u/4EverWriting

Hello all!

I've written a novel that is currently in beta reads, with agent queries starting around the end of the summer, and the latter brings up a crucial question: genre classification. I originally conceived of it as a contemporary romance, but there are certain elements that are now part of the story that complicate this question, and my partner and I have been having animated (but friendly) discussions over whether it is still a romance, or if it has crossed into the realm of "literary/upmarket fiction."

Here are the main points of debate:

1. FMC morally grey moments: grew up in evangelical "purity culture," as well as hyper-vigilant moral policing by church, parents, extended family. When she is asked to housesit for a new friend in act 1 (who becomes love interest in act 2), she walks into his bedroom, fantasizes about him for a moment before leaving, feels regretful. Later, acting compulsively out of her fear of losing the freedom she has found alone in his house, she undresses in his room, again feels regret. She discovers how she has been manipulated by "purity culture" after these episodes (near the end of act 1), though she delays telling him about her violations of his space until midway through act 3 (they are romantically together at this point), after crossing a significant threshold of self-actualization.
2. Is the romance itself is the center of the story, or her "coming-of-age/self"?: he is introduced at the beginning of the story, she is interested in him from the beginning (though she denies it throughout act 1, thinking he is just tied up in her fantasy of freedom), they get together halfway through the book, and the rest of the novel focuses primarily on them trying to get their families to accept them. But significant focus (i.e., whole chapters) is given to her building a life for herself, including escaping the moral repression of her old world, getting past the "temp job phase of life" (not to a "dream job," just something solid), establishing a real, non-romantic friendship with a co-worker at her new job, and negotiating a more functional relationship with her parents. Also, during the Act 1 "self-liberation" sequence, he moves mostly "offstage" for about 6-7 chapters while he is at a work conference (for which which she is housesitting), except for a handful of text exchanges; this is done so that the initiation of her self-liberation arc is unmistakably hers, and in no way interpretable as "inspired by" or "thanks to" him. And to answer the most important question, it does have a HEFN ending, with their front-porch wedding with their new "found community" as the setting of the final two chapters, though their hope of reconciliation with family is partial, with his father rejecting them outright, one of her grandmothers "blessing" the wedding but refusing to attend, the other grandmother rejecting them, but not stopping the main character's favorite cousin (her grandson) from attending.
3. Romance tropes, repurposed: this one concerns me the least, since romance authors do it regularly, but still... Examples include her seeing his "warm eyes" when they first meet, which she finds more disconcerting than enticing, because she feels like she cannot "read" them/him; a "secret underwear" scene that is about her desire to feel good about something she knows no one else will ever see, rather than feeling ready to entice her romantic interest; and more generally, her use of classic romance tropes as part of her dissociative tendencies to escape into fantasy to escape reality, especially by continually reminding herself that she is "no one's main character" (i.e., not the love interest in her own story, because she feels unworthy of that kind of love).

Any thoughts you would like to share will be deeply welcomed and appreciated!

Background

I have published academic non-fiction articles and books, but this is the first fiction work I've shared with anyone other than my spouse (upside: after academic peer review, I am thoroughly experienced taking feedback constructively, including negative criticism).

Manuscript has had an alpha read, a sensitivity read, and a first round of beta reads. Doing one more round before starting agent queries.

DM if you might be interested!

Blurb for Freeing the Wind

Vivian is stuck. At a bus stop, but also in life. And everything is falling on her head. Including the rain, but also her failures. Plural. Total. Her temp-job driven “career.” Her inability to find the “pure love” she has heard so much about in her parents' church. And of course, her failure to fulfill the humblest of the lofty dreams her family brought to this country over fifty years ago.

But she does have her own dreams. A dream house, at least. And a chance encounter at that bus stop with its owner--a man named Julian, who is trying to escape his own family’s dreams for him--leads to a new friendship, as they bond over the shared threads in their stories.

