"Friendship is the
hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not
something you learn in school. But if you
haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you
really haven't learned anything." ~~Muhammad Ali
Hi all,
Okay, I'm gonna level with you... This newsletter fell
in between me reading Me Before You and seeing its
film adaptation. So I'm just a lil bit of a wreck.
;-) Therefore, this is a short, pretty unimaginative
newsletter. Ah well.
Henriette, one of our members, requested that I let you all
know that she's written a series of stories dedicated to John
Dye. You can read Touched
by an Angel- Hubbard Street here. I've not had a
chance to read the stories myself but I'm sure Henriette would
love to hear from you if you do read them.
Until next time...
God bless,
Jenni
Ask a JABB Co-Founder
So these are a compilation of questions I know people have
asked me over the years and, near as I can tell, I never
addressed them in a newsletter. I can't remember who
asked but if you recognize one of your questions below...
thanks!
1. What Touched by
an Angel episodes inspire you the most
when writing Dyeland stories?
Good question and it's actually episodes I don't particularly
like. For me, fanfic is almost always about fixing something that's broken. It
could be something personal, using a story as a sort of
therapy. But it could also be something in the original
product. So, for example, Arthur was born of my
frustration with "Netherlands." I basically had to
rewrite the episode for myself in a way that made sense for
me. Among my many issues with the episode as it was
written is it didn't really explain how an angel, who is
supposedly non-romantic and asexual, bonded so intensely and
so soon with a stranger... and that the connection had such
power that Satan could use it as a temptation. The only
way I could make sense of that is by applying my existing anam
cara idea to it. If Arthur was Monica's anam cara then
the immediate spark made sense. But then why wouldn't
God let them be together? Why did that have to only be
an option with Satan? Simple answer: God did want them
to be together. They just needed to work out some
personal things first (and Arthur had to help conceive Liam...
gotta have Liam!). So Arthur came back into Monica's
story.
I also wasn't a fan of how Gloria's introduction to life on
Earth was handled and "The Blue Angel," in particular, about
sent me over the edge. I mean really! A not even
two year old being made to believe that she'd have to strip on
TV? That's horrid! So I wanted to show how I think
a newbie angel should be introduced to humanity. Enter
Violeta.
Finally, there was the finale. Sooo much about it is
off-putting to me. I didn't like how Zack was handled...
so enter Jack/Joshua. I didn't like the angels being
separated... so now they're not. I didn't like how God
was there in person for Monica's promotion but not Andrew's...
so He was there for Andrew's in Dyeland stories.
So, in a manner, the TBAA episodes that I'm most grateful for
are the episodes I least enjoy.
I should also probably say something about the rumored "Andrew
put on trial for murder" episode. Whether it was always
a rumor or a plotline that was scrapped, I don't know.
But I wanted that episode! So when it never appeared, I
wrote a story. And that was really the beginning of
serious Dyeland stories.
2. So characters from Beauty
and the Beast and Moonlight
have been inserted into Dyeland stories but why did you
stop bringing in outside characters?
There are a few answers to this. For one, I'm simply not
as attached to TV shows as I was back then. I don't have
a pressing need to give proper continuations to any recently
canceled series. Second, my favorite current TV shows
don't really mesh with the Dyeland universe. I love Penny
Dreadful but between the salty language and alternative
take on cosmology, it simply doesn't fit. Not to mention
that show's still ongoing and, I hope, gets a satisfying
ending in time. Finally, we've generated so many
original characters that importing some just plain isn't
necessary.
3. How do you decide which
biblical/historical people to incorporate into stories?
It's pretty much just a matter of whomever will suit my
purposes. There are some givens. If Jesus were to
come back to Earth and live among us, who do You think He'd
most want around to help Him? Mary and Joseph seem like
obvious choices. I didn't initially intend for John the
Baptist to show up but I needed him for a Godspell related gag
and then I just really liked how he came off so I kept him
around. When I wanted someone to be with Joshua at a
concentration camp in "Chava," involving the first of the
three patriarchs, Abraham, just felt right. It also
worked well with all the star imagery in light of Genesis
15:5.
