I’ve made the decision to move forward with Daughter of Glory, but I’ve been having a lot of internal conflict about how that’s going to happen.
In the original, the point of view (PoV) moved among all the main characters. Everyone had a chance to be the PoV character. When I made the decision to re-work the novel with the aim of someday sharing it with my daughters, I began to wonder if maybe I needed to stick with a single PoV.
Aiming to create strong female characters with whom my daughters could identify, my immediate reaction was that the novel would need to be through a female PoV. I wanted to create a story and characters in which my girls could invest, and that was important to me because of the preponderance of male characters in fantasy, so why have male PoVs and thereby male protagonists.
And then I got stuck. I have admitted to being intimidated by writing from a female PoV, and even evidence that I had done so successfully in the past didn’t totally assuage my concern. Embarking on 300,000 + words in a female PoV looked like quite a large mountain to climb.
Taking a walk, listening to music, I was trying to figure out how to get this all started. In media res, I assumed, but in media of what res? It had to be a situation with Mairwen, the main character – or did it?
And that got me re-thinking all my assumptions – always a good thing. Is it really a problem for a girl to read through a guy’s PoV? Then it hit me: wouldn’t it be good to get a male PoV that reflects the strength of the female characters? Show how the respect and the reliance goes both ways? Show how everyone has strengths and weaknesses?
So moving forward, I’m going to stick with rotating PoVs, although I’m going to start the novel off from a female PoV. I figure maybe the best character with whom to start is Jian. An existing chapter has her and Gustav meeting on the way to the village where the crew assembles. I think we’ll start with that chapter. Have a female PoV – and that of a character who is light-hearted yet highly competent – to get the girl’s invested. I think the second chapter could be in the village, with Thora’s PoV. Two very different capable and strong women as PoV’s to intro the novel.
Okay, planning continues. I probably need to get butt in chair and fingers on keyboard pretty soon. I only have a couple of years.
Art in this post from JP Targete and Kirill from deviantART.
You can learn more about Daughter of Glory here.