I started writing the story that was to become The Thetas
way back in 2011. Originally it was to be called, The Sorority, but I felt that
was too generic, I then called it The Sisterhood, but I hated that title, I
settled on the Thetas. I felt it sounded more like a sorority.
Colleen Anderson is actually one of my oldest characters. I
created her way back in 1989 as the girlfriend of a superhero character I
created called Blackwolf. I later used her in the early 1990’s in my early
failed John Haynes stories.
The Thetas is the first book to feature a single character
first-person perspective. Normally when I do first person perspective stories I
use multiple characters so readers can have contrasting viewpoints. I feel
these contrasting viewpoints allow the reader to be an observer of the action
and come to their own conclusions about the characters and what’s going on.
But because pledging a sorority is so personal, I felt a
single character perspective would give a reader an understanding of Colleen’s
fears, insecurities and feelings of inadequacy regarding the experience.
The Thetas is set approximately about seven or eight years
before Colleen met John Haynes in my unpublished book The Changing Soul.
And The Thetas is set 11 years before the events of The Temptation of John Haynes. And for
you continuity hounds, The Thetas takes place 40 years after Isis: Death of a
Theta and 125 years before the first Isis.
The Thetas was written to work as part of the continuity of
stories between the Isis series and The Temptation of John Haynes. Following
the story model of Marvel Comics I designed the novel to be an entry point with
its own beginning middle and end. Readers have the option of reading it as a
stand-alone novel or going on to read other books in the Isis series or reading
the book the adult Colleen is featured in, The Temptation of John Haynes.
Colleen was originally supposed to get an expanded role in
The Temptation of John Haynes. Unfortunately E’steem’s tale of redemption was
just too compelling and Colleen got given a smaller role in the story. And when
The Temptation of John Haynes took off and E’steem got a following in 2011, she
got the push and Colleen got sent to the back burner.
Colleen wasn’t originally going to be the main character in
The Thetas. I originally planned to introduce a brand new female protagonist
but got lazy.
Visually Colleen’s original design in my original sketches
eerily looks like a Black Daria Morgendorffer in dress clothes. And her
character personality mirrored Daria’s. I found this odd since I created the
character way back in 1989 when MTV was actually broadcasting music videos and
The Bronx didn’t have cable.
Because Colleen looked and talked like Daria, I wound up
making major changes in her for The Thetas. That’s why Marcy and Abby take her
glasses in the Rolls Royce. It was a sly way of implementing my Colleen
redesign. Not to mention a fun way to symbolize how the glasses were the mask
Colleen used to hide behind.
Throughout the story we see Colleen shopping for different
pieces of clothing. It’s actually the original outfit she wore when I first created
her. She also wears that blouse, skirt
and boots actually make an appearance in one of the middle chapters of The
Temptation of John Haynes when she’s leaving him.
Whenever I write Colleen, she sounds like actress Robin
Givens in my head. It’s kind of a quirk I have. To me, Robin Givens has the
perfect voice for a Black female sophisticate.
Colleen’s Aunt Margaret was inspired by Hyacinth Bucket, the
character British actress Patricia Routledge played in the UK sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. And like Hyacinth, Margaret puts up a prim
& proper façade to hide her dysfunction behind.
Colleen’s Aunt Margaret was a character who sat on my shelf
for over 20 years. I never wrote a single story with her until The Thetas. Because
Colleen sat on my shelf I never had to dig that deep into her backstory.
Colleen’s father Jack Anderson was inspired by actor Harry
Belafonte. I thought he’d make for a great model for a distinguished father.
Dean Mother Linda Carver is inspired by actress Angela
Bassett. Angela Bassett has a regal presence that I felt fit the formal
demeanor of the most distinguished dean mother.
Dean Mother Carver’s name Linda Carver is a reference to
Lynda Carter, the actress who played Wonder Woman in the 1970’s.
Dean Mother Dr. Reed is inspired by Vanessa Williams.
Whenever I watch a Vanessa Williams performance I saw a lot of humanity and
grace. And with Dr Reed being the most compassionate of the women I felt her
voice best fit the character.
Grand Mother Edna Flowers is inspired by professor Janet
Flowers the woman who taught me introduction to Business and Organizational
Behavior at Monroe College. I learned a
lot in her classes and really enjoyed the way she taught business.
Marcia Duvailer and Abigail Montgomery are inspired by
actresses Tia and Tamera Mowry. The Mowry sisters and their passion for
Christianity gave me the idea for Colleen’s sorority Big Sister. I was a big
fan of Sister, Sister back in the day and I always wanted to base characters on
the twins.
Marcia Beaumont made her first Appearance in The Temptation
of John Haynes. She’s a wealthy woman who made her fortune in Black hair care.
She’s a running gag character inspired by actress Jackee Harry.
The address Colleen lives at
3430 Park Avenue is a nod to the
apartment building I lived in growing up as a child 3430 Park avenue in the
South Bronx. I couldn’t fit in #3C to
reference the apartment I lived in this time.
The Thetas formal dress and formal demeanor is a nod to the
graceful Black Ladies of the 1950s and 1960’s such as Coretta Scott King, Betty
Shabazz and Dihann Carroll.
The Statue of the goddess on the lawn of the Theta House is
Isis.
Andrea Robinson is actually the former secret identity of Isis from
the Isis series.
I used the Thetas as a gateway to bring the Isis character
into the modern age.
Rumsfeld and Rosa are an in joke referencing the fictional
sitcom All About Nikki featured in All
About Nikki-The Fabulous First Season.
In stories set in the
Isis and John Haynes series, All About Nikki is a fictional TV series to those
characters. And In All About Nikki stories All of my other books like The
Thetas, Isis, and The Temptation of John Haynes are fictional stories to Nikki.
All About Marilyn’s story model has a heavy influence on The
Thetas. The All About Marilyn story model was one of the most successful ones
I’ve designed. A mix of action, drama and comedy, it’s a story model allowed
for the development of multi-dimensional female characters and rich storylines female
readers enjoy.
After refining the story model in a
screenplay format, I decided to start writing novels with it. I’ve used it on
several older female characters such as Isis and Colleen and it’s helped
readers relate to and identify with them.
I didn’t think it was fair that Marilyn and Nikki got the
better story model and my older characters didn’t get any of that rich
storytelling and complex character development. So I’ve been working hard to
give my older female characters a development upgrade.
A lot of research went into The Thetas. A Lot. I had to remember what I read in classic
books like E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgoisie, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and Lawrence Otis Grham's Our Kind of People.
I also read dozens of articles about the Black Elite so I could make the for
the character backgrounds as realistic as possible. These books were also used to reinforce my
points about building Black businesses and wealth in the Black community. I
wanted readers to understand that entrepreneurship and self-empowerment were
things Black people such as Benjamin Banneker, Madame C.J. Walker and Ida B.
Wells used to build themselves up during slavery and Jim Crow, and that Black
people have always worked hard to achieve success.
The Book Pledged byAlexa Robbins helped me get a better understanding of sorority life. While Dan
Freeman’s video Hazing is for Bitches
(one of many great videos deleted when his third YouTube account was flagged
and deleted) gave me a better understanding of modern Black sororities.
I read dozens of articles about sororities and visited
dozens of websites to get a better understanding of sorority life. I wanted to
make the pledge experience feel as real as possible. Many of the activities
pledges participate in are to build character and to help them form a strong
relationship with their fellow sorority sisters.
My original plan was to present The Thetas as a dark
dysfunctional picture of sorority life. But around 2AM one night God told me I
was going in the wrong direction.
Listening to him for the second time (the Cassandra Cookbook was the
first) I changed the direction of the book to a more positive lighthearted one.
The Thetas almost didn’t get published. After I wrote this
story, I hated it. Really hated it. In spite of my best efforts I felt it
didn’t come together as smoothly as my best work The Temptation of John Haynes
and All About Marilyn. In those stories readers could see the elements such as
irony, foreshadowing and symbolism clearly. I felt I struggled presenting those
literary elements and I thought readers would miss my points about womanhood
and female identity.
I also feared many would not get all the artistry behind the
examination scene, where Colleen is stripped naked and questioned by the Dean
Mothers. I feared The irony of how the supposedly feminist “strong independent
Black woman” Colleen was forced to show true strength of character by accepting
the support of the Sorority sisters after falling on her face would go over
people’s heads. The way I saw it some would take that scene and sexualize it.
When my point was about how the emotionally vulnerable Colleen showing the
strength of character to swallow her pride and realize she needed help.
I was also uncomfortable about the references to
masturbation, pubic hair waxing and feminine hygiene. With The Theatas being a
Young Adult novel, I feared many teenage girls and young women would get
offended regarding my views about female health.
The way I see it more women, especially Black women need to get
a better understanding of their bodies and how to care for them. Too many Black
women who grow up today are taught from an early age to be ashamed of their
bodies by Mothers who are ashamed of their own sexuality.
I believe it’s this sexual shame is what prevents generation
after generation of Black women from learning how to care for their bodies properly.
Many Black women need to understand that
their bodies aren’t nasty, they’re natural. I feel if more Black women start
talking about their bodies and see them as natural instead of in a sexual
objectified way, they’d become more comfortable with them.
I also wanted to give teenage girls and young women
understand that certain types of clothing like thongs, and g-strings weren’t
sexy in and of themselves. Underwear has a form and function. Any sexual
connotation placed on Women’s lingerie is something Madison Avenue And
Hollywood use to sell products to men and women.
The way I see it, the sexualization of these garments is
what prevents many from wearing them for the right reasons. Sometimes a woman
needs to wear a thong or a g-string under a close fitting or low-rise garment,
or to get more freedom of movement under her clothes.
One of the things I make an effort to do in my stories like
All About Marilyn, and The Thetas is to desexualize female nudity. I really
want girls to understand that while they are sexual, their bodies aren’t sex
objects. It’s a person’s actions that are sexy. Sexy is a state of mind. A nude body by itself is not sexy. It is the
person’s actions while nude that can be considered sexual.
Because I was so disappointed with The Thetas I planned on abandoning
the script. But since I put over two years worth of work into it, I decided to
let the audience decide whether they liked it or not.
And to my surprise the audience likes it a lot.
The eBook version of The Thetas with over 1,000 downloads since
I published it in May 2013. I was surprised with the numerous enthusiastic
five-star and four-star reviews the book has received. I had no idea that the
book would be that well received.
I’d love to do a paperback run, but I just don’t have the
cash right now. Maybe if I start getting more sales I’ll see about offering a
paper version to readers.
Until then, You can pick up a copy of The Thetas for Kindle today!
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