Unveiling the Past: A Story of Redemption, Resilience, and the Devil Within

Have you ever felt haunted by a past that refuses to stay buried? Join Joa on a gripping journey through "The Devil that Haunts Them," a trilogy that grew from the seeds of a single manuscript. This season, I lay bare the transformation of "The Devil that Haunts Me" into a character-driven saga, revealing how astrology and emotional depth intertwine to create unforgettable narratives. As I did in "Mrs. Franchi's Evil Ring," the intricacies of human emotion and backstory take center stage, providing a window into the souls of Isabella, Julitza, and La Doña—each a testament to the resilience of different generations.

The heart of our discussion beats with the story of Isabela Ramirez in "Under the Flamboyan Tree," a tale of self-discovery and atonement. Imagine carrying the weight of a dual identity and a love that borders on sacrifice, all while wrestling with the scales of a Libra in search of balance. Isabela's path is littered with the shards of a shattered past: the tragic loss of a daughter, a marriage that's both sanctuary and prison, and the relentless pursuit of redemption. Through her eyes, we confront our own devils, both literal and metaphorical, and seek the truth behind the veil of our actions. Join me as we traverse this emotional landscape, seeking the light of forgiveness and the hope of new beginnings.

Enter a world of fear, resilience, and generational trauma in "The Devil That Haunts Me". Follow Isabella and Julitza as they confront their demons in a tale of suspense, mystery, and the supernatural.

Explore the first seven chapters here

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh, we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the have a Cup of Johani podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm growing, so this is going to be the season of growth and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me and I hope you for coming over here and sitting with me, and I hope you enjoy. Welcome everyone to have a Cup of Joannie podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Once again, we are in May and I'm going to self-indulge this month because I just have so much to say when it comes to what I'm writing currently. And let me give you a recap. So I was writing this book, I was writing this manuscript the Devil that Haunts Me and I had this story in my head. I am not a person that outlines, so we can debate later the panther versus plotter debate, and I will always fall somewhere in the middle of that. Okay, but nevertheless, okay, that's not what we're here for. We're here to talk about this project, which turned into a series of three books Once I found out, by getting to know my characters, that this is a book that cannot be contained into one singular manuscript, that these characters deserve and needed a book of their own. That's the recap for you. So the Devil that Haunts Me split into three, which I am currently titling the series as the Devil that Haunts them, and my characters in these stories are in the realm of the maiden, the mother, the crone, which is we have the mother, who is Isabella, formerly called Bianca. We have the mother, who is Isabela, formerly called Bianca. We have the daughter, the maiden, called Julitza, and we have the crone, the grandmother, who you're often going to see her referred to as La Doña, and those are the characters that I'll be talking about today. How about that for an intro? How did that go? How did that go? I was trying something new. Okay, so are you ready to get into these ladies' head? Let's get it all right.

Speaker 1: 2:47

So, as I told you on my previous episode, one of the things that I did when I had to go back and kind of like pause the manuscript was I. I asked chatT. I was like, hey, take a look at this character that I have, and I have like a doss here for the characters and I was like what do you think is their sign? When do you think they would have been born, if they need to be, this age when the story begins, and what are the shadow aspects of that astrological sign? And based off of those answers, I was able to layer each of these characters a little bit more, and I also did that to the antagonist. I did that to the important side characters as well in the story Not all the side characters, but I did it to the important ones as well in the story. Not all the side characters, but I did it to the important ones, the ones that you will see quite often on the page. And I did that in order to get to know them a little bit more and understand them.

Speaker 1: 3:58

And I'll give you an example right when I wrote Mrs Franchi's Evil Ring in the six months, that changed everything. This is a middle grade book that I wrote last Franchise Evil Ring in the six months that changed everything. This is a middle grade book that I wrote last year and published last year. I didn't write it last year Listen to a previous episode. I rewrote that bad boy, like so many times, but I published it last year on 2023.