Other times, I used assorted characters to try to explain
"inconsistencies." It didn't seem realistic to me that
the Friends would be hanging around with Joshua and no one
would think to ask about the rather divisive "brothers and
sisters of Jesus." Not wanting to adopt the traditional
Protestant (siblings) or Catholic (cousins or step-siblings)
views, I invented a family tree for Yosef that involved a
deceased sister and brother-in-law and the adoption of nieces
and nephews by him and Maryam... hence making this enigmatic
group Yeshua's cousins AND siblings. Since the Bible
didn't give us any names for the "sisters," I had to make them
up. The "brothers'" names were pulled from the Aramaic
Bible.
Yoninah was also an attempt to explain how it was Mary would
have a sister named... Mary. That seems an odd
practice. It also didn't fly with the storyline I
already had established with Maryam as an only child. So
Mary, wife of Cleopas, become Yosef's sister who was named for
Maryam and went by her nickname. I also liked the idea
that then someone from Yosef's family of origin was present at
the Crucifixion.
I'll happily invent theories but I try to never directly
contradict the Bible and hope I've succeeded with that.
Other historical figures are another matter... For my
witch trial story, I invented everyone and even an entire
town. The thing about that is there are so many theories
about the witch trials but no one can be totally sure which is
correct. So I didn't want to lay the blame at the feet
of real people and say they were jealous fiends when maybe
they were mentally ill. Who Mary, wife of Cleopas, is
related to doesn't really have any moral import. If I'm
wrong about her, I doubt anyone really cares. But there
are still people who trace their family tree back to the
participants in the Salem witch trials and I didn't want to
cause offense to them.
Finally, I wrote a good chunk of "The Carpenter" without fully
committing to whether or not I'd involve Yehuda/Judas
Iscariot. Eventually, I went with it because a few years
previously, I'd referenced in a story that Satan was actually
scared of Andrew. That's a pretty big deal and begs the
question... why? I figured that there had to be some
momentous thing that Satan suspected Andrew would be involved
with. Leading up a theatrical production that would
eventually lead to the redemption of someone regarded as among
the worst of sinners would definitely make Satan uneasy.
4. From Kim: How much has your
vision of Andrew changed over the course of writing the
Dyeland stories?
Wow. So I think this has to be a twofold answer.
One for the Andrew we saw on TV and one for the Andrew in the
Dyeland stories.
First, TBAA's Andrew: I think the biggest change there is I
used to get so worked up about how Monica and Tess didn't give
Andrew enough opportunities to talk about his feelings.
I now realize that sometimes talking doesn't help.
Sometimes, when we're hurting, we don't want to talk.
But we still might want someone to just be with us.
Andrew didn't need to be coerced into sharing his
feelings. And, as I've grown older and read more news
and seen more things, I have a greater appreciation for how
truly difficult Andrew's assignments could be. The
things he sees and hears... ::shivers:: I always
viewed him as strong and brave but moreso now.
With Dyeland's Andrew, variations of the above apply. I
realize now that it might not be helpful to him to bare his
soul to JenniAnn after a tough assignment. It may even
be harmful. And, again, I know more about the horror
that's out there in the world. I think the biggest
change, though, is I always viewed his relationship with
JenniAnn as her being in love with him and him just not
wanting to upset her. But then I started to really think
about what Andrew's life has been like. We can assume he
spent a considerable amount of time in Heaven before coming to
Earth, I think. So his "childhood" was one of constantly
being surrounded by unconditional love. He no doubt grew
used to having that endless support and affection. And
then his work begins. And he sees and experiences
cruelty. He's dedicated to his God and his work so he's
not going to flee Earth every time he gets upset. But
why would he not want a piece of that love he was born
into? So it began to seem much more believable that
Andrew would be very drawn to the idea of having someone he
could get affection and love from even when he couldn't be in
Heaven. And thank goodness because I haven't the
foggiest what I'd be doing with my time if I didn't have
Andrew and JenniAnn and their kith and kin to write
about! :-)
This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for helping make me
into a sap. Sigh... :-)
(Photo
Credits: The photographs used on
this page are from Touched by
an Angel and owned by CBS
Productions, Caroline Productions,
and Moon Water Productions. They
are not being used to seek
profit.)