Point of View (POV) is an interesting thing. In the past, I've been dinged for staying strictly in the characters' POV because (for example) the heroine believed something that clearly was wrong. She never discusses it with another person over the course of the story who could point out she was incorrect, and some people took it as gospel rather than as how one character viewed the situation.
Usually, though, I (the author) have a higher level perspective on the situation and know when the character's POV is skewed. Until the Paladin League series.
It seems that Finn Rowland, the hero in Wicked Intention, is frightening. Something I was clueless about.
He made his first appearance in Wicked Obsession as the best friend of that story's hero. Ryder's heroine was not scared of Finn. The heroine in his book, Zo, didn't have even one second of concern about him. In fact, she went toe-to-toe with him when she thought he was a mercenary.
Now Finn did have a thought in the story about how he scared people bigger and stronger than his heroine was, but I didn't give it serious thought.
And then I started working on Griff's story. His heroine was frightened of Finn. And I've also been giving thought to the epilogue that I'll write at the end of the third book and learned that heroine was scared of Finn, too. What?
This got me wondering what the difference was with Langley and Zo versus the heroines in the next two stories. Zo was easy. She's Finn's heroine and she's going to see him differently than anyone else. Langley, though, confused me. I think I got it. When she met Finn, she knew he was Special Forces, so although his hair was long and he had a beard, she wasn't concerned about him.
The other two heroines meet him while he's undercover as a mercenary and gunrunner. They believe him to be these things. And so with his size and appearance, he does frighten them.
Like I said, POV is interesting. I only had Langley and Zo's POVs until recently and so I only saw Finn through their eyes. I hope I can write a scene where Zo learns the other two women were frightened of him and she's shocked. Because she was totally shocked when I ran a version of the epilogue in my head. That might not be the version I write, but I'd like to get this across somehow.
