- Joined
- May 14, 2005
- Messages
- 12,862
- Reaction score
- 2,846
- Location
- A Small Town in Germany
- Website
- www.sharonmaas.co.uk
For the first time ever, I've got a white woman as MC! A white girl, to be exact, 16 when we first meet her. She lives in early 20th century British Guiana on a sugar plantation (the boss's daughter) and falls in love with a "darkie" as she calls them at the start of the book. She has the usual white privilege attitudes, but she follows her heart and over the course of the book she changes, develops, learns about the oppression of the dark races (African and Indian), takes the side of the underdog, ends up as a fledgling social activist who risks all, and one by one her attitude changes.
I'm in the middle of line edits and I'm afraid my editor (white female!) doesn't "get it".
She (editor) says at one point, "G. (black love interest) doesn't do anything heroic for MC or her sister."
I beg your pardon???? Why should he? He's an activist, one who through his very role of supporting the cane-labourer movement, is a hero!!!!
Of course, their relationship is secret, and she (editor) doesn't get how a young girl can fall so much in love with a man she only shared xxxx time with. Well, I know that when I was young I fell head over heels with boys I only DANCED with once!
Later in the book, she's now 18, MC meets a nice handsome rich young man (T) and, since at the moment she is separate form G, and G. has actually told her to move on, is sorely tempted. Editor wants more motivation for her to choose G. over T. Hello? maybe because T. is basically just your bland self-indulgent rich boy, whereas G. lives for a cause bigger than himself, which is very very attractive for someone with their heart in the right place?
This is really just a rant; I will try to revise in order to please her but I have also tried to explain to her, in the editorial letter, why MC is the way she is; her layers of white privilege are slowly stripped away as she grows.
It's not that the editor is ONLY critical. She loves the book as a whole. But dealing with these issues really shows her total lack of understanding. I honestly think she would have preferred a happy romantic ending with T.
But I want the readers rooting for G. and I'm not sure, if most of the readers are white, that they will. It's a bit of a concern. Will white readers be able to "get it", if my editor doesn't? I've got to be very careful here.
ETA: I get the feeling she wants MC to be saving and educating him; One suggestion she makes is that MC should lend him one of her books, because "G. has had a reasonable education after all?"
She wants him to be "more worthy of her love". What about her being "more worthy of HIS love?"
.
I'm in the middle of line edits and I'm afraid my editor (white female!) doesn't "get it".
She (editor) says at one point, "G. (black love interest) doesn't do anything heroic for MC or her sister."
I beg your pardon???? Why should he? He's an activist, one who through his very role of supporting the cane-labourer movement, is a hero!!!!
Of course, their relationship is secret, and she (editor) doesn't get how a young girl can fall so much in love with a man she only shared xxxx time with. Well, I know that when I was young I fell head over heels with boys I only DANCED with once!
Later in the book, she's now 18, MC meets a nice handsome rich young man (T) and, since at the moment she is separate form G, and G. has actually told her to move on, is sorely tempted. Editor wants more motivation for her to choose G. over T. Hello? maybe because T. is basically just your bland self-indulgent rich boy, whereas G. lives for a cause bigger than himself, which is very very attractive for someone with their heart in the right place?
This is really just a rant; I will try to revise in order to please her but I have also tried to explain to her, in the editorial letter, why MC is the way she is; her layers of white privilege are slowly stripped away as she grows.
It's not that the editor is ONLY critical. She loves the book as a whole. But dealing with these issues really shows her total lack of understanding. I honestly think she would have preferred a happy romantic ending with T.
But I want the readers rooting for G. and I'm not sure, if most of the readers are white, that they will. It's a bit of a concern. Will white readers be able to "get it", if my editor doesn't? I've got to be very careful here.
ETA: I get the feeling she wants MC to be saving and educating him; One suggestion she makes is that MC should lend him one of her books, because "G. has had a reasonable education after all?"
She wants him to be "more worthy of her love". What about her being "more worthy of HIS love?"
.
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