Where You Belong
2000

BARBARA TELLS US ABOUT WRITING HER BESTSELLING NOVEL

I had written 250 pages of my latest novel Where You Belong when I suddenly stopped one day. Since I write a good portion of my books in longhand before typing them up, I literally put down my pen and sat back, staring at the last page I'd written.

I wondered why I'd stopped so abruptly, why I felt unexpectedly so uncomfortable with the storytelling, and then it hit me between the eyes. I suddenly knew I should be telling the story in the first person.

The protagonist in the book is called Valentine Denning, and it was her voice that was coming through to me so strongly -- consistently and insistently. Very simply, Val wanted to tell her own story in her own voice; she did not want me to do it, to be the omnipotent storyteller, recounting the tale in the third person.

If this sounds odd, it's important for you to know that a novelist must believe that characters actually exist in real life, are living people, with thoughts, feelings, and total lives of their own. Otherwise, they simply won't come alive on the page for the reader. If I don't believe they are real, then you won't either, and you won't want to read about them.

Valentine Denning was my own creation, my creature if you like, cut from wholecloth, molded by me into what she is at thirty-one-years old. And she had become a person, was no longer a character, and I thought of her as a friend. This was especially so after writing 250 pages of the book, which deals with her life at a certain juncture.

And so I sat there that day, staring at the last page I'd just written, worrying about the nagging voice in my head and wondering what to do... about that voice, Val, the narrative and the various plotlines in the story. To tell the story in the first person meant going back to page one, and literally beginning the book again, a thought that obviously dismayed me. I had a tight deadline, and I couldn't afford to fritter away time, especially since I take pride in the fact that I have never missed a deadline in my entire life as a journalist and novelist. That was just half my dilemma. The other half concerned the telling of the story.

Writing a novel in the first person is terribly difficult, probably the hardest way to write fiction: I know because I've written two other novels using this technique. The first was Everything to Gain, the second Dangerous To Know, but in the latter I had four narrators telling the story and in a sense that was easier because I could get into four characters' heads.

There is one very good reason why writing a book in the first person is so problematical. And it is this: The novelist has nowhere to go. By this I mean the novelist cannot move away from the actual narrator in order to get into the heads, hearts, minds, and souls of the other characters. That is impossible, because the narrator cannot do it and the narrator has control of the storytelling.

For example, in Where You Belong, it's not possible to go with Jake, Val's great friend, to New York and understand what he's doing, thinking, feeling and experiencing unless Val is with him in order to tell you what he's actually doing, and what she believes he is feeling and thinking. And it is the same with every other character, whether major or minor. Everyone has to be explained to us by the narrator, in this instance Val Denning. Yet how persistent her voice was in my head. Part of me knew I must start again by going back to chapter one; the other part was reluctant to do so. I was naturally worried I wouldn't pull it off, and that I would be wasting precious time. And after a day staring at that last page I'd written I was no closer to a decision.

Then the next morning, when I sat down at my desk in my office in our New York apartment, I knew exactly what I was going to do. Everything had become very clear to me after a good night's sleep. I was going to put one chapter into a first person narration, to see how Val's voice came across and whether it worked. In other words, how it actually read.

To my astonishment, I discovered that the first chapter was quite easy to do. She became I, they became us, and by noon that morning I had edited the entire first chapter. The only part which was proving difficult was the description of Val, which I had written when I had started the novel some months before.

It is hard for anyone to describe themselves on paper without sounding self-conscious and vain, and so those pages about Val's looks, her clothes and her distinctive personal style had to be scrapped entirely. I then described her in a completely different way, using the device of having her recall what her brother once said to her about her appearance. She remembers Donald's words when she is telling the reader about her choice of career. It turned out to be a good device because it worked, since we are seeing Val through her brother's eyes, as she thinks of his earlier comments.

Buoyed up by the success of my reworking of chapter one, I plunged into chapter two, and then chapter three. I thought they read well, and so I felt certain I had done the right thing. The beginning of the novel had suddenly become even more dramatic than it was originally, and also more intimate because of Val's voice.

You, the reader, are there with her through the dramas, tragedies, sorrows, joys and triumphs of her life every day. In essence, you experience what she does...the danger and excitement of being a war photojournalist; the fear when she is trapped in a military ambush and is wounded; the pain when she loses her lover; the sense of fulfillment and happiness when a friendship develops into a new and powerful love.

Val takes you with her when she goes to make peace with an estranged sibling, when she uncovers the mystery of her unhappy childhood, and confronts her mother and her painful past. You are by her side when she finally accepts where she belongs in life and with whom. Her journey is fascinating, and I found it touching and moving to write in Val's voice.

I hope you feel the same as you live that journey with her.

Information from DOUBLEDAY, the Publisher

By celebrating independent and passionate women-women of substance-in her fifteen bestselling novels, Barbara Taylor Bradford has created strong heroines that inspire and entertain millions of readers. Her books have been published in more than 89 countries and 39 languages, and have reached the top of the bestselller lists in such publications as The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times of London. Continuing the tradition with her latest, Where You Belong, Bradford introduces Val Denning, a smart and capable woman who must realize her inner strength and find her way in the world after enduring terrible loss and betrayal.

Denning is a New York born and bred photojournalist. She and her two colleagues, Tony and Jake, are on the front lines in Kosovo when they are offered a rare opportunity to shoot photos of the rebel leaders. The three photographers are close friends who work and travel together; Val and Tony are lovers and passionately attached. But in a nightmarish ambush all three are shot, and Tony is killed. Not only must Val deal with the sudden loss of a lover, but also the devastation of modern warfare responsible for that loss. Secrets revealed in the aftermath of the trauma will force Val to reevaluate her future.

Following Tony's funeral, Val accepts a heartfelt invitation to spend some time recuperating at a friend's villa in Cap-Ferrat. "Called Les Roches Fleuries, the villa was aptly named, since so many flowers spilled down over the rocks upon which the house had been built. It was long and rambling, made of a local stone washed pale pink, with a typical Provençal roof of red-slate tiles and green-painted shutters at the many windows." It is in this idyllic spot that Val begins to recover, but when she meets the daughter of the couple who care for the villa, she can't help but be drawn into the young woman's troubles and dangerous marriage. Eventually Val must take action to help her, and in doing so puts herself in danger as well.

Val must confront another painful relationship upon leaving France, when she returns to her childhood home of New York to begin work on a new project. Her mother-an icy, self-absorbed woman who all but abandoned her in her youth-insists upon a sudden meeting, during which she makes a stunning proposal. Event though she has become a successful adult, Val is frozen with panic. Bradford's women meet their fears with courage and humor, however, and with support from a new love, and a surprising new bond with her brother, Val finds a way to control her own life.

From a Belgrade hospital to a heavenly French retreat to a lavish New York apartment, Bradford offers many thrilling sites and alluring scenes in Where You Belong. The signature compassion, powerful emotional narrative, and page-turning excitement that have made Bradford so popular are at their strongest here, in this fiery love story about a woman who finally discovers a man she can trust and a place where she belongs.