Manuscripts of Villainous Creatures: Styles Brainstorm

Topic: This story will contain the court manuscripts of infamous beings including Grendel, werewolves, vampires, and dragons. My goal is to provide a narrative for the reader and to give different perspectives of the events that occurred or often occur with these monsters. I would definitely be using Beowulf and possibly The Book of Were-Wolves to provide background stories and perceptions of these creatures. I believe the hardest part of this project would be deciding which tales to pull the monsters from. I know that I would likely use an anthology and would present it as if each tale was a new trial.

Bibliography:
1) The Story of Beowulf by Stafford Riggs (1933)
2) The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould (2012)

Possible Styles:

Perspective of Accused
This perspective could be told in the first person in each tale of the accused being. This could prove a powerful tool if I added emotions and feelings to the creatures as they tell their stories and hear their verdict. This could provide a completely new viewpoint of the reader on many creatures that are often thought of as being emotionless and brutal killers. I would definitely include tales of loss from the perspective of the accused that could bring sympathy from the jury and judge. However, I could also portray myself as a horrid being that upon release would immediately return to killing people.


Perspective of Judge
This perspective could be told in the first person perspective of the judge and his thoughts. This could give us a view of what the judge thinks as he decides the punishment of the monsters and whether or not he holds any prejudice against certain monsters (foreshadowing?). I could then go into a deeper explanation of the type of punishment that the accused will receive and why the judge deemed this appropriate.

Perspective of Juror
This perspective could be unique and I could use this to play the role of a new character each time with completely different viewpoints of right and wrong. This could provide me the opportunity to pity some mythical beings or punish them far beyond what they deserved.  I believe this would enable me to show how jurors perceive individual cases and could then discuss how they reached their verdicts.


Perspective of Audience
This perspective would likely describe the trials in the third person and would portray a more broad picture of what is occurring in the courtroom. It would focus more heavily on the tales told by the accused and prosecutors and not so much the emotions felt. This would enable me to treat the reading as only fact and leave out the emotional aspects. This could be useful as the reader would then have to decide where their opinion lies and how they feel about the trials without being guided to feel a certain way.