Speaker 1: 4:18

And the thing is that when it comes to on Scribner, the character pages in there. I had additional pages under East Lab where I had detailed scenes of things that occurred in her past. So if you have read or you're fixing to read, mrs Franchisee will ring in, the six months that changed everything. You would find out that Eastla went through a traumatic event which kind of shapes her and that is what kind of like sets this story into motion, right? So, based off of that traumatic event, it is why Isla reacts the way that she does when she meets this new step-parent. And once you understand that and you see small glimpses of this throughout the book, then the reader understands why her reactions are the way that they are.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And when everything just comes to head on the third act, people understand why it is what it is, why it's so emotional, and it's because we understand from the beginning of the story that Isla has been holding on to these experiences throughout the duration of the manuscript. So it makes it for emotional read, it makes it for some tension there, for raising the stakes and those kinds of things. Right, that keeps the reader reading, and I did that because I like to read character-driven stories and because that's what I like to read, I want to give that to other readers as well, and I get a kick out of writing character-driven stories as well because I was trying to explain it to somebody. It's almost like acting, but I don't have a camera in front of me, I just have my keyboard. So it's like I embody that character and there's bits of that character that are also part of me because I'm the creator of that character. So what's in me goes into that character, so it's easy for me to also put myself in that character's shoes. So, like I said, it's almost like acting, because I do put myself in their shoes and then I act it out through my keyboard when I do the dialogue or when I do internal monologues and all those things that are pretty much just character-centric. I think I only put on kind of like my author had a bit whenever I do the descriptive pieces in a scene or the narrative pieces in the scene and all of that, where I get to kind of like look out and sometimes put little things in there, just objective things, not preachy things, because I also don't want my books to be kind of like this preachaholic thing to the reader, because I just I don't like it when I feel like the book is talking down to me or is, you know, is telling me what to do, like I don't ever need a book to tell me what to do. I just need a book to explain to me how the character feels and what the character is doing and what the character is learning, and then I will take what I need to get from reading about that character. So that's kind of like what I try to do in my books as well, because I give what I would like to be given as well. But back to my ladies, let me tell you about them, because yeah, they're, yeah they're out of this world.

Speaker 1: 8:11

So when I started writing the Devil that Haunts Me, I was like this is, this is the mom's story. At first I wrote it as the daughter's story, but that I couldn't. I couldn't finish that because it just there wasn't enough there. And then I embarked on another rewrite and I was like, for real, this is going to be the mom's side of the story and it's still. It just it was like a mixture of mom and daughter, so I had to stop that mom and daughter. So I had to stop that.

Speaker 1: 8:43

And now, finally that I'm here on this third rewrite and a whole retitling of the manuscript, which is now under the flamboyantry. Now it fits, now it feels like home, now it feels like I'm en route to the ending, to the finish line. It feels like I'm en route to the ending, to the finish line, as opposed to before. It just didn't feel that way and I think that's because the manuscript is more focused on the mom and her experience. Now you're going to see in here that it's tied in to the other two ladies, but it's more subtle. They're not interwoven in here. This is mom, right, so this is Isabela and how Isabela learns. But because Isabela needs to look at her past, which is connected with her mom, la Doña, then we see glimpses of that.

Speaker 1: 9:42

But I think in my previous two renditions of this manuscript it just it was muddled. I hadn't conceptualized the stories in its separate form and I was kind of like melding them together as I was writing it and it wasn't making sense to me. So if I, as the writer, the author of this story, I'm not understanding, can you imagine? I mean the reader will be even more confused. So that's one of the reasons why it just wasn't jiving for me and why I needed to do rewrites. Folks, that's the way that I write. I write through rewriting All my books.

Speaker 1: 12:42

By the time you read them, you would be reading the 10th, 12th rendition of that manuscript. It would never be a single digit. I just yeah, I don't know, we'll see, maybe later on, after, like, my, my 10th book, right? Um, I'll draft it and it'll be like maybe just five, seven renditions, right, as opposed to 10 or 12, who knows, who knows, maybe, okay, but let me read you these character sheets, because that's what you're here for. You're here to learn about these characters. And vamos a hacer bochinche aquí, okay, okay, vamos a tirar chisme bien rapidito. So this is Isabella Prescott, right?

Speaker 1: 13:31

Pero, isabella Prescott, what I'm telling you right here, this woman right here, this is kind of like the facade. This is a facade that she put on when she did her papers to come to the US, right? So her real name is Bianca Ramirez, right? Bien ethnic, bien de la isla, you know, and all of that, right. And if you're Dominican and you're listening to this, you know that we Dominican folks, we love to make up a name and we love to give these creative names to our children.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Right, who has papers, who is a natural citizen of the United States. So she marries him, she gets her papers. She sees that as kind of like ooh, this is my way into what she feels is kind of like civilization, into what she feels is kind of like civilization, what she feels is kind of like the winning entry right, opening that door to the price, right. That's how she feels. So she's like Bianca Ramirez is not worthy to step into the United States because that's her new life. She's embarking on her new life. So she changes her name. She takes her husband's last name, which is an American last name, and completely drops everything else that marks her as having come from the Dominican Republic and having the past that she had. So at the beginning of the book you will see that she is Isabella Prescott and you will see this very bougie woman that tries so hard to be something that she's not quite that. And here I have her, as she is living in Nantucket, massachusetts, with her husband. She is 43. Her birthday is September 29th, which makes her a Libra. And here it is. Here's what ChatGPT gave me.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Libras are known for their desire for harmony and balance, and you see that, you see that at the beginning this lady tries so hard to kind of like, subvert herself in order to have balance and harmony in her home with her husband. And that's kind of like the crux of it all. The crux of it all because to have harmony and to have balance, bianca, isabella, she sacrifices herself, she sacrifices her happiness, and I tapped into that. If you would have listened to some of my previous episodes on the podcast, you know that there was a time in my life when, to please others, I made myself smaller. So I have a little bit of emotional connective tissue to this character when it comes to that and I tap into that to get through and be able to explain the emotions, the why, the reasoning behind this.

Speaker 1: 16:57

When it comes to Isabela, but back to her character, so she has a desire for harmony and balance, which aligns with Isabela's efforts to maintain peace within her family, despite the internal and external turmoil. So you will see later on that she's fighting through her demons of her past. There are certain flashes that she has, certain dreams that she has which she continues to push and shove away deep inside her mind until something happens. Nevertheless, libras, they're also characterized by a strong sense of justice and fairness and mirroring Isabella's deep but conflicting desire to right the wrongs of our past and present. This is her drive, people. Ok. So this kind of like sense of justice and fairness is what drives her during the second act to the third act, and it scares her as well, because she has.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Currently I'm writing the beginning of the third act, the beginning of the third act, and she has to come to terms with how dependent she has become on her husband. While she was seeking harmony and balance, she had become a symbiotic part of Tom Prescott, her husband, and she had lost herself, her independence, her freedom, her ability to be a person. Because of this, she just was single-mindedly going for harmony and balance and now she has put herself in a predicament where for her to seek justice now it puts her at a harsh disadvantage. And that's what I'm writing right now that realization that she has, that fear that she has, that she will have to push through Once again on my character sheet right here, once we get past the birthday and the personality reflection based on the astrological sign. Now we have the role in the story and then I put in here that Isabella is the MC, which means the main character whose journey of self-discovery and redemption forms the heart of the narrative. So, just like I told you right.

Speaker 1: 19:29

So I took the side of her personality that is attached to the astrological sign of Libra and I turned that kind of like into her character arc, right Into where she's going and why she's going there. That is how I was able to outline it after doing this character sheet, this character dossier on Isabella, because now I understand that she's starting at this point, this very low point in her life, and she wants to seek justice. But because of her choices she has created obstacles which now she has to overcome. So that's her character arc there and I put in here as well her struggle with her past, her identity and the aftermath of her daughter's death propels the story forward. This is what propels her forward is that having to face that, the loss of her child and understanding how her actions and inactions may have played a part in some of those things and, like I said, may have played a part in putting the obstacles that she now has in her own life that is what brings tension to the story and it's just little things. Like Isabella, she goes forward one step right and then she stumbles, and then she's like shit this is my doing, you know and then it's almost like she regresses a bit because to save herself, to survive her past in a way, she had to create this kind of persona and she had to create the life that she created in order to survive that and in order to overcome that. But what she sees when she gets to the Dominican Republic and she sees the people that she left there, that she starts to rethink that perhaps she didn't need to do those things to survive, perhaps there could have been another path for her. And she sees that through the mirror of her childhood friend, yolanda Past, act two. That's when I bring in that character and I like to do that because I like to kind of like show a mirror to the main character of what could have been, but still have that main character, still seek redemption, been, but still have that main character, still seek redemption, still seek self-forgiveness and still go through the resiliency skills necessary to overcome those feelings and those emotions, to become a better version of themselves in the end of the book.

Speaker 1: 22:12

And then, for each character, each of my ladies I have, who is the devil that haunts them? Because that's the series. Each of these ladies have a devil un diablo que la persigue. And it could be figuratively or it could be a real life person, and in most of the characters is both, and you will get to see that and read that. Both, and you will get to see that and read that. The devil that haunts these ladies are people, men that have harmed them, that have scarred them and at times, sometimes it's their own choices as well. So I have that for each character. And the goal for Isabella is to uncover the truth behind her daughter's death and once she finds that which I have written past, that is to reconcile with her own role in the events leading up to it and to seek forgiveness and redemption for herself. So that is the goal of this lady. I'm going to continue reading a little bit more Her personality.

Speaker 1: 23:28

She's a complex character. She has to be. She's my main character. She is marked by resilience and a deep-seated fear of poverty. That's what kind of drives her decisions and justifications for staying in a toxic marriage, for having done what she did, because she just feels like she needed to do that, to kind of like surpass her beginnings and bring out her daughter out of those beginnings as well, and because she's so laser focused. She was so laser focused on that she didn't see, she missed the signs right Of the dangers of the devil that was there right in front of her. And you will see that. That bit of recognition and later on redemption, that bit of recognition and later on redemption. I'm ready. Okay, okay, okay, no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 24:26

And as I think things through and I kind of like get to know the character in my head, I come up with things to add on the things that they may have experienced in the past and so forth, so forth. So I put a lot of details towards the end of the character sheets I add on to what Scrivener gives me. So here it is, more details for Isabella Born, bianca Ramirez, in San Francisco de Macorís, dominican Republic. She embodies kind of like this complex interplay of identity, survival and maternal guilt all too well. Her transformation from Bianca to Isabella marks a deliberate effort to shed her past that is marked with hardship and abuse and a past that has shaped her worldview and kind of like her ethos as well. And I put in here that the flight from the Santiago to Nueva York is kind of like this metamorphosis for hers. It's kind of like, you know, when the worm becomes a butterfly kind of thing and she becomes new and I put in here that she came here with a fiance visa right.

Speaker 1: 25:47

And I put in here that she came here with a fiance visa right, followed by a marriage to Tom, that she got really fast, unnaturally fast, due to the connections that Tom has, and more on those connections I put on Tom's character sheet, neferro. At Tom she kind of like attached herself, attached to the hip with Tom because he brought her security, he brought her comfort and everything that was different from her beginning was reflected on Tom and because of that she thought this man was safe. And I put in here a little bit about Tom that he's a wealthy lawyer and politician and while Isabella in the back of her mind, she knows that there are some moral failings on her husband, she doesn't think that it's that bad. She just thinks that it goes to the point like regular, normal moral failings that a general politician will have. And as she uncovers more, then that's when the guilt starts setting in and that is what propels her to make the decisions that she made in the present moment. And she understands, she has this intuition that she needs to examine her past to understand why she did the things that she did and, coincidentally, when she goes and examines the past and coincidentally, when she goes and examines the past, her house has this flamboyant tree that is filled with memories of La Doña and even her daughter, who, while she stayed with her grandmother when Isamela left for the States before she was able to bring her over, she's also there. So the memories of these three women are there with the tree and through the tree, isabella learns about her past and by understanding that, she's able to understand what happened in the present and, more importantly, she's able to understand how she can move forward into the future. So there you go, isabella.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Slash Bianca is a very complex character and I couldn't have it any other way for my main character, my emcee right, and I hope you like it, I hope you enjoy, I hope you find some similarities with Isabella, as for sure as I did, and I hope you enjoy it when you get to read her in this book Under the Flamboyant Tree and stick around for the other ladies. I took too long explaining Isabella and I'm thinking that I'm going to take real long explaining the other two ladies. Who knows, we'll see. But come back next Wednesday for another character. Peelback dossier Get to know my characters on the Devil that Hots them. How about that? Come back, bye. Thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment, do a rating if you can on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.