Because each time Helen pushed her best friend away to save her people, each time she made the choice to fight against her fate, I realized that she was rejecting not just the demands of the gods, but also Menelaus himself. The man who began as Helen's best friend, as the prime contender for Hero of the Story slowly started to change and shift beneath my fingers with every word written. This is part of why I say that more than anything, these books are A story of Helen, not necessarily meant to be The Definitive story of Helen - because the small changes I made to the myths in my retelling created ripples, and I think a great many of those ripples washed over Menelaus.
I think he genuinely tried to be the love of Helen's life, and I don't think it's entirely his fault that he falls short. Exchanges that showed my own desire to see Menelaus as a hero - because in spite of everything that happens in Helen of Sparta and By Helen's Hand ( which I can't promise not to spoiler as I write this post, BEWARE!), I don't think Menelaus himself ever wants to be anything else. It was just part of the process of winnowing the book down to its core and finding its focus - part of making Helen of Sparta a book about Helen and Theseus, rather than a book which addressed the entirety of Helen's story.įor Menelaus, particularly, this meant losing part of his character arc and some smaller moments illustrating his relationship with Helen before he goes off to war at his brother's side to reclaim Mycenae. For both of them, the cuts that left them behind took place long before the book even reached my agent, never mind my publisher. I really wish I'd been able to give a little bit more space to both of them, on the page, but for pacing and other reasons, I just couldn't quite make it work.
There are two characters in my Helen of Sparta books who kind of got short shrift after all the trimming and cutting and editing was done: Menelaus and Clytemnestra.
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