My Voice is an Asshole

Today's shamelessly announced trend in what agents are looking for from a voice: calling all Mary Sues especially of 'color'.  Sigh. I'm a colorless woman whose latest MC is a shameless loner asshole with a foul mouth.  He's getting me into some shit. He doesn't grow on you in five pages. Even for me, there was a detachment. I didn't want him to be likable.  I don't want to spoil anything but I like to start with a 'first impression' kind of approach.  My MCs will never beg you to like them.  While I've done so in the past, I don't regale you with how much you should like them by virtue of beauty or morality or bad-assery. Hell, sometimes it's very clear they don't want anyone getting close, to the point of flattening out, blending in or wanting to be invisible.

I'm going to admit it right out of the gate; it's not just my voice that is an asshole.  It's me. My MCs tend to inherit that from me. People who have known me for a long time will tell you I'm sweet. Their most negative word for me might be bossy. I won't deny this. I do tend to have a set way of doing things and I can steamroll people.  I don't even realize I'm doing it. Okay, I lose asshole points for this but if you say something, I'll apologize because in retrospect, I often see what I missed on impulse. Anyways, I don't give a great first impression mostly. I won't help you like me. I won't carry the conversation most of the time. Sometimes I struggle to look at you even once you get me talking. My characters are not the people I want to be, they often reflect my own flaws and lapse into flaws even when they evolve. They are often not shiny first impression people.  Those kind of people are often people I distrust like a dog showing you their teeth. 

That's not to say I don't aim for purer souls.  A YA piece I'm doing has a relatively younger cast of MCs so they're a bit more naive, still in that mentally rebellious phase where you hear good advice and swear you won't make the same mistakes if you go against it.  Even then, these aren't characters whose biggest trauma is their parents telling them no when they want a new iPhone. I'm inserting this because I'm not attached to the same voice, I just... Have a preference when it comes to character growth. Sue me.

That being said, two of the agents haven't connected with 'the voice.' heh. The poor asshole...  Either way, I've been debating setting up people with ARCs to get some more insight, but I need to do research there too.  I'm leery of people leaking it or believing they have some right to redistribute. Like the handful of hours they so graciously impart on a book they never paid for entitles them to sell an author's work. This is why so many do disclosure agreements. Smh...

Anyways, I've only queried maybe 20 agents, 4 passes. There are more to do and I could go straight to publishers even. If that doesn't work out, I'll self-publish and move on. I'll have more stories to write.  Chances are most won't get the shiny seal of approval from current markets, but I'll try and move along if not.  I'm not going to water down unpopular ideas just to ride trends. I'm doing this to fulfill a dream.

In any case, yay for joining new writers groups.  I've tried to join readers groups, but those have some serious sticks up their asses about promos.  A circle jerk for anyone they deem popular but a real fuck-you to the smaller authors.  There's only so much I can handle ten posts a day that are nothing but 'what should I read?'. Writers groups, well... Sometimes you get the 'what should I write?' that can irk me (and I mean give me my plot, not I'm thinking of doing this and this, what is your suggestion-- the latter is good discourse, the former is 'no, I'm not going to write your story.') but for the most part you'll get people sharing their inspiration and maps and excerpts, ask questions that you can't just Google or wonder if an idea makes sense. My latest group has been good discourse, I'll say that much. I hope that holds up.  I've liked a lot of the authors pages and hope to keep up with them when possible.

Okay, straying but I'm aching to get past the vagaries.  I want to know what about the 'voice' isn't jiving. Then again, these aren't agents that asked for more than 5-10 pages.  Ouch. There may be more promise in the ones that wanted the first 50. There's a lot in my novels and the beginning is not the entire mood of the novel. Not even a little. In any case, if you're a fan of my blog and want to sign a non-disclosure for a digital ARC to offer a critique, let me know. I'd be interested in hearing some valuable criticism. 

Got a cold creeping in, so I'll try not to blog whatever nonsense cough syrup possesses me to write. If there's anything you want me to blog about, personal or professional, let me know!  I'm mostly just going on a tangent.  I plan the shit out of my stories, but my blogs have been open season on ranting.  Lol

Anyways, keep writing. And reading!