Introduction: Thoughts on my fourth novel (2007)

The Pledge Mistress, the fourth novel out of the erotic discipline series that I have created, continues my effort to bridge my first novel “The Wanderings of Amy” and my second novel “Maragana Girl”. Upon finishing my third novel The Freshman, I realized that my fiction and the world in which my characters pursue their lives focuses on two locations: a fictional university in suburban Chicago, and my imaginary country of Upper Danubia. Rather than attempt to create a new setting for any subsequent piece of fiction, I knew that if I chose to write a fourth novel, the plot would take place either at the university or in the Danubian Republic.

I also knew that in any future novel I would want to further develop the life story of at least one secondary character from a previous novel; that I would utilize characters already created instead of trying to think up new ones. As I pondered where I wanted to go with my fiction, four previous characters seemed likely candidates to become the main character of a new novel: Tiffany Walker from “Maragana Girl”, Suzanne Foster and Ruth Burnside from “The Wanderings of Amy”, and Lisa Campbell from “The Freshman”. In the end I decided to go with writing a novel about Lisa Campbell, because there were several details about Lisa’s life that I want to develop. Telling the story of Lisa Campbell allowed me to further explore the life story of Ruth Burnside without having to dedicate an entire novel to her. I was also interested in developing Lisa’s relationships with her bi-sexual boyfriend Ken and in exploring some of his psychological issues that were not developed in The Freshman. Along with the story of Lisa’s life and sexual adventures I wanted to create an erotic environment through the fictional Four-Beta Sorority. It is through her membership in the Four-Betas that Lisa has a chance to explore her sexuality, develop herself as a leader, and finally become a vital part of many other people’s lives.

My fourth novel mostly takes place in and around the Four-Beta House and the associated Tri-Alpha Fraternity. At this point, I must emphasize that the Tri-Alpha Fraternity and the Four-Beta Sorority are complete figments of my imagination and not based on anything I ever saw in real life. The names of both the fraternity and sorority were something that I invented off the top of my head, and I later checked the Internet to make sure there are no active “Greeks” that go by those names. I am fully aware that both organizations are completely unlike the fraternities and sororities that currently exist on U.S. college campuses. My fictional fraternity and sorority are not intended to be accurate portrayals of the “Greek” system, but instead serve as the setting for various episodes of erotic fantasy.

Apart from the subplots and erotic events, I tried to deal with a few serious issues as well, an example being college binge drinking. The pledging abuses that surface towards the end of the novel are loosely based on real events. Also, through my characters I try to examine various personal issues such as sexual identity (Lisa’s boyfriend Ken), peer pressure (Bernadette), and depression and Asperger syndrome (Kathleen).

Like my second and third novels, The Pledge Mistress was written from beginning to end. I started with a basic idea, but instead of working off an outline I simply let events unfold from chapter to chapter. I have discovered, through experience, that I cannot use an outline when I write fiction. When I was in college I attempted to write a political novel from an outline and the project never went any further. I drafted the outline just fine, but never started the novel itself because my imagination had evaporated and I ended up with writer’s block. I have to write spontaneously, and then, once I’m finished, I can go back and make revisions. That method has advantages and disadvantages, both of which come out in “The Pledge Mistress”. While writing, I was able to adapt my narrative and come up with new scenarios as the story developed in my imagination. As I wrote about them, my characters developed in my mind, I got to know them as complex entities, and over time I made discoveries about them. For example, some of the conflicts that developed in the middle of the story were events I had not yet thought of when I wrote the first several chapters. Writing spontaneously has plenty of disadvantages as well. In the case of “The Pledge Mistress”, the story ended up becoming much longer than I envisioned when I started working on it. Also, not working from an outline can result in many inconsistencies that need to be corrected after the draft is finished, especially with small details.

On the surface the concept of “The Pledge Mistress” sounds simple, following the life of a university sophomore as she seeks to join a sorority. However, I felt obligated to follow the life stories of several characters simultaneously, as well as describing the sorority and its pledging program, which accounts for the novel’s length and complexity. Along with developing the lives of the people surrounding Lisa, I sought to explain why they think and act the way they do, which comes out in the story’s subplots. I want the reader to understand what motivates characters to do seemingly irrational things, and also I want to avoid stereotyping characters as purely good or evil.

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