I have this desire to get all of myself into my stories. That’s a tall order. There is so much of me. In fact, there is so many aspects of any particular writer that the average writer will find herself hard-pressed to show all facets of her personality in any single work.

Okay, I managed it in Wind Follower. The Christian Carole, the anti-imperialistic liberal Carole, the Black Carole, the romantic Carole, the lover of sex Carole, the speculative fiction writer Carole.

But sometimes one comes up with a story that might be hard to place. One’s regular publisher might have a problem with it. For instance, Wind Follower is published by a publisher who specializes in fantasy with a strong female protagonist. The Constant Tower, one of my two new WIP’s has a strong male protagonist. There was no way the publisher of Wind Follower would accept it. I had to go find that novel the perfect home.

The other WIP, Inheritance, is dark horror with Christian pentecostal elements. The perfect publisher for this book would be a Christian company that publishes horror like Frank Peretti’s works, black female stories like Walk Worthy Press, and something like a Harlequin publisher which allows for a few very powerful sex scenes….after all, a succubus is involved. Sure she gets cast out of one of the main characters but she does do a whole lot of dark, dangerous sexual trouble before she ends up in hell or wherever she ends up. Oh, yeah, and then there’s the interracial relationship between an old woman and a younger man.

It’s a tough combination to put into a novel when you still don’t know what the perfect publisher for such a book might be. And the first question is to figure out what elements of one’s story one definitely “must keep.” The second question is how willing one is to go to a small press or an emerging press in order to keep all the elements of one’s story.

I have no doubt that the world out there is made up of two kinds of readers. Readers who don’t mind being suddenly pulled out of their comfort zones, and readers who really really really get annoyed at being pulled out of their comfort zones.

For instance, my first WIP is being read by a small publisher of Christian fantasy. The story has a male protagonist, a boy on a quest, and since fantasies are read by men, the story fits what the publisher’s fans would come to expect. But then, there is that interracial love story. And there is my issue about imperialism and large countries taking resources from smaller ones. Not the kind of stuff many Christian readers read about. Some will have no problem with it, especially if they aren’t racist and if they don’t think of the United States as the Saviour of the world. But others will be annoyed to suddenly find themselves stuck with a book that talks about issues they are unwilling or unable to deal with it. So…I sit waiting to hear what this publisher will say.

The same goes for Inheritance. Many Christian publishers aim for the lowest common denominator of Christian faith….what all the denominations share. They will accept stories where someone changes his ways. But they shy away from characters who encounter demons…and characters who dance…and characters who are engaged in interracial relationships. So I’m sitting around waiting to hear from an agent to see if she will take me — and my book– on. And I am hoping I won’t have to remove essential elements from my books in order to let them be more acceptable to the gatekeepers of the publishing world.

The funny thing is that one would expect that being so many things and having so many different parts of one’s personality would increase a book’s possibilities rather than limit it.

Wind Follower is a book taht is Christian, fantasy, work by a Black woman, romance. So I emailed all the bloggers/reviewers/groups out there who specializee in those categories with a description of the book asking them if they want to review it. I also joined Christian book tour, a Christian fantasy book group, a black book group, and a romance book group, a fantasy book group, and a book group that specializes in fantasy done by people of color.

Most of the readers loved ALL of the aspects of me they found in the book. But many balked at certain elements. One fantasy lover didn’t like the romance part. Some Christian fantasy lovers didn’t like the sexuality of the romance.

In the end, writers have to decide what they want to write but they must also be aware of the risks involved and that the inclusion or exclusion of any element in a story is like carving out a new path. Black authors are especially aware of this because we understand issues such as stereotyping and silencing. We still try to carve out new niches, however — niches that allow us to write all we need to write without being too aware of readers who may think we are not keeping ourselves chained to a particular pattern or place. -C



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