For some context, I am working on a Literary Fantasy series primarily set in the world of Illirium. There was Music is the second novel I wrote. The first (now Book 2) had been finished over a year earlier (January 2010), and the third (now Book 1) was completed in January 2016. There was Music is a companion piece to the main series; in Illirium’s historical timeline, the bulk of the narrative fits between books two and three. There was Music has been crafted to introduce readers to Illirium and its larger socio-political conflicts, all the while remaining focused on a story about a woman’s identity and the cost of survival, the power of music and the hope of healing.
Below, I explore the origin of that story.
The Framework: Illirium
To understand the context of writing There was Music, it is important to outline the conceptual formation of Illirium. The beginning can be traced back to English class my freshman year of high school (1999), with a short story I called “The White Elf”. The class exercise was simply to write a story set in an apple orchard, yet the protagonist of that story would eventually become Alíndor, a character mentioned in There was Music.
A subsequent assignment—the final project for our unit on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit the following semester, in the spring of 2000—provided an opportunity to further build the world only vaguely defined in “The White Elf”. My friend, Fred, and I went well beyond the expectations of the assignment, not only making a large, original map of Illirium, but also sketches of the world’s various races, runes describing a prophecy, and said prophecy’s textual analysis. (We earned an A+.)
Though I no longer have the map, I still have the other content, and must credit Fred with coming up with the name, “Illirium.” The map of Illirium has evolved extensively since then, the blatantly derivative aspect being removed—for example, in the original project, Fred insisted that we include the Shire—yet a few place names do serve as allusions to the influence of Tolkien on my literary imagination.
Illirium and its socio-political history have been developed just about every year since. Some prominent milestones are the creative writing class I took my junior year of high school[1], dabbling during college Christmas holidays, and a few periods after when I chose to work a part time job, leaving me concentrated time and energy for writing. Most of that is a tale for another time, but note that it was while I worked the dreary night shift hours at a cabinet making shop in Redlands, CA, in the summer of 2002, that I resolved to take my writing seriously and finish my first novel.
The point is that There was Music did not rise in isolation, but rather in the thick of an already expanding wilderness of imagination and artistic expression. The establishment of Illirium was only the beginning of the adventure, however.
The 1st Movement: Music
The title, “There was Music”, was essentially the first idea I expressed about the novel. On June 28, 2010, I wrote under the heading, “Fili”[2]:
The spirit of these lines is still mostly in tact in a certain portion of the novel. Reflecting on this concept while playing guitar one morning in the shade of the back patio of the “Yampa House” in Colorado Springs, I became intrigued by the task of conveying the beautiful power of music through prose. In a way, poetry can be thought of as the bridge between the two mediums, most clearly exemplified in its partnership with melody, which together define a song with lyrics. Therefore, as with most of my writing, but especially There was Music, I knew I wanted to convey a poetic rhythm not only in the prose, but in the movement from scene to scene.
The 2nd Movement: Survival
The fundamental conflict in the narrative of There was Music came from a vivid dream days later. The next morning, July 5, 2010, I reflected on the dream with notes under the heading, “The Balance”, in which I begin by asking, “What if there was a world in which people were raised simply to survive?” I went on to elaborate:
It is a sort of survival of the fittest worldview, where loyalty is a foreign concept, where one might be blown across many differing groups [or] sanctions in his lifetime. . . . The key is to find perfect balance in skills: not [too] weak, yet not too strong either. It is about not being threatening, but a support that all need, maneuvering carefully from situation to situation. To what end? . . . (How long could a selfish world survive?)
This idea helped shape the plot of There was Music as a journey of enduring atrocities with the mindset of self-preservation. It is a heavy concept that could be further unpacked with considerable psychological, philosophical, and socio-historical analysis, but for now it is important to note that, though the nuance of this idea has shifted somewhat from the original dream concept, the novel’s theme of identity and the cost of survival is rooted in it.
The 3rd Movement: Structure & Point of View
Having just read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, I devoured two stirring, shorter novels—Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi[3]—and decided to approach writing There was Music differently than my first novel. While the first was carefully structured chapter by chapter, and echoed the more densely layered plotting of Tolkien or the prose of another favorite author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, I wanted to craft There was Music with a smaller-scaled plot, while retaining the psychological depth of all the aforementioned authors, especially Dostoevsky.
I began compiling notes on August 14, 2010, outlining character dynamics, interesting concepts and phrases, and more, but without any specific chapter outline. I wanted to write the novel closer to a stream of consciousness. Though I did write a basic summary, getting the protagonist from beginning to end, the first draft of the novel was heavily written in the moment channeling raw emotion and ideas.
Concerning my choice of a female protagonist, I will write at length about that in another post, drawing from my Master’s dissertation. Overall, I was intrigued by the challenge of writing from the perspective of a woman, for the point of view characters in my main series are male. At another level, I perceived that the traditional socio-historical limitations placed on women, defining gender roles, offered the most harrowing yet poignant context for narrative conflict. Granted, as a male author, I immediately recognized [and still recognize] the risk of misunderstanding and/or being misunderstood, that I will be heavily scrutinized for presenting my story through the eyes of a heroine.[4] In other words, I knew I had to be immensely attentive and open-minded in my research to have any credibility; that the success of the story relied on presenting a believable female protagonist. Regardless of what happens with this novel, I have certainly learned so much about gender identity and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes, and am thankful for how authors like Angela Carter, Bharati Mukherjee, Amy Tan, and Margaret Atwood, to name but a few, have added to the conversations.
Further Inspiration
On September 6, 2010, what have essentially remained the opening lines of Part 1 were written in my notes:[5]
That fall, I had been musically exploring the story’s narrative arch by assembling a collection of songs—a “musical sketchbook” as I like to call such demo albums—which helped further develop the themes concerning the power of music and the hope of healing. A fan of film scores, I thought of the sketchbook not only as the novel’s first soundtrack, but as a kind of first draft of the novel. The album was finished in December 2010, in collaboration with two friends, Elliott and Tyler, and is even called “There was Music”.[6] The cover art I created for that (see below) guided some of the discussion about the novel’s official cover, which was painted by the wondrous Julie Bell.
I mention all of this to convey how just about anything nourishes my creative process. I engage the world through an artistic lens, most prominently though writing, music, photography, and illustration; but I am also a scholar, learning from history, sociology, and psychology, as well as the life stories of others. Moreover, I am a man of faith, long exploring discussions about meaning, purpose, hope and love in the spheres of spirituality and religion. All of these passions inform and inspire one other.
Timeline: Writing the Novel
The process of actually writing the manuscript did not really begin until January 25, 2011. The delay that fall was due to adjusting to my first season coaching cross country as an assistant, while also working full time in construction. I ultimately finished Part 1, “Prison”, on February 8, 2011, and completed Part 2, “Wilderness”, on May 12 that same year. I did not finish the manuscript until December 16.[7] In the latter half of that year, especially, I was preparing to move from Colorado Springs, CO to San Jose, California, finally making the long drive in late November. The slower writing of the final part of the novel is also due to the sudden opportunity to be the head coach for the men and women’s cross country team at the same local high school that fall (2011), which was a steep learning curve.
I began querying literary agents about There was Music in early 2012, approaching publishing from the traditional route. I had done so two years earlier with the previously finished novel without any real traction. I thought There was Music could work as a better introduction to Illirium and its larger narrative than my previous novel, which is over twice as long—much like Tolkien’s The Hobbit gained him the traction needed to publish his passion project (what would become The Silmarillion) via The Lord of the Rings. I will share more about that, and how I ultimately determined that indie publishing is the best strategy for me, in a future post; for there is much that could be shared. Simply put, I learned a lot from that journey, and am still learning so much about the industry.
Eventually, I shifted my attention to other endeavors, including writing my third novel[8], which is the first of my main series and the next I will prepare to publish. There was Music returned to the forefront of my efforts during my Master’s studies with Middlesex University, London, which lasted from the fall of 2017 through the summer of 2018.[9]
The MA in Novel Writing program taught me so much about literary theory and criticism, sharpened my research skills, and expanded my thinking about character development and narrative structure.[10] Again, I will share more about this in a subsequent post, but for now the point is twofold: I came to realize that the narrative soul of There was Music is a journey of identity, and that I needed to better develop most of my characters (e.g. their background, influences, and motivations), and to better sharpen the worldviews of Illirium’s many cultures (a task I had been developing since the beginning, but which needed to be finalized for consistency and coherency).[11]
A Crescendo of Past, Present, and Future
There are still aspects of Illirium, namely its characters and their stories, that have yet to be fully realized. I have hundreds of pages of notes, handwritten and typed, as well as drawings, photographs, songs, and memories to keep shaping the Fantasy world and its characters. The business of indie publishing aside, the work involved with preparing There was Music for release is incalculable.
I cherish the life experiences, lessons, and people who have influenced my perspective and stories in some way. There was Music is not the result of one man’s imagination, in other words, but the result of a beautiful wilderness of imagination. There was Music is not an easy story to read in terms of subject matter, but I hope it is ultimately an empowering one; that it provides an echo of hope amidst a challenging present. It has certainly been so for me—in writing and re-reading it.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
Footnotes:
[1] Such as with “The Tale of Drane”, written on September 10, 2001.
[2] This term having been explored at an introductory level two year earlier in my post, “A Bard of the Order of Fili”. This concept inspired the character of Bard ap Fili in There was Music.
[3] While also thinking of another favorite author, Chaim Potok.
[4] Curiously, it doesn’t seem like female authors receive the same scrutiny when writing male protagonists.
[5] The opening “Prelude & Fugue” was added at the end of 2018 in association with my Master’s dissertation, for I felt (and my supervising professor agreed) that I needed to better frame the tone and thematic focus of the novel.
[6] I revisited the general concept of the album with another musical sketchbook, “Why are you here?”, in partnership with another friend, Angela. The album title draws directly from a refrain in the novel, and was finished in October 2011. In all these projects, a prominent song filling the space between the words in There was Music is “Ainulindalë”.
[7] Part 3 was originally titled “Bard”, not being changed to the more nuanced, multi-layered “Medium” until 2018.
[8] Begun in full in September 2015 and completed in January 2016.
[9] The middle third of which was done while teaching American Literature full time at a local high school and coaching Track & Field at the same school.
[10] The nature of developing the sujet vs. fibula is fascinating, for example, showcased by Bharatee Mukerjee’s nonlinear narrative structure in Jasmine, which helped sharpen and expand my own themes about how temporality shapes identity. Also influential is Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, which explores a similar context to There was Music, though is more focused on themes like narrator reliability or unreliability and historical gender issues, especially in relation to alleged memory loss. I originally wrote memory loss from trauma into my heroine’s character for There was Music; however, after considering feedback from writing group critique sessions, it was proving problematic both in believability (for readers anyway) and in perpetuating a sense of gender helplessness. I concluded that making Prisoner 43-1-12 fully cognizant of her actions, past and present, portrays a woman of greater agency.
[11] For example, in further developing Prisoner 43-1-12’s father, Siméon: on May 23, 2018, I note some statements that could come from him: “The Dryden means submission. The Dryden means fate.” This assertion and the following notes directly influenced the expansion of a particular scene in Part 1 of There was Music.
Soli Deo Gloria.