambles my internal writing dynamo. But it passes soon enough.
As such, I use this “pause” in my writing to do a lot of reading and watching of TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. That’s the goal, at least.
But, anyway, I’m going to try to seed some potential beta readers with the first chapter of the second draft of the novel this weekend. It’s could be really tough to find anyone willing to be a beta reader. They say to fix that problem you need to be someone ELSE’S beta reader.
I probably need to force myself to read other people’s novels just so I get back into the habit of reading fiction before I start being a beta reader for other people. The few times I’ve tried to be a beta reader for someone, people got really mad at how brutal I was on their writing. I’m really, really brutal on my own writing, but I get it.
I need to be nicer.
Anyway. Wish me luck.
