I’m still working on a way to publish my poly-novel. I’m talking with an editor who has read the entire manuscript. She thinks it’s great to have a poly-pagan-bisexual cross-dressing main character. But she wants to know: How did this character “get this way?” Was he always like this, even as a little boy? Did he ever have doubts about himself? Did he ever struggle with this (His nature? His nurture?).
My original concept was always, this guy is completely comfortable with himself. The struggle he has is with his society. He has lovers, he knows other people like himself, his parents are supportive. The conflict is not with himself, with his “nature”; his conflict is with a society that insists on finding him either “weird” or “evil.” So I talk about the challenges of developing polyrelationships in modern American culture. I talk about how “mainstream America” thinks polys should feel about themselves. But I don’t say anything about how the characters came to be what they are. I intentionally avoided that. After all, I don’t ask my “straight” friends how they “became” heterosexual!
But if I had to say…what would I say? How did I become this way? How did you?
What would you say? What pivotal events brought you to “choose” polyness (or to realize that you are poly)? Have you struggled with this knowledge? Have you always felt this way?
Wishing you all a happy “Valentine’s Day” Season!