But when their friendship blossoms into love, they must choose between their new life together, and the lives their families require of them. And they know what their decision will mean for those who follow their path to the choice between love in exile, and a family’s promise of shelter from life’s storms.

CW: anxiety and depression, including dissociative behaviors; racist macro- and micro-aggressions (verbal only, no physical); sexual content within romantic relationship (2/5 explicitness), mostly related to MC overcoming the shaming of evangelical “purity culture”

FYI: this project was originally going to be a contemporary romance, so several genre-associated elements and tropes are still present, taken in (hopefully) original / different directions; this includes a HEFN ending, based in the “self-repair” trope

Sample chapter available upon request (again, via DM)

Feedback

Any and all is welcome, from broad overview to line-level suggestions, but I am specifically looking for:

1. Dragging: this is an interiority-driven novel, so not concerned with a lack of action, per se, but anything that seem to drag due to a lack of tension and/or clearly-defined stakes
2. Repeated beats: not “I've seen this phrase or topic before,” but “The function of this part has already been addressed or resolved.”
3. Authenticity: anything that doesn't ring true for you, especially if it is based on your own experiences. The manuscript has already had a sensitivity read on MC's Vietnamese heritage, identity, and the family's immigrant experiences, but please don't hesitate to comment on anything you find on these issues.

Turnaround: 4-6 weeks

Exchange: open to one manuscript exchange under or around 100k; my genres include LitFic, WF/Upmarket, Contemporary Romance, and SciFi

Background

I have published academic non-fiction articles and books, but this is the first fiction work I've shared with anyone other than my spouse (upside: after academic peer review, I am thoroughly experienced taking feedback constructively, including negative criticism).

Manuscript has had an alpha read, a sensitivity read, and a first round of beta reads. Doing one more round before bringing it to a professional editor, and then (hopefully) moving to agent queries.

Blurb for Freeing the Wind

Vivian is stuck. At a bus stop, but also in life. And everything is falling on her head. Including the rain, but also her failures. Plural. Total. Her temp-job driven “career.” Her inability to find the “pure love” she has heard so much about in her parents' church. And of course, her failure to fulfill the humblest of the lofty dreams her family brought to this country, over fifty years ago.

But she does have her own dreams. Or at least, a dream house. And a chance encounter at that bus stop with its owner--a man named Julian, who is trying to escape his own family’s dreams for him--leads to a new friendship, as they bond over the shared threads in their stories.

But when their friendship blossoms into love, they must choose between their new life together, and the lives their families require of them. And they know what their decision will mean for those who follow their path to the choice between love in exile, and a family’s promise of shelter from life’s storms.

CW: anxiety and depression, including dissociative behaviors; racist macro- and micro-aggressions (verbal only, no physical); sexual content within romantic relationship (2.5/5 explicitness), mostly related to MC overcoming the shaming of evangelical “purity culture,” including struggles with personal boundaries, and memories of emotionally-coerced sex

FYI: this project was originally going to be a contemporary romance, so several genre-associated elements and tropes are still present, taken in (hopefully) original / different directions; this includes a HEFN ending, based in the “self-repair” trope

Feedback

Any and all is welcome, from broad overview to line-level suggestions, but I am specifically looking for:

1. Dragging: this is an interiority-driven novel, so not concerned with a lack of action, per se, but anything that seem to drag due to a lack of tension and/or clearly-defined stakes
2. Repeated beats: not “I've seen this phrase or topic before,” but “The function of this part has already been addressed or resolved.”
3. Authenticity: anything that doesn't ring true for you, especially if it is based on your own experiences. The manuscript has already had a sensitivity read on MC's Vietnamese heritage, identity, and the family's immigrant experiences, but please don't hesitate to comment on anything you find on these issues.

Turnaround: 3-4 weeks

Exchange: open to one manuscript exchange under or around 100k; my genres include LitFic, WF/Upmarket, Contemporary Romance, and SciFi

DM if you might be interested!

