’Til Death Do Us Part is now out in eBook formats through JMS Books, LLC (and all the usual distributors), and will be available in print format on June 30, 2016.
Back on April 17th I posted one of the flashback scenes from ’Til Death Do Us Part, rewritten to be from Sam’s POV instead of Henry’s (in the book, all the flashback scenes are told from Henry’s POV). This was motivated by a comment from one of the book’s reviewers, Bethany at Rainbow Gold Reviews, who made the comment that she wished the flashback scenes had been from Sam’s POV instead of from Henry’s. That has motivated me to offer up a series here on my blog doing just that.
The flashback scenes chronicle the time from when Henry and Sam first began their courtship through to the night before Henry leaves on his ill-fated flight. Last time I gave you a scene between Henry and Sam that pre-dates the beginning of their courtship by a few days. The next flashback scene in the book has Henry alone, thinking about how a proposition he’d made to Sam had been rejected, and what his strategy would be going forward. In the rewritten scene, below, I give you Sam doing the same:
“Thanks, but no.”
That had been the polite but decisive and unquestionably short answer Sam had given Henry. They’d been eating dinner when out of the blue, Henry had blurted out something about going back to his room for a drink afterward. Sam had been pretty sure the invitation was intended to be for more than “a drink.” Sam had panicked and declined.
Goddammit.
It was just as well. Mixing business with pleasure was never a good idea. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself. No way was someone as handsome, confident, and personable as Henry interested in him for anything long term. He had a mirror. He knew he wasn’t good-looking by any objective standards. And his personality might as well be non-existent.
Someone like Henry could have anybody he wanted. Sam knew the man’s interest could only be because Sam was convenient while they were here together in the Solomons.
It kind of pissed him off. They still had a few more days to spend together in Honiara, then weeks in close proximity, collecting data on some of the smaller islands. Then they’d be back to rubbing elbows in the biology department at the university. Now with this “offer” hanging between them it was going to be awkward if they didn’t clear the air.
There wasn’t much Sam liked less than having to broach an embarrassing topic of conversation, but clearly it needed to be done. And he needed to stop fantasizing about his co-worker. He’d probably been too obvious, and that’s why the man had thought he’d be okay with a fling while they were here.
That was easier said than done. Sam straightened his shoulders and headed down to the breakfast buffet to meet Henry, and face reality.
I don’t know. I think I preferred Sam’s POV for the first one, but I kinda like the original in Henry’s POV better for this scene. It’s a close call, though.
IDK, I kind of like it from Sam’s POV. It gives me a glimpse deeper into his character and I like it 🙂
Yeah, I do like getting Sam’s perspective here, I just think Henry’s thoughts were also important. Mostly I wanted to have all of the scenes in the same POV so it wouldn’t be confusing and thought of Henry as the primary MC. Although they were both pining for each other, Sam actually thought Henry was dead, so maybe it would have been better to have them all from Sam’s POV to ramp up the sadness as well as help offset the out-of-balance between the alternating chapters when they were apart, which were heavier on the island side.
I agree, the flashbacks should be in the same POV or it would be confusing.
IDK, it’s a hard decision. I liked them from Henry’s POV, but maybe Sam is a better observer of things than Henry and he notices how H feels a lot more than the other way around. So the flashbacks from Sam’s POV is saying more about both of them than Henry’s are in my opinion. I mean, the proposal scene was adorable from Sam’s POV 🙂
And you’re right, it would help with the imbalance vs the island scenes.
And this discussion makes me a little sad: a writer’s work truly is never done, is it? Not even when we’ve published something we can move on without second guessing ourselves. I guess I better get used to always working and never be satisfied, eh? 🙂
And this discussion makes me a little sad: a writer’s work truly is never done, is it? Not even when we’ve published something we can move on without second guessing ourselves. I guess I better get used to always working and never be satisfied, eh?🙂 — So true. I’ve yet to take a pass through any of my work without finding more to tweak. There comes a time when you have to just say “done!” and move on. Even after it’s published, there ends up being more. I wonder if part of the preference for Sam’s POV (that he “is a better observer of things”) might be that my skills have improved over the course of the year and more since I first wrote the scenes from Henry’s POV? If I had a chance to rework the Henry POV to compare to the fresh Sam POV scenes, how would those compare, I wonder? Of course, that still doesn’t account for how it would help with the imbalance of Sam’s chapters vs. Henry’s island chapters.