Interview With A Gryphon

I can barely recognize this manuscript after this many remakes. It's interesting that what started out as a couple of amateur novels would end up spawning what may be my most intriguing story yet, and still have so little in common with the rewritten result. I basically just took the elements I enjoyed from the originals, refined them, fleshed it out, and created a new world. A few of the characters have remained, but even they are not the same. I wonder if this is what it feels like for "real", published writers, as they go through edit after edit, seeing their story grow and come to life. I guess that's where I'm struggling at the moment - I have a lively, populated world; and I suppose in a way, I have breathed life into it - but the characters are still a mystery to me. Even with a plot structure and assigned character drives it's hard for me to actually sit down and type up the narrative itself. It feels like it just won't be as easy as just creating the scenery... like this is where the real challenge lies. I have begun drafting the opening scene, but it lacks the Ooomph! that I feel it should have. In fact, every time I try to write any of the story itself, I kind of lock down; convinced it won't come out the way it looks in my mind. I have to work through and around this writer's block somehow. Even though this isn't my absolute favorite work, the work that I will never stop honing - that would be Chasing Ella - this is still a story that I began years ago, and it's a bit daunting to take it on. I have so many scenes in my head, so many images of the world... I want to do it justice.

On the other hand, the reason I changed so much of the world and story, and the reason I restructured the story to fit in an interactive project, was so that I wouldn't be too attached to the original ideas. It was so that I could cut down on the scope, rid the loose ends, and write something that might actually be thorough, from beginning to end.

And so, I am not hastening the project. I'm letting it sit there, in the back of my mind, as I keep polishing the details, as I wait for my muse to come to me, as I wait for my muse to point me in the right direction. To show me the characters, the people, of the world, not just the scenery. My muse has already shown me the tone and setting of the opening scene, and has even allowed Belleforte to speak, clearly, so I would hear him. Belleforte remains the only character that I have written of so far. He's the only character that already has a finished scene down; and that scene is still far off in the story. But since he is the one I can hear, since he is the voice that has spoken to me - I thought he would be the best character to start off with, as I go through an exercise I read about just earlier today.

The writing tip basically encouraged writers to type up a dialogue with their character, asking them questions, and then see how they would reply. It wouldn't be part of the story itself, but it might help a writer see his characters in a different light, and relate to them. Basically you could ask them anything. So, here goes... my first direct talk, to Belleforte, a wonderful, wonderful creature of wisdom and pain.

Character interview
With: Belleforte

Q: Who are you?
A: I am Belleforte. I am a Gryphon of the Mountains, and a scribe.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I am of another world.
Q: Not the Inlands?
A: Not of this continent.
Q: Can you tell me of your homeworld?
A: The Inlands is my homeworld... It is where I have lived, and where I have served. Though I do not stem from this continent... there is no other world I know that I could call home.
Q: Do you remember where you come from?
A: (pauses) I... do not speak of this.
Q: Why is that?
A: It is dimmed to me. Dim, and painful.
Q: Are there any other Gryphons?
A: I would like to believe so.
Q: But you can't be sure?
A: I have yet to meet my Gryphon brothers. In the scriptures of the Peak, there are many depictions of us - of my brethren. They were drawn, and collected, before I came into being, suggesting that from the beginning, I was not alone. But the very same scriptures speak of war, and atrocities performed against us... The scholars agree that the last of my brothers fell to the sword, used as pawns in the wars of angels, and men; hundreds, and hundreds of years ago.
Q: What else can the scholars say about your kind?
A: They say we preceded angels. They call us their distant cousins; in their raw, primitive form.
Q: You don't seem raw, or primitive.
A: This is what the scholars believe. I... (pauses) I came late, into this world. I am not my brothers.
Q: You don't want to be compared to them?
A: I would rather say I am not an elder, like those who came before me. I am different. I may very well be a deviant.
Q: Could the elder Gryphons speak, the way you can?
A: It is not mentioned in history. I have no theories of this.
Q: All right. Let's say you are the only Gryphon that we know of, in the Inlands. What is your purpose? What's your job?
A: (pause) I can not say my purpose. This is something every sentience contemplates. It is a question without answers. It can only be answered by finding yourself where you need not formulate the question.
Q: Very well. What about your job?
A: I serve the angel I travel with. We search for someone we have lost. We will search until we have found him, or until we die.
Q: Why do you need to find this person?
A: We have a debt to pay.
Q: You're traveling the entire continent, for someone who has disappeared, just to pay off some old debt?
A: (pauses) It is an important debt.
Q: Who is it that you're looking for?
A: (pauses) A friend.
Q: All right. Last question. What do you hope for the most, right now?
A: (looks off into the distance) That our search will not be meaningless.

Well, that was a new experience. I really felt like Belleforte came through as his own person in this passage. He's rather mysterious, isn't he? And he talks very formally, probably because he's a scribe. Belleforte is one of the most shrouded characters, while being so distinct, all at once... He is my personal favorite.

We'll see if I dare to try this exercise again soon, as my muse points me to the hearts of the others...
POET IN THE JAR