In my historical romance, Kindred, An American Love Story, my heroine is the granddaughter of
slaves, and my hero is an indigenous Oneida. When an interracial relationship
pops up as the main plot in a romance novel, it’s usually a Caucasian hero and
a non-Caucasian heroine/partner. I was drawn to telling a tale with characters who
don’t get much play in researched historical romances. A plethora of historical,
Native romances have been written over the years. Most have a Native hero and a
Caucasian heroine. And the hero is usually portrayed as “untamed” and “wild” and
is often seen by the heroine as “uncivilized.” Okay. I get that the writer needs
to convey the independence or the single-mindedness or the uniqueness of the
Native character, but “untamed and wild?” About an Indigenous person? Really? Um,
er, uh…No. No. No. Those writers needed to have thought harder to find better
words.
I used the same criteria for my heroine. If you know
anything about my work, you know that I write Black heroines, I
write them the opposite of the usual spin seen in the sparsely populated arena
of Black, historical romance heroines. I only depict them in multi-faceted
terms. No one-note wonders permitted. No one-size fits all demeanors. I expect
the same for my book covers. I went against the trend for Kindred's cover. The lack of the hero’s bare chest on the cover might have
cost me sales but I wasn’t going that route. No oiled-up “savage.” No skimpy
loincloth, or spears. No broken English on his part inside the book. No.
I got pushback on my choice of romantic coupling for
my book. The first publishing house I subbed to had doubts the pairing, and
their depiction, would pass muster. “Pass muster?” Uh? An editor liked the book
but said it might be a hard sell to the reading public. She also asked if I could
make a “few changes.” Interested in hearing her out, I read her list of
changes. Let’s just say ALL her changes were a no-go. So, I sucked it up, kept the
faith, said, “No thank you” and moved on. I finally found a Canadian publisher
who liked my characters the way I presented them, and wanted to publish the
book. Yay! Victory!
The take-away from this post?
If you are writing your historical romance to fit the
trends, be aware that your premise will have to conform to what is popular in
the sub genre. It will have to contain the familiar tropes, characters and
settings. The sameness will sell it. A certain faction of historical romance
readers expects comfort and familiarity with their reading material.
Now if you are writing historical romance to bring a
too-seldom-viewed take to the sub genre, it is necessary to have different
tropes, non-default characters and unusual settings. If you intend to submit
your work to traditional publishing houses, be prepared for a fight. Anything
out of the ordinary is anathema to them because they are risk-averse when it
comes to the bottom line. If your submission is not turned down outright, and gets
accepted, expect a request for lots of changes. Could you handle that? If you
can, good. Excellent for you. But do fight for what YOU know is crucial to your
story. Do not back down if a story point is important. Stand by your choices and
give reasons why a thing needs to remain. Be daring. You might not win the war but you might win several battles. I do caution you that you might end up with an unrecognizable book. Ask yourself if you could live with that. On the other hand,
if you cannot handle drastic changes to your story, bypass the drama and go straight to self-publishing. Remember, the point is to make your book stand out from the crowd.
Self-publishing is the perfect venue for individuality. Its downside? Promotion falls solely on you.
No comments:
Post a Comment