The Story of My Thesis

Photo by Bunly Hort on Unsplash

From 2010 to 2013 I attended the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University. Up until grad school, I had always written plays, so I had no idea what I was doing with fiction. In order to graduate from the program, you had to complete your thesis, which was a full-length novel following the genre conventions of your choice. I chose fantasy, which meant writing anywhere from 90,000 to 120,000 words. I was a little short of it--84,000--but it worked out. And it was the first novel I'd ever written: The Name and the Key.

As soon as I graduated I set out to pitch it to agents, but I only made it to about three before shelving it. This was probably the best decision I had ever made with the book, because it turns out there was a really huge, problematic issue with it: cultural appropriation.

I chose a marginalized POC group of people on which to base a fantasy race. I grew up with stereotypes of them (the Roma--thank you Disney!) and absolutely fell in love with those stereotypes: beautiful, wandering, soulful people who sang, danced, and knew magic. Ever since I was a little girl, I had always wanted to write a story with the Roma in them--although back then, I only knew of them by their derogatory name, gypsies.

Anyway, while I had done research on the Roma for my graduate thesis, it was after I wrote it that I started seeing the problems come to light. As much as I tried to be respectful, I fell back on harmful fantasy stereotypes. What really helped was listening to actual Roma talk about what they've seen in film and TV and books. One Romani member came outright on Twitter (X) and said, "Please don't use my ethnicity for your fantasy race." Another one wrote a Tumblr post about all of the factually incorrect books on the Roma that were out there, and to my horror, three of my heavily relied-upon sources were on that list. I realized that I had built my story on lies, my research on lies. And of course, there was a chorus of both writers and readers, actual Roma, who were saying "Don't do this, it is harmful"...and I saw that in my book, I had done it.

I am so grateful I stopped submitting The Name and the Key when I did. I would have perpetuated harmful tropes, misrepresented a marginalized people, and culturally appropriated them. And not only would I hurt my readers, but I would probably destroy my career with such carelessness. And to be honest...I am not the person to tell the story of the Roma people. Why not let the Roma tell their own stories?

The Name and the Key sat still for years, but my thoughts kept turning back to it. It wasn't a perfect manuscript by any means, but there were things in it that were genuinely good, like the characters and their relationships. I didn't want to abandon them. So, I decided I would rewrite The Name and the Key from scratch and remove every Roma influence and inspiration from the books. This meant changing character names, removing cultural rituals and beliefs involving cleanliness and the dead, removing scenes with discrimination and marginalization, language....

What I found out was that the story still worked without these elements, which made me wonder why I was so gung-ho on representing a fantasy Roma race if it ended up not being that integral. Why did I choose to use them if I was just going to treat them like a window dressing? Readers, admittedly I felt kind of like an asshole.

Anyway, I've kept almost every character's first names, given them new last names; introduced demons into the book that are inspired by demons from The Lesser Key of Solomon; changed the magic system--although it's still based on alchemy--and decided to lean more into the fantastical with country creation and culture creation.

As of right now, I'm 125 pages into it. I'm trying to bear the lessons I've learned from writing Son of the Siren in mind as I work through this manuscript, and to honor promises I like to make to my readers. I decided to make The Name and the Key into a trilogy, and not just that, but a romantasy. While I revisit some of the best things from my thesis, I'm exploring new territory and making substantial changes all the same.

Son of the Siren is the work of my heart, but The Name and the Key Trilogy has the potential to become my magnum opus, as long as I keep working hard on it and learn from my mistakes. It's exciting to dust off the cobwebs and give this book another chance, and I'm enjoying the ride.