The Thetas
Page 27
As the room fills with a thunderous round of applause, I show her Edna Flowers my gratitude for all she’s done for me over these past two months. I give her a hug to show her how much I love her. “Thank you. Thank you for showing me what it really means to be a woman.”
Sisters in Arms
When people think of Sororities, they think of college girls drinking and partying until the wee hours of the morning. They think of lines of young teenage girls forced to do embarrassing and humiliating things to be part of a group. And they think of women who participate in wild sexual encounters with a different jock or frat guy every night. I decided to turn that perception of sororities on its ear with this story.
I had the idea for a story about An African–American Sorority in the back of my head for a couple of months in 2011. The story I was planning then was going to be about a wealthy teenage Black girl forced to do humiliating and embarrassing things to be part of a secret society of Sisters. The book was to be an expose on sorority life among the rich and famous presenting them as drunks, drug addicts, and whores.
And I would have written just that story until God showed me how to write the story from another perspective.
I was about ten chapters into writing The Sorority (then working title) when I woke up around 2AM one night. It was then that God showed me I was going in the wrong direction with the story. He showed me that I needed to write the story from the perspective of the older women teaching a younger woman.
This was the second time that God helped me out on a story. The first was The Cassandra Cookbook(Now titled A Recipe for $ucce$$) where He gave me the ending. My original plan was to just to feature Cassandra and Simon with sealing the deal with sex after her indecent proposal. The ending God gave me was more business oriented and much more positive. He told me to let the parents to sell the recipes while Cassandra sold her name to ITC. It was a much better conclusion that made the story all the more enjoyable to readers.
On God’s revelation, I went back to the definition of sorority which means “Sisterhood” in Greek. When I think of Sisterhood in the Black community I think of older women passing their knowledge onto younger women. Sharing. Teaching. A village of women raising their daughters and granddaughters what they need to be leaders of their families in the future.
Re–thinking the concept of Sorority based on African–American culture and traditions I decided my fictional sorority would be a different kind of secret society. A secret society based on the promotion of a value system and traditions rooted in Black history. A secret society of wealthy Black women dedicated towards preserving and passing on the values and traditions that made women suitable help meets in the eyes of God.
This would be a story about the good Black women, the women who would go out and bear fruit of responsible daughters and strong families. A story of how they’re taught the values and traditions that will help them become the help meets suitable to do the work of God.
I was going to create a brand-new character for this story. I actually was going to go with a whole new universe of characters. I wanted to get away from my older characters and create a new story model.
I was thinking too hard.
Turns out I had the perfect heroine sitting on my shelf for this story. John Haynes’ girlfriend Colleen Anderson was one of those characters who had been sitting on my character shelf since 1989. She was this plucky charismatic feminist with a style all her own. Unfortunately, I could never get her to work in my first book, The Changing Soul. And because of the E’steem/John romance in The Temptation of John Haynes her role was reduced to just a small cameo.
Colleen was one of my favorite female characters. She had a great voice that connected with the reader and she had a lot of charisma. Her being a feminist made this story a perfect fit for her. The conflict between feminists and sorority girls practically wrote itself.
God works in mysterious ways. And that helped me develop the plot twist in this story. Reading the story from Colleen’s perspective makes the reader believe that the sorority women were the enemy.
In actuality, Colleen is her own worst enemy.
The irony is that the sorority women are out to save her. From herself.
Growing up in a single parent home she’s imbibed all the false teachings of feminism. She thinks that she can do things on her own. She thinks that women are the same as men. She has a head full of bad programming from Madison Avenue and Hollywood.
Worse, she’s lived with her Aunt Margaret, a dysfunctional woman who seeks to deflect attentions from her own bad behavior by imposing strict standards on her.
And because of the extreme bullying of her aunt Colleen has an inferiority complex. An inferiority complex that makes it hard for her to relate to people. Especially other women.
At nineteen years of age, she’s lost and confused about who she is. She’s trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. She’s is in desperate need of an intervention. An intervention to show her how she’s making mistakes that will destroy her future. How she’s heading down a road that will eventually lead to her physical, mental and spiritual self-destruction.
An intervention for a feminist by a sorority seems crazy. But sometimes it’s those crazy detours in life that show people the truth about themselves. It’s in these places people see things from a different perspective. Where they take a long hard look at themselves and make changes to their lives for the better.
