The Story Behind The Stories

I'm sure it's pretty apparent by now that I love back-story.  That thing which makes a person who he or she is, what shaped them, and what makes them tick.

Many times,  I like the back story more than the present story.  And that probably explains my interest once, a long time ago, in being a psychiatrist.   

Delving into human motivation and drives intrigues me.  And the capability of the human spirit to bounce back from some of the toughest circumstances interests me as well.

This is pretty much how Tempting Karma came to be.  Karmen is actually the cousin of a character in an upcoming title called Dance of Deceit.

Dance of Deceit was the first work I’d ever written in its entirety, six years ago.  But I lost every bit of that story when my laptop crashed.  I decided this past year that I  wanted to try my hand at it again and rewrite it.

The character there faces a dilemma somewhat similar to Karmen’s, except from a slightly different angle.  When I’d first written that story, Karmen was just an ancillary character who seemed to have the perfect marriage, family and life, and the main character of Dance of Deceit (whose name was Rosalyn in that first draft), wanted a life similar to her cousin’s charmed life.  And she was willing to do whatever it took to get that life. Rosalyn had no idea about her own cousin’s back story and assumed she had a beautiful life based solely on what she'd observed. But in that story, Karmen warned Rosalyn about the dangers of what she was doing.

When I decided to take a stab at rewriting Dance of Deceit, I started to think more about Karmen and her back-story. I knew that there was more to her than what Rosalyn knew and could see. And it was ruminating over that along with watching the movie, Unfaithful years ago and remembering a certain scene which sparked me to delve into Karmen’s back story.  

There is a scene in Unfaithful, which occurs after the main character engages in a particularly hot and elicit act in a bathroom stall with her lover, when she is out with friends.  When that character returns to the table where her friends are waiting, one of her friends jokes about wanting to have an affair with a man as hot as the title character’s lover.  The other friend is serious and mysterious when she states that doing that can only lead to hurt and pain.  

The other two friends exchange looks after her comment that seemed to say, “Okay, there’s something there, but we’re going to leave that alone.”  And of course, I was thinking, “Well, what happened?!”  There was definitely a back story there, and it was up to the viewer to guess and interpret it on his/her own.

Well, Karmen is essentially that character in Dance of Deceit.  She is the one who is capable of warning her cousin, only because she has experienced for herself what infidelity and lies can do to a marriage.

What’s Rightfully Mine is another release which is related to the first title released, A Broken Promise. This is a parallel fiction title, which runs around the same time, chronologically as the romance title, Love's Call.  So, while Kyle is meeting Liana on a boat in Love’s Call, this title details all of the drama that was going on back in Georgia with Vivian, Shaila and Craig.  

It’s my hope that the reader could get what I was attempting to convey with this story.  That despite all of Vivian’s actions to become a better person, she unintentionally became like the person she despised, by pursuing what she thought she wanted, and what she thought would make her happy.

None of these three titles, however, can be classified as Romance and I made sure not to categorize them as such on Amazon. I enjoy reading several genres, and though I love writing romance, I also enjoy writing Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Sci-Fi, and African American/Mulitcultural Literature.  My hope is that I don’t get stuck in one arena or genre or labeled as a certain type of writer, and that when readers see the name “Jala Summers” they don’t automatically assume that it will be a romance title.

That being said, I have to say that writing the drama sometimes can be pretty draining. I’m an emotional person, and alot of times I feel  what I’m writing.  It’s almost as if I’m really stepping into that character’s shoes and living out his/her truth.And many times, I find very quickly that I do miss the romance.  

Which is why I’m jumping back, for now, into Romance.  I will work on rewriting my old title, Dance of Deceit, at a later date, but for now, I think I need a bit of a break.  Now’s time for some love :-) 

Hope readers enjoy the upcoming titles!