Sample (Chapter 1):

Vivian does not need anyone to tell her how bad this decision is.

Or the bad things it could lead to.

She does not know this person, let alone why they are offering a ride to a stranger. But she does know why so many women walk around with their keys laced between their fingers, anytime they have to walk alone at night. Or during the day. Or at dusk. Or by the dawn’s early light.

“Are you okay?”

She nods again, while standing slowly, and saying nothing. For a split second, she thinks about walking down the street until they drive away. But instead, she takes a step toward the car, as she tries to convince herself that they might be doing what they hope anyone else would do, if they were in her place.

That is certainly the best she can hope for.

It is most certainly not the worst she can fear.

Drawing closer, she sees that the stranger is a man around her age. His wavy chestnut hair is parted on one side, and it is messy in a way that suggests he may not be having his best day, with one lock falling into his eyes, and another tucked behind one ear.

Though she is hardly in a place to judge others for having a bad day.

Today of all days.

“Are you sure?”

She nods again, but when she tries to crease the ends of her mouth into a smile, she finds they are just too heavy.

What she can see of his outfit–a light green dress shirt under a brown sport coat–looks professional, without suggesting that he is one of those people who always needs to be noticed. Reaching the passenger door, she sees that he is wearing a pair of vintage-wash jeans, which both confirms and contradicts her initial reading: definitely not a call for attention, but not exactly professional either.

Like her own outfit. A simple dress blouse and a pair of dark corduroy pants she had found at the local thrift store where the sales clerks had entirely ignored her, sitting under the suede coat she purchased from the upscale store where the sales clerk had rolled her eyes when Vivian walked through the door.

He leans across the seat to open the passenger door. As he looks back up at her, she sees something mysterious in his warm, hazel eyes. It is not an enticing mystery, really. In fact, it is slightly unnerving. Mostly because she cannot read it at all, like she has been able to read every other face that has passed through her world, since the day she put on the first unreadable face of her own.

She hesitates outside the car door for another moment, her hand touching the handle. But as she feels herself being drawn toward that indiscernible something in his eyes, she slowly climbs inside. “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem at all,” he replies in a smooth baritone.

Undoubtedly the voice he saves for women who are impulsive enough to follow a warm pair of unreadable eyes into a strange man’s car.

She immediately feels the familiar impulse to apologize for existing, any time her existence inconveniences anyone in any way. “Normally I would never take a ride from someone I don’t know,” she begins, while looking out the front windshield at the storm she has just escaped. “But when I saw the announcement that the last bus of the night had been cancelled because of an accident downtown, I didn’t know what I was going to do. My phone died just before I arrived at the…”

She stops herself, as her eyes drop to her shoes, realizing she has just told this stranger she has no way to call for help if she were in trouble.

An endlessly brief moment of silence passes.

Maybe two.

“No worries. I’ve gotten stuck in the rain a few times myself, and I know how miserable it can be, trying to get home.”

Maybe it is the best I can hope for.

Still, she keeps her eyes down.

“I’m Julian, by the way.”

“Vivian.”

He nods at the center console. “There’s a charger in there, if you like.”

She pulls it out, desperately hoping it will fit her phone. To her profound relief, it does, as she watches with rapt attention while the spinning wheel on the screen shows 0% … then 1% … just waiting for the moment it could handle a call to 9-1-1 while she does a tuck-and-roll out of a moving vehicle. Possibly while wielding her keys as weapons in her non-dialing hand.

“So where can I take you, Vivian?”

The question takes her completely by surprise, since she had not really planned out this scenario beyond getting herself and her newly-ruined coat out of the rain. “I live pretty far away. But if you could drop me at a convenience store, I can call someone to pick me up.”

“Happy to, of course, but don’t worry about me. I was out late with a work thing, and I don’t have anywhere else to be tonight. Also, I’d hate for you to get stuck somewhere else so late at night.”

She admits to herself that she could end up in a far worse situation at a convenience store if she were being harassed by some random customer, or even the person behind the counter. Which is a decidedly less appealing scenario than riding in this warm car with a man who has warm eyes. Who is at least trying to be helpful.

“If you could take me to Birch Street and Avenue R, I’d be okay to walk from there.”

“That’s no problem at all. In fact, I live on Birch, near Avenue T.”

Vivian slowly pulls down the hood of her coat as the car begins to move. She wonders if he might be saying this to put her at ease, so she probes a bit further. “You mean the beige townhouses?”

“No, it’s a house a couple blocks down from them. I just moved in a few weeks ago.”

A hint of excitement inadvertently breaks through as she asks, “The light-green house? The one with the wooden trellis at the end of the walkway?”

He turns to her for a moment with a bemused but slightly alarmed expression. “That’s right. How’d you know?”

She smiles internally. Now I’ll bet he’s wondering if he is the one who should be worried about the stranger in the car.

Allowing just a bit of that internal smile onto her external lips, she answers, “That’s always been my favorite house in the neighborhood. I remember when the ‘For Sale’ sign went up, and how much I wished I had the money to buy it. It’s always seemed so…” Vivian desperately searches for a sophisticated-sounding word as she pushes a wet tendril behind her ear. But all she can come up with is the one from the yard sign the realtor had put up on the front lawn. “So … cozy.”

Pushing his own hair out of his eyes while showing her a little smile, he replies, “I thought so, too.”

But it is not just her favorite house in the neighborhood. It is her dream house. Vivian has never allowed her dreams to get too big, especially because she has long recognized her lowly place in The Universe. So a cozy little house with an adorable trellis out front is more than enough to fill out her wildest fantasies.

She has always wanted to see the inside, but it sits about fifty feet back from the street, so peeking in while passing on the sidewalk is not an option. She remembers how disappointed she was when she found the online ad for it, only to discover there were no pictures.

Word around the neighborhood was that… You know what? No. I am not going to be a part of the Nosy Neighbors Brigade, not even inside my head. There weren’t any pics, and I don’t know why. Obviously, I would never have the courage to walk into an open house by myself, so the mystery lived on. But maybe it doesn’t have to…

Feeling a sudden surge of boldness, she begins, “Actually, I’ve never…” Her voice trails off, as she immediately begins to lose her nerve.

“Never what?”

“I guess this might sound kind of weird, but … I’ve always wanted to see the inside.”

Pleading with whatever force has been tormenting her all these years, she cries out internally: Please, Universe–let this bizarre human creature with the ruined coat into her dream house! I never had the Barbie one growing up, and I don’t think this is too big of an ask…

He does not look at her, but there is a noticeable break before he replies. As if he is taking a moment to evaluate her, and another for her request. “I’d be happy to give you the tour … I, um … feel free to knock anytime you see my car in the driveway.”

Although she is thrilled by this offer, it occurs to her that walking into a stranger’s house in broad daylight would undoubtedly be reported back to her parents by a member of the Nosy Neighbors Brigade. Especially the ones from their church.

The alternative would, however, be ideal for her apparent aim of taking gold in the Women Who Make Bad Decisions Decathlon by asking a strange man if she can enter his home. Alone, at night. When no one would even know she is there.

But the compulsion to escape the bitter cold of reality within the warmth of her ultimate fantasy is too strong to resist. “Could I maybe see it … tonight?” Her existence apology mode immediately springs back to life. “If it’s not too late, of course, and if it’s not too much trouble, and if…”

“Sure,” he breaks in, while showing her the same bemused but slightly less alarmed smile. “And it’s no trouble,” he adds as his features relax a bit. “I’m a bit of a night owl, at least when I don’t have work the next morning.”

Vivian tries to conceal her growing excitement as the passing streets and buildings start to look more familiar. When the green house finally comes into view, her limited version of a full smile breaks through, slightly stretching her cheeks.

At long last, her dream house is standing before her.

Just waiting for her to come inside.