And I felt Colleen needed to pledge the Thetas. Having been isolated for so long, she needed to reconnect with the village of good Black women. She needed to learn the values and traditions of her mother and grandmother and become a suitable help meet who would be able to do God’s work. It was a detour in life that would change the character for the better.
Putting Colleen around the Theta women allows her to see her life from that different perspective. As she pledges the Theta Sisterhood and learns about her mother’s legacy, she takes time to examine herself, her behavior and approaches to life. When she realizes that she’s turning into her Aunt Margaret, she resolves to make changes in her life for the better.
With the help of The Thetas, Colleen breaks free of the feminist programming she learned as a child and learns what it means to be a woman of God like her late mother. And as she builds relationships with the Theta Sisters like Marcia, Abby and Grand Mother Flowers she learns that not all women judge her as harshly as her aunt. And as she overcomes each Theta challenge she builds self-confidence and learns how to be comfortable with herself. When she finally becomes secure in who she is she finds the strength of character to stand up on her own two feet as a woman of integrity during the secret Theta ritual. Having learned these hard lessons, she’s ready to teach another girl how to become a woman.
With my premise in place and a new direction for my story, I began writing The Thetas. I had to change my creative style for this one; a hectic schedule managing my catalog of other titles and promoting them kept me so busy I didn’t have time to write in a straight line like I usually do from first chapter to last.
So I had to adopt an off-on schedule of nights and weekends to put this story together. Wrote to the midpoint then stopped. Did some research by reading Alexandra Robbins’ Pledged then stopped. I got to the conclusion of the first draft around April of 2012. It was a lot of work, but I finally made it to the finish line with this one. Working on such an erratic schedule made writing The Thetas one of the more challenging novels to put together.
I’m hoping you liked this story and I’m hoping it gives you some perspective on sororities, Black women, and the role of women in society.
Colleen Revisited
Before Isis.
Before E’steem.
Before Cassandra Lee.
Before Marilyn Marie and Nikki Desmond.
There was Colleen Anderson.
Colleen was the first female character I created back in 1989, a full year before I created John Haynes. She was John Haynes�
�� girlfriend for most of my failed early John stories and his love interest in The Changing Soul, the first serious novel I ever wrote back in 1995.
A girl next door with a sharp wit and a charismatic personality, Colleen lived life on her own terms and did things her own distinct way. In my original premise, Colleen Anderson was the eccentric daughter of an investment banker who owned seven of the same outfit, white rumpled blouses, black ankle length skirts and black tights. She paired this attire with black combat boots, black makeup, gold wire glasses and a man’s digital watch.
I had big plans for Colleen. Even though I had to shelve The Changing Soul, I wanted to give her an expanded role in The Temptation of John Haynes. Unfortunately, when I put fingers to the keyboard I went in a different direction.
What made me change direction on Colleen? In 2005, I was doing some research on MTV’s Daria. I always wanted to see Daria, but couldn’t afford cable. But after finally getting a chance to watch some Daria episodes and looking at her model sheet, I realized for all intents and purposes John Haynes was just dating a grown up Black Daria Morgendorffer.
I didn’t want people making Daria comparisons to Colleen, so I wound up restructuring The Temptation of John Haynes. And in that restructuring, poor Colleen got sent to Chicago early on in the story. I figured if the book didn’t work, I had a back door to bring Colleen in so she and John could resume their romance in another story.
But The Temptation of John Haynes was a success. A big one.
So E’steem wound up with the push and Colleen wound up sitting on my shelf. Waiting for her comeback story. Meanwhile, parts of her lived on in almost all of my other female characters.
Isis’ spunky smart aleck personality was heavily influenced by Colleen’s charisma.
Cassandra Lee’s quirky eccentricities were heavily influenced by Colleen’s. I’d have to say Cassandra’s sunny personality is the antithesis to Colleen’s dark demeanor.
Marilyn Marie has Colleen’s strength and courage. Her wearing all black later in the story is actually inspired by Colleen’s eccentric fashion sense.
E’steem has Colleen’s intelligence. Her boldness, aggression were based on Colleen’s contemporary feminism.
Nikki Desmond in a lot of ways is just a teenage Colleen Anderson repackaged. She has the same uneasy relationship with her father that Colleen had. And underneath her tough exterior and surly attitude is the same soft vulnerable type of woman Colleen is.
All those characters got great stories and went on to become reader favorites. While poor Colleen wound up being relegated to a bit part in The Temptation of John Haynes. I felt it was a screw job for the first serious female character I ever created. Something I vowed to rectify in my next novel.
Revisiting the Colleen character over 20 years later, I still saw potential in her. I always felt she had a great voice and a great personality. Having used components of her for other lead female characters over the years I realized I was selling her short by putting her in a supporting role next to John Haynes. It was time to see if she could carry her own book as a lead character.
Looking at the Colleen character again, I felt she deserved an opportunity to show she could be just as complex and multi–dimensional as Isis, E’steem, Cassandra Lee, Marilyn Marie, and Nikki Desmond. To tell her own story in her own words. To get the spotlight all to herself. I just needed the right vehicle to put her in.
I had been planning a book about an African–American sorority for about a year in my head since 2011. I wanted to create a new character for the story, but as I was outlining it, I took another look at Colleen. She seemed perfect for the piece. Being a rich girl, I thought she’d fit right into the crazy world of sorority life. So I began developing the story with the plot revolving around her.
As I revamped the Colleen character, I decided to go in a new direction with her, one where she wouldn’t be a Black Daria. This new Colleen would be nineteen going on twenty, a sophomore at NYU. A daddy’s girl. An awkward young woman just finding out who she is and looking for her adult identity. Raised by her single father, she’s studying feminism and Women’s history, trying to find out what it means to be a woman.
Then she gets the offer to join The Thetas, the sorority her late mother was a part of. And since feminists and sorority girls go together like oil and water, it was the perfect premise to explore the character and work towards actualizing her potential in a lead role. I couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard.
Until I realized I published The Temptation of John Haynes a year earlier.
It was already established in that novel Colleen Anderson is a 30–year–old woman who was John’s ex–girlfriend. While I didn’t believe in a tight continuity, I had to respect the previous story I had written featuring Colleen.
So I went back to the drawing board with the revamped my new and improved Colleen. To make her story fit into continuity, I decided to make the story about her pledging the Thetas a flashback tale. A story of who she was before she met John Haynes. A story of her coming of age.
Keeping the continuity loose, I felt that it’d be something that could be told as a part of the larger part of the John Haynes saga or just work as a stand alone Colleen story.
I had a lot of fun revisiting Colleen. Going in this new direction with her allowed me to get a fresh perspective on an older character. After writing The Thetas, I still see a lot of potential in Colleen. I may revisit her again in another story in the future. This new college–aged version of the character has so many possibilities and works well as a standalone character who can carry her own stories.
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About The Author
Shawn James is the author of four paperbacks three screenplays and over twenty eBooks A graduate of Monroe College he’s been writing for over fifteen years.
Other eBooks by Shawn James
Isis
Isis: The Ultimate Fight
Isis: Trial of the Goddess
Isis: The Beauty Myth
Isis: Death of a Theta
Isis: My Sister, My Frenemy
E’steem: No Good Deed
E’steem: Demons Anonymous
Baptism of Blood- The Origin of E’steem
The Politics of Hell
The Saga of MastiKatious
The Temptation of John Haynes
A Recipe For $ucce$$
All About Marilyn
All About Nikki- Three Episodes from the Fabulous first Season
All About Nikki- Four More Episodes from the Fabulous First Season
All About Nikki- The Fabulous First Season
All About Nikki- Sesnsational Season 2 Sneak Preview
All About Nikki-The Sensational Second Season Volume 1
The Sneakers
Spray em’ Up
Non-Fiction by Shawn James:
Stop Simpin- Why Men Don’t Need Finance to Get Romance
Manginas- They Look Like Men, But Act Like Ladies
The Misadventures of Captain-Save-A-Hoe
Also published by SJS DIRECT
Commencement
School of Hard Knocks: The Re-education of Jim Reid
Connect With Shawn Online:
e-mail sjsdirectny@aol.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/shawnsjames
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shawnsjames
LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/shawnsjames9973
And check out Shawn’s blog: www.shawnsjames.blogspot.com New blogs every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday!