7-Year Blog Anniversary: Lightning Character Q&A
Friday marked Scribes & Archers’ 7-year anniversary! The site existed before that, but August 2nd, 2017, I really started taking it seriously and writing about the things that Scribes & Archers is still about.
To celebrate, I wanted to give a bit of a sneak peek at Lightning and its characters with a character Q&A–moderated by in-world journalist Katie Jones of Elderwood-Montgomery Technologies.
Want to know more about Elderwood-Montgomery Technologies–and its less benevolent competitor Grantech? Check out Escape Room and Silence in Short Story Collection vol. 1!
Character images borrowed from Pinterest
Interviewer: Katie Jones, publicist for Elderwood-Montgomery Technologies
Interviewees: Erika Roan, GenDev runaway; Nyla Bird, GenDev runaway; Rhys Thatcher, [redacted] Grantech accountant
KJ: Hello, ladies. Thank you for coming in to share your statements. Please start by introducing yourselves for the record, in your own words.
Rhys: *her voice is smooth, her tone even-tempered* My name is Rhys Thatcher. I’m twenty-one years old and I was recently employed by Grantech as an accountant.
Erika: *she’s brash, with a rough voice and no filter* You can call me Erika Storm. I’m the [censored] that busted the GenDevs of Newbridge out of Grantech’s hold when they wanted to kill me for failing their experiments.
Nyla: *a tired sigh, followed by a voice that’s soft and quiet but clearly not weak* I’m Nyla Bird. I’m eighteen. Grantech made me a healer, but I have chronic pain and fatigue as a result. I helped Erika free the GenDevs.
KJ: What is something you learned while working with Grantech?
Rhys: I learned how much I value my family. Work at Grantech kept me away from them much of the time, and I learned just how important they are to me. They’re why I went to Grantech in the first place.
Erika: *scoff* You don’t work with Grantech. You work either for them or against them. I chose to work against them, and I learned to keep fighting in whatever way I could until they broke.
Nyla: *brief, uncomfortable silence* I think I learned to forgive.
KJ: *allows a thoughtful pause* What do you think is Grantech’s greatest weakness?
Rhys: The individualism that they operate by. When everyone is working toward their own ends, the company whole is bound to fall apart.
Erika: All of their methods are self-defeating. Eventually, their true colors and the truth of how they treat people–how they treat kids–is going to come to light and people are going to stop trusting them.
Nyla: I think… it’s a combination of what they said. Grantech rips families apart, it causes long-term hurt, and they make themselves weak by losing the trust of united families and the individuals broken away from them.
KJ: Do you think people will start to leave their employment with Grantech when the truth is exposed?
Rhys: I don’t know. They have methods to keep people’s trust–even the trust of people who didn’t like them in the first place. They’re resourceful, they have GenDevs on their side, and they’re willing to prey on any weakness their employees may have. That’s going to be hard to push against, even for those who believe in the truth.
Erika: They have far more GenDevs turned against them than for them. Anyone who sticks with Grantech after everything comes out is either a coward or just as evil as the [censored] in charge and they deserve to go down with the ship.
Nyla: I think people have been misguided. The only way to combat Grantech’s lies is with truth, and I think people deserve the choice to know the truth and decide whether to stand or fall. The truth has been hidden for a long time, and it’s going to take a long time to unravel all the lies that have taken its place, but that’s worth the effort.
KJ: What do you look forward to most about leaving behind affiliation with Grantech?
Rhys: Working with my family again, somewhere Grantech won’t look over our shoulders.
Erika: I was never affiliated with Grantech. But if you mean once I’m free of them, I want to join the GenDev rebels that have been a pain in Grantech’s [censored] for the past X years. It’ll be nice to finally have some help in that department.
Nyla: I’m looking forward to peace and quiet, and a normal life. Managing my symptoms my own way, getting used to the real world, maybe starting a family… I just want to be normal.
KJ: Thank you ladies for your time. I’ll take your individual accounts of your full experience with Grantech shortly. In the meantime, please help yourself to coffee and snacks in the guest lobby, and feel free to ask the receptionist if there’s anything else you need.
Rhys: Thank you.
Erika: Thanks.
Nyla: *nods quietly*
I hope you enjoyed that brief peek at three of Lightning‘s main characters! If you’d like to learn more about the world in which the story takes place, check out Escape Room and Silence in Short Story Collection vol. 1! Want to be sure to hear when Lightning gets closer to release? Sign up below to join the reading list for bookish updates, recommended reads, and book reviews delivered straight to your inbox!
As another piece of the celebration, I wanted to highlight some fan-favorite blog posts from over the past seven years of Scribes & Archers!
Fan-Favorite Posts
5 Traits of Realistic Characters
5 Reasons We Don’t Have Flying Cars (and the Worldbuilding Takeaways)
Why You Should Choose to Love Your Project
How to Approach Worldbuilding as Problem-Solving
7 Time Management Tips for Authors
5 Steps to Requesting a Book Review
5 Traits to Give Your Antagonist
Alpha-Readers vs. Beta-Readers
Why Christian Fiction is Important
5 Ways to Support Indie Authors
5 Tips for Writing a Great Montage Sequence
Awesome post! I’m so intrigued about these characters now, especially Nyla. Congratulations on seven years!! God bless you!
Thank you!
So hard to believe I’ve been following the blog for seven whole years (I feel so old rn XD)! Congratulations! :D
Thank you! It’s been so lovely to have you along on the journey! đź’›