Point of View, or, What Got Cut

My fourth novel, A Masked Earl, took longer in the editing stages than I had expected, as my editor insisted on limiting viewpoint characters to two. Apparently it’s a rule with my publisher. It never occurred to me it would be a problem. 

 Many long novels have more than two main characters (George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, for example). Some shorter novels bring in a minor character’s point of view for a specific purpose. Mainstream fiction and mystery/suspense novels sometimes use multiple viewpoints to good effect, as Louise Penny (the Inspector Gamache series) and C.S. Harris (the Sebastian St. Cyr series) have done. Even a brief "extra" point of view can introduce information unavailable to the main characters. 

Photo by _M_V_ on Unsplash

After searching on the Internet, I found that the advice was to use only one or two points of view when writing a romance novel: either the female protagonist only or preferably both the female and male protagonist.  This recommendation has occasionally been breached, and rightly so, in my opinion.  

Jo Beverley did it on occasion. So does Lucinda Brant. While I haven't gone through the equivalent of several legal document boxes of books by my favorite romance writers, I'm pretty sure a number of them have used more than two viewpoints, including Mary Balogh and Georgette Heyer. Usually the additional viewpoints are brought in for the same reason they are employed in mysteries.
  However, in my opinion, the best example of a third POV in a romance novel occurs in Heyer's novel, The Black Moth, the first of the modern Regency or Georgian romance genre. There are several viewpoint characters, two of them quite minor although they provide needed background. The main POV characters are the hero, heroine, and the villain, Tracy Belmanoir, Duke of Andover, without whose viewpoint the book would be disappointing. I can recall his name easily. I can't remember the full names of the others without thinking about it.   

Anyway, I had to chop several scenes from A Masked Earl. When I thought about it, I realized that the action could be shown from the viewpoint of one of the main characters. I was able to use the last part of the following section in the final version (from the male protagonist’s POV).  

At the sound of [the] thunderous demand, Phoebe Stanwood shied and drew in a sharp breath. Before Solomon could speak a word to calm her, she pulled away and ran into the trees. After a stunned moment, he followed. Her fright at hearing a loud, angry voice did not surprise him.

She was a timid girl, not in the least like the bold ladies of fashion to whom he occasionally lent sums to cover losses at cards or the admirable Mistress Easterday, met once shortly after her marriage, when he encountered the Easterdays coming out of a bank as he entered. To his surprise, Easterday had not hesitated to introduce him.

Did she simply panic, or did she seize the opportunity to decoy him into the wood in order to compromise him? The question was moot, as the end result would be the same. He must follow her, as for all the management’s attempts to make the Gardens suitable for family outings, an unprotected woman was not safe. He moved as quickly as he could, arms up to fend off unseen branches. Dark as bedamned under the trees, with no lamps and moonlight only where the branches thinned. Like a game of blindman’s buff. She could not move faster, especially given her wide skirts and shorter stride, and he could hear her ahead. Once or twice he caught a flash of something lighter than the shadows. Fortunate she had worn a white domino. No, forethought, not luck. She must have done so to make it easier to find her.

When he located her, he would appear to have compromised her—silk ripped as a branch caught at his domino—as there would be no way to explain their dishevelment, however innocent. It placed him in the situation Axton had intended, though not with Barlyon. Too bad Hawkins had not felt inclined to court her, though it was understandable. He would have little patience with artless chatter.

The sounds slowed and he heard a mew of distress. “Oh, I am lost!”

Silly chit. They had not penetrated far into the wood, and any direction they went would eventually bring them out on a walk. Ah! A break in the trees with something that reflected the moon in a thousand little facets. He stumbled into the ring of light where a motionless pale figure stood, whimpering.

“Mistress Phoebe?”

“Oh, please take me out of this dreadful place! I am lost, and I’ve hurt my ankle, and I fear my gown is torn, and what shall I do? Oh, oh, oh!”

She had seen too many plays. There was no help for it but to approach her.

“I’m here. We are not far from the walk. I hope your ankle is not sprained, for it would be very difficult to carry you, as thickly as the trees grow.”

The pillar of gleaming white took two or three hesitant steps toward him, then threw herself into his arms. “Thank goodness you found me,” she breathed, her face buried against his chest. “I think it is only turned and will be better if I can rest it for a few minutes.”

Was it worse to hurry her back to the Dark Walk? Or to stay and await a witness to find him with Phoebe clinging to him? The latter, almost certainly. On the Dark Walk, even looking as they did, they would be back in the presence of their party with too little time elapsed to matter. Probably. Yet if they did, Phoebe would be free to continue her attempts to force Barlyon into marriage, though tonight’s visit to Vauxhall would certainly be over, and he’d had good success avoiding her at home.

“We should try to get back to the others. They will be worrying.” He tried to disentangle her.

“No, please!” she cried. “Not yet!”

****

“Please hold me. I fear I may faint at any moment.” She flung her arms around his neck and clung. She might have hoped he would put his arms around her, which would have been a natural reaction. If so, she was disappointed. He kept them to his sides.

In some circumstances, a lady collapsing against one would be a pleasure. This was not one of them. Worse, he heard someone crashing through the shrubbery.

A figure burst into the glade. “Feeb! Who’s this villain who has led you astray?”

She dropped her arms and turned with a soft cry. “Bart?”

“Stand away from my sister, you swine.” The young man stalked forward, the drama somewhat lessened by the fact that he was several inches shorter than Sol, slender, and probably not old enough to have left university.

Sol obliged.

“Bart, you should not use such language to the Earl of Barlyon.”

“By God, I’d say the same to the king himself if I found him trying to seduce you!”

Bart was also a devotee of thrilling drama.

“I beg your pardon—”

“I knew it was wrong to go apart with the earl, but he has such charming ways, I could not resist.”

“In fact, Mr. Stanwood, for I suppose you are Mistress Phoebe’s brother, your sister ran into the covert when she was startled by some ill-bred fellow’s loud challenge to another. I followed her to protect her from any danger lurking here. And in any case—”

“So you say! You have compromised my sister, and you’ll marry her or meet me. Or my older brother,” he added after a heartbeat.

Pure farce. He wouldn’t have missed this for all the treasures of Cathay. “I fear you are suffering from a misapprehension. I am not the Earl of Barlyon.”

The boy laughed derisively. “Prove it.”

“Do you know Barlyon by sight?” he inquired, tugging the ends of the ribbons securing the mask.

“Everyone in society does! You are the latest marvel.”

The ties having come free, Sol dangled the mask from one hand. The moon was well over the tree tops, permitting young Stanwood a view of his face. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Solomon de Toledo, at your service.”

Phoebe and her brother gasped, almost in unison.

She recovered first. “You’re not Barlyon!”

“No, I’m not.”

“But…”

Bart said slowly, “De Toledo? I don’t recall the name, but if you’re a friend of Barlyon’s, you must be an eligible match for Feeb, titled or not.”

“Alas, I have neither title nor riches.” He heard energetic rustling and a muffled curse among the trees. Barlyon or Hawkins to the rescue, he trusted. Though it sounded like a great deal of noise for only one man. Still, they would not have left the ladies alone.

“What?” the puppy yelped. “Compromise my little sister without being able to make amends for it?”

“I can support a wife decently though not in great state. She would have to convert, of course. My family would insist upon it.” Another good reason he would be an impossible match.

“Good God, you’re a Papist?”