It's tricky, writing a poly book. I want it to work for the monogamous reader who's never even been tempted by poly; I hope that by the end of the book, they can empathize with my characters, understand how they got into this situation, be caught up in their emotional tangles. And at the same time, I want my ex-girlfriend whom I was in a threesome with for three years to find the story sufficiently interesting and complex that she gets caught up in the book too. It needs to work in both cases, if it's going to work at all. (Heh. Sort of like how I wanted BiM to work both for the white reader entirely unfamiliar with Sri Lanka, and for my sisters. :-)
So Karina really likes it! So far, so good. :-) The critique notes I have left are down to less than six pages. I have one intractable date problem, one page of suggested edits that I want to think about some more, one page of general stuff to keep in mind (i.e., make Shefali's job more present throughout), and three pages of notes on Part V to use up in the next few days. There's a certain energizing effect of knowing that I'm almost at the end -- the challenge now will be not to rush through these last pages of revisions.
Two more quick scenes to draft tonight, and a few edits from Dawn. Then sending out Part IV and going to bed. Much schoolwork in morning.
IIRC, this is a poly novel, yes? And contemporary? (By which I mean, set in the present day and not fantastical.) Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that. I’m currently working on the outline for a novel where the whole society is poly. But you can do that with alternate history. (And talking about it reminds me that people outside the society will probably think this scandalous. Must write that in…)
Yes and yes. Though it’s maybe a bit misleading to call it a poly novel; it’s not so much people who identify as poly, but people who stumble into a poly situation…