I have written multiple different versions of a “summary” of Song of Elysia (previously just “Project: Elysia,” in search of a title), Arc I, over the past two weeks. I’ve scrapped them all, rewrote them, and scrapped them again. I wanted to give you, the reader, something to remind you of the story, to help ease you back into it after (checks calendar) seven months, give or take a few weeks. Arc II is upon us! The story continues!
But… well, we’re not going to do a story summary. There will be no beat-by-beat recap of Arc I here. No summary could ever serve as a replacement for actually reading the story itself, and it also just kinda bums me out to write up a detail-deficient version of the story I already wrote. Summaries are primarily concerned with recapping the plot, and when it comes to writing, I’m really not about plot all that much. It’s a sequence of events. What’s happening in that sequence of events, who’s involved, what are the themes and values of the story, what’s the soul of it? That’s what I’m really concerned with. So. No summary. No recap.
I just want to talk about Song of Elysia — its history, mostly. Where the heck did this all come from, how did it go from idea to actual story that you’ve now read the first Arc of? This fantasy tale inspired by both Arthurian myth and Alice in Wonderland (my initial document of ideas as I started coming up with this story is just titled “Wonderland Camelot”) has been kicking around in my head for years. I don’t know exactly when I first came up with the idea — and the initial vague concept is very far removed from what the story has become — but a question comes to mind already, doesn’t it: Why the heck did you want to do a story that combines Arthurian myth and Alice in Wonderland?
Well, I love Arthurian myth. And I love Alice in Wonderland.
But that really doesn’t answer the question.
I didn’t sit down one day and ask myself, “What existing stories would be cool to draw inspiration from?” or “What classic tales or myths should I combine together to make a cool story?” It just struck me like a lightning bolt — King Arthur and Wonderland — and I started throwing together ideas. Ideas that really had nothing to do with the “source material” inspiration, but that’s how true inspiration works. It uses the inspiration as a launch pad into a whole new, unique world and story, something new, something you’ve never seen before.
The initial scene in the “Prelude” chapter, of Tobias coming to Alice’s mansion and meeting her, I first wrote about four years ago. It’s been tinkered with and edited plenty since then, but the general setup: A Knight dressed in black, with an adorable dog by his side, comes up to a mansion, is admitted by a “Mister Carroll,” and is introduced to Alice, who is hiring him as her Knight-Protector to take her to Wonderia. That’s where it all started: Tobias and Alice. In a world with swords and magic, but also cars and trains, a world with magical doors that transport you between realms (that particular image has been a fascination of mine since high school. One of the first full-length novels I ever wrote (unpublished) featured a door that transported the main characters from Earth to a magical world. And you might recall a certain Locksmith from Greysons, as well). A world full of wonder and mystery, ripe with potential, but largely undiscovered. A tiny little kernel of an idea, forming in my brain, as I put the majority of my focus into Greysons of Grimoire.
It’s interesting to see where it started, and how the opening scene hasn’t really changed much. And yet from that opening scene, there was a huge “What now, Tpaul?” hanging over my head. So for years I’ve been jotting down every crazy idea that came to mind, asking questions, exploring the possibilities of this story, and coming up with characters. Because characters, of course, are the core of any great story.
Guinevere was easily the next major character conceived of. If we’re pulling from Arthurian myth, we ought to have a Guinevere, after all! And then there should be an Arthur (Artorius in this tale), too — but let’s complicate things. Guinevere and Artorius are the Promised Queen and King, promised to restore Elysia and bring about a new golden age. But Artorius was assassinated years ago — or so the world believes. Guinevere believes he’s still alive. The full details of her character — her rich childhood friendship with Artorius, her complicated relationship with her own parents and really seeing Artorius’ parents as her own, being under house arrest for her own protection and beginning the story by staging a daring escape — would take a while to crystallize. But her faithful canine companion, the calm and loving Ava, was there with her from the start. It only seemed right that two of the first major characters conceived of should have dogs by their side. Alice didn’t — but then, she and Tobias were going to be linked as a pair from the very start. So, by extension, she also had Flynn. And she’s formed quite a lovely friendship with him in the story so far, hasn’t she?
And of course there wasn’t a question of whether or not there would be dogs. Tobias and Flynn were basically invented at the very same moment, an inseparable pair. A boy and his dog. Does it get any better than that? I just… love dogs, so much. Now I get to write about them all the time! And these dogs are extra-special, super-intelligent, living longer than normal dogs, basically dream dogs. It doesn’t get better than Flynn and Ava (but don’t tell my favorite real-life dogs I said that!).
Next into the story came Roland. It took me years to come up with his name, though. For at least two years, he was always labeled in my notes as “Summoner.” Because right from the start, I knew I wanted a Summoner, and a Summoner’s journey. This comes from my love of classic video game role-playing games, in particular Tales of Symphonia. The “Summoner’s Journey” (which is kind of the secondary story in Symphonia) is a story concept I really love. But while Roland didn’t have a name, I knew that I wanted him to be older than the leads I’d come up with so far. Tobias and Guinevere were both twenty-five; Alice was ten or younger (I’m still not sure her exact age, but it’s somewhere in the realm of eight, nine, or ten). Roland, I decided, would be in his thirties. Part of that is because I’m a bit annoyed about modern media’s obsession with youth, and the seemingly quite prevalent idea that past thirty (to some people as early as twenty!) is “old.” Ridiculous. Roland’s thirty-four, but he’s young, as Enrique (a child) notes when Roland’s quite out of breath after a run, “You’re too young to struggle with such a short run.” And it’s true! But Roland’s got a respiratory condition.
That might have been inspired by my own history, having been born with a hole in my heart, and having surgery to patch it when I was one year old. I really don’t know. But I have always felt a kinship with Roland. He’s something of an intellectual, but with the soul of an artist, a lover of music and history and technology in equal measure. He has a full time job, but he’d rather spend his time on personal projects and personal research than the work he’s actually paid to do. He’s a loner, an introvert, a rather isolated boy (calling a thirty-four year-old a “boy,” what the heck). But when push comes to shove, he’ll always help someone in need. Case in point: when the twins, Erika and Enrique, complete strangers, are threatened by masked men, Roland doesn’t hesitate to leap to their aid. And thus a partnership was born.
And look at that! The next characters that were invented for the story were the twins. They were always a pair, always a boy and a girl, always blondies. They were always “mysterious,” as they were initially labeled in my notes: “The Mysterious Twins.” They were always children, like Alice. And through them, a major piece of this story and its world was born. Because they were on a mission to chronicle the wishes of the world, and take them to Elysia. I wasn’t sure about their parents, or about their masked hunters, revealed in the final chapter of Arc I to go by the name “Reunion,” or the whole story behind that (stay tuned for Arc II! We’re going to be learning quite a lot about this side of the story). But I knew these twins needed to reach Elysia with the wishes of the world, and that was enough.
Because that was when the ideas for this story, for a while, became more about places than people. I knew we had a Wonderia (my version of Wonderland for this story was always called Wonderia). I knew we had an Albia (which was a name that took a lot longer to come up with than Wonderia), where many of our characters came from. And now we had Elysia. Three realms. Something had clicked, with that number, and with those details. We had a bit more of a story. Our characters, all of them, were departing from Albia, to journey across Wonderia, in search of Elysia. Everyone would have a wish they desperately yearned to have granted.
A story was born.
After that, all sorts of things began to happen. What was a perhaps ten, fifteen page document ballooned to over sixty pages, throwing all sorts of ideas out into the ether, seeing what clicked. Many of the scenes and story arcs I thought up will, ultimately, not come to pass. But even three years ago, with barely half a chapter of the actual story written, I’d already come up with a number of scenes and key moments and reveals from much later in the story. I didn’t have a villain, yet — only vague ideas, various concepts, none of which felt quite right, and definitely none of which were fully-formed. Except for one:
The Queen of Hearts.
Saoirse leapt into my mind in vivid color from very early on. She and White, her rabbit adviser, were instantly set to contend with Tobias, Alice, and Guinevere. I’d never had a villain like her, and I was so excited to bring her arrogance, her composure, her wicked charm, and her obsessive desire for Tobias onto the page. And, well, that’s a hint right there: if you think we’d seen the last of Saoirse at the end of Arc I, think again. She’s not going to go down quite so easily. (“Easily?” asks the more reasonable side of Tpaul. “The heroes had to face their nightmares, fears, and painful memories inside the Mirror, and bring down her entire palace on top of her to defeat her! You call that easy?!?”)
And we come back to characters. Because I sure did come up with a gigantic cast of characters. I very quickly realized that Tobias, Alice, Guinevere, and Roland would not be spending the early portions of the story all together. Tobias and Alice were stuck with each other. It just made sense for Guinevere to join up with them (entirely by accident, of course). But Roland and the twins? They had a different part to play, a different journey to walk. So we came up with: Teams!
Internally, I have always referred to the two groups of characters as “Team Alice” and “Team Roland.” (Guinevere’s off to the side wondering why her Team isn’t “Team Guinevere”) And boy howdy, those Teams sure were a lot bigger in my notes. I was throwing a million character ideas (not literally a million) into the list, thinking of all the exciting stories we could explore with each of them, all the amazing depth and meaning they could bring to the story. Many, many of those characters just aren’t going to come to life in this story.
But there were some who rose to the top. Who endured the constant cuts and alterations to say “We belong here, and we’re not leaving!”
Enter Sheena, Tsubasa, and Muirrach. Or, as they were known as in the earliest of notes:
Sword Dancer, Tonfa, and BIL.
Let me explain.
Well, I guess I don’t need to explain “Sword Dancer.” Sheena is a Sword Dancer from Haruo. Easy. And really, her whole character — her reserved, steady demeanor, with the deep ache over her brother’s fate hidden underneath, along with her amazing swordsmanship — have been the same from day one. She was “crystallized” from the start; a character fully-formed, right out of the gate. It’s so fun when that happens. And Akko, her lovable bunny-eared squirrel-creature, was also with her from the start. He’s so cute.
“Tonfa” is, of course, the tonfa-wielding Tsubasa (tonfas are so cool! Almost as cool as swords). She was also largely crystallized from the start: a sunny, bubbly, optimistic martial artist leaping onto the screen and pummeling the bad guys with spunk and gusto. She makes such a great, dramatic entrance into the story! It took a while to settle on a name for her, but “Tsubasa,” which means “wings” in Japanese, just clicked. She leaps, she soars, both physically in her fighting style, and emotionally in her uplifting personality. She’s an instant hit with Erika and with Roland (Enrique takes some time to warm up to her. But he is, understandably and to his credit, cautious of strangers and protective of his sister).
“Okay, but,” I hear you ask, “who the heck is ‘BIL’?!?”
Well, BIL is an acronym. For “Brother In Law.”
Yup. Poor Muirrach, Alystair’s brother-in-law, was, for almost three years, called “BIL.” In pages and pages and pages (and pages) of notes, Roland, the twins, and Tonfa (eventually Tsubasa) are accompanied by the older, somewhat grumpier, but wise and dependable…
BIL.
Oof. Sorry, Muirrach. In fact, it took me so long to come up with a name for him, I actually delayed his actual true introduction in the story by another two weeks — another two chapters — to give myself a bit more time to figure out what the heck his name was. That’s right — I didn’t know the frog-man’s name until I ran out of time, and had to finally write Chapter 11: Four Becomes Five (notice how the previous Team Roland chapter ends just as we knock on the door — conveniently the absolute last possible place to cut before actually introducing Muirrach). The bill (pun fully intended) came due. The deadline had arrived. A name needed to be found.
And so, I made one up. I came up with Alystair, Roland’s Teacher, and Eilidh, Alystair’s sister, by looking up Irish baby names (seriously, looking up baby names is such a useful resource for coming up with character names). But nothing I looked up really clicked for poor old BIL. So finally, I decided we’d come up with an Irish-looking name. Muirrach was written, a name was given, and the sad moniker of “BIL” could finally be retired.
Why Irish names, though? What’s the inspiration there?
Well, we can sidetrack from characters for a bit to talk about setting. Because one thing I’ve been intentional, and excited, about is giving each place within this world its own distinct identity. You may have noticed the narration and characters’ internal thoughts occasionally remarking on other characters’ accents. And while you certainly have imagined characters talking in any sorts of accents you wanted (and are still welcome to do so — don’t let me rain on your parade!), this has all come from an intentional set of ideas in my head. So, here’s a peek behind the curtain.
Ars Moran, capital of the Leucen Kingdom, where Guinevere, Alice, and Roland come from, is styled after London. Steampunk-ish fantasy London, but yeah. Guinevere, Alice, and Roland are English (not literally, of course)! Think posh, upper-class English accents and you’re not far off the mark. Tobias and Tsubasa hail from Westgard and the Cyril Republic, respectively, and both of those distant nations run with a variety of American accents. For Tsubasa, think the most neutral American accent possible. She’s not from Minnesota, or from Brooklyn, she’s not rocking a southern drