Hero or Heroine Centered Stories

Reading about someone else's rejection (misery does love company) made me think about my stories. She'd posted about feedback via her agent (I knew they were good for some things) that her story had been passed on by MIRA because it was too hero-centric.

Harlequin's Blaze is one of the few lines that allow a major part of the story to be told from the hero's POV (point of view). Their liberal allowance of hero page space was a factor in me choosing to target that particular line. Even the excerpt I posted here is from the hero's perspective. Now I'm wondering if that was one of the reasons for my rejection. I may have exceeding the acceptable amount of hero time. Not knowing makes me uneasy. I reach out - straining to understand the flaws I'm blind to.

The hardest thing about learning anything is you don't know what you're missing. I know I followed the submission guideline. I know I've read the line. I know there were no obvious spelling or grammar errors. I know the manuscript was properly formatted. Too sexy, maybe but seems like an easy fix if they liked the rest of the story. Too similar to something they just bought, possible. If so I'd expect a no thanks - but we liked your voice - or a well written comment.

There's the nub of the matter - they didn't like it. At least one person didn't like it- didn't believe it was marketable for them. I can accept that. There are plenty of authors I don't care for and they come in all shades of competence and success. The reader-writer connection is totally subjective.