Before a hero’s journey takes a dramatic turn, I have to take a pause from writing the main narrative. The male lead of the story has been given the first piece of the poetic story woven into this narrative’s fabric, and now I have to return to composing my fourth and final epic poem as he’s presented with the second and third parts to the tale.
The scene is much the same, as again the narrative’s reality drops away and moves seamlessly into a poetic story. The main character witnesses time pass, and a degeneration of a once great people take place, including their enslavement. Then, a city built to enslave and encage props up around them after fighting for ‘freedom.’ The main character (for the main narrative) also sees his mirror image, the main character of the epic poem. But the reflection is not what he’s expecting. The character of this new epic poem is less accepting of, and more determined to change, his environment than most of the characters I’ve dealt with in past epic poems. But he’s very weak. So the quest begins to find strength, and the hero to the overall narrative is confused, especially after going through his culture’s rites and believes he’s gained a great deal of strength. How can his reflection look so weak? His reaction to this, I gotta say, is…kinda cool, even if it’s arrogant as hell. If you’re going to prove you’re a badass, and nothing like what something is painting you as, this would be the way to do it.
The third part to the story, of which I’m composing now, is then given to him. I’m still working out how each part comes to him. The first three have been easy. As I’ve said before, unlike Horatio Peters in The Ghost of Gabriel’s Horn, this epic poem isn’t a past life. So, it’s not based on some spiritually encoded, metaphysical memory. It’s still composed of ancient hieroglyphs, but not mystical music notations played through a magical trumpet. But, as I’m writing, I’m hammering out the outline for the second act as well as picking up old notes for the fourth epic poem and giving a proper outline for that story. For the main narrative’s second act, I have a page and a half of points that must be hit, but not a thorough outline as I’ve had with act one. And that thing made this writing process really smooth. I would love to knockout an outline just as fleshed out that I’m on the third act by December, possibly earlier.
One easy point to the epic poem is that it’s co-composed by the main female character of the story. She’s been introduced in the first chapter but only as a little girl. It’s now thirteen years later, and I’m finally having the main male character and her meet. They already know (of) each other. They attend the same college in Brooklyn, but her family is estranged from the Fable Avenue community, though she’s still entrenched in her culture. She hasn’t grown up in any of the boroughs of New York City. She’s lived the past thirteen years in Mount Vernon, New York. But the main male character, and the matriarchs and patriarch of Fable Avenue, is in desperate need of her grandmother’s help (where most of the ill resonates). So, past wounds have to be healed. All must be forgiven, at least for a little while. And an epic story, told through poetry, must be composed.
Unlike the hero, she, our heroine, has more control over the poetic story. It allows her to be honest and exercise her of much despair and past demons. At first I had considered that the main male character was going to compose the entire poem, and she would be angry at how he ‘viewed’ and composed a character representing her. But as she’s brought back into the fold of the Fable Avenue community, and goes through rites she should’ve received when she was nine and thirteen, I felt that she should have a say. That say should reflect her willingness to confront her past, and how she feels about herself. She can be honest now with a community backing her up. But we’ll see her power blossom.
And, after all this, there’s still some proper villains out there looking to wreck shop.
