Guest post by A Very Special Episode author Camille Acker
Camille Acker is the author of the short story collection Training School for Negro Girls. She grew up in Washington, D.C., and holds a B.A. in English from Howard University and an M.F.A in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University. Her work has been published in The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Electric Literature, and in the anthology On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library. Her writing has received support from the Tin House Residency program, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Voices of Our Nations Arts, and Millay Colony for the Arts, among others. She was a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and named a Fellow by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. She lives in Philadelphia, PA with her partner.
When I set out to write my first novel, I had no idea the television shows and movies I loved would become integral to telling the story. A 1990s sitcom becomes both the primary setting for my novel and a lens to help the central character, Nina, reevaluate her life. The ‘90s was particularly important for television shows and movies with Black casts. Networks like Fox, UPN, and the WB filled their schedules with Moesha and Sister, Sister. Multiplexes put Black love stories front and center. Storytelling expanded in all kinds of ways, showing weighty teen dramas like Dawson’s Creek and using unconventional visual techniques on Homicide: Life on the Street. Here are some 1990s television shows and movies that helped to influence my novel, A Very Special Episode…
A Different World
Set at an historically Black college, A Different World became so much more than its original premise as a spin-off for Lisa Bonet’s character on The Cosby Show. The show’s spectrum of Black characters loved and laughed their way to adulthood. Even though it was a sitcom, no topic seemed too taboo to tackle. Many sitcoms in the 1980s and 1990s aired “very special episodes,” shows with storylines about challenging topics like drugs or sex. But A Different World addressed domestic violence, AIDS, and South African apartheid with none of the eye-rolling corniness of those other shows. Instead the writing, acting, and showrunning (of Debbie Allen) made the show meaningful without being didactic, finding humor in it all. I wanted that same balance for the satire in my novel and this show proved to be a great model.
Living Single
The original “friends” sitcom. The characters in Living Single, led by Queen Latifah, live in the same brownstone in Brooklyn, while all striving to live their dreams. The four female leads–Kim Coles, Erika Alexander, and Kim Fields, in addition to Queen Latifah–are both family and friends. A dynamic I mimicked in my novel to create layered relationships. Sinclair (Kim Coles) and Khadijah (Queen Latifah) might not have been friends if they weren’t cousins. Regine (Kim Fields) and Khadijah are childhood friends, but probably wouldn’t have connected as adults. Max (Erika Alexander) has been Khadijah’s friend since college. Those histories help ground their closeness despite different ideologies. They do the same in my novel. The central character, Nina, doesn’t see the world the same way her younger sister, Bett, does. That creates conflict, which also provides some of the novel’s humor and ultimately fuels the book’s plot.
Love Jones
Friendship is great, but in the words of Billy Dee Williams in Mahogany, “Success is nothing without someone to share it with.” Darius (Larenz Tate) and Nina (Nia Long) find that out the hard way in this 1997 romance. Their on-again, off-again relationship ends in an urgent and memorable kiss in a beautifully rendered and visually striking Chicago. The Nina in my novel is also looking for love and wonders if there’s greater possibility in her past than in her present. The Nina of Love Jones and the Nina in A Very Special Episode both have to figure out their paths, though, before they can fully embark on what may await them in their love lives.
Felicity
Speaking of love and self-actualization, Keri Russell’s Felicity has more than a few lessons to offer. Felicity makes a choice to leave California and go to college in New York based on a yearbook message from her long-time crush Ben Covington (Scott Speedman). What could possibly go wrong? Her questionable choice does lead her away from the life her parents, in particular her father, has mapped out for her and leads her to the person she’s meant to be, shorter hair and all. In my novel, Nina is also making a questionable choice in an attempt to thwart a controlling parent. She, too, discovers more than she could have imagined about herself as a result.
Set It Off
My characters aren’t pulling off a bank robbery like the four characters in the 1996 crime drama, Set it Off, but they do come up with a plan to achieve a goal. The singular focus of Set It Off allows viewers to get to know each character better through their actions. In my novel, pages and pages of backstory aren’t necessary when the plot’s high stakes force the characters to make choices that either prioritize what’s best for them alone or best for the group. Loyalty gets tested along the way. Relationships fall apart and sometimes come back together. Plans succeed or don’t. In the end, it all makes for some excellent drama.
Twin Peaks
A weird place, newly arrived strangers, and a mystery to solve. That’s the set-up for David Lynch’s foray into television and my own foray into the satirical novel. Each of those elements alone works for a novel or a show, but the three together can make for potent and compelling storytelling. When I watched Twin Peaks (in the pre-streaming era), I would leave each episode a bit dazed. What’s going to happen next?, I would wonder. As I wrote A Very Special Episode, I thought about what might get my reader to wonder that too at the end of each chapter. The good news is, like streaming, they can go to the next episode right away to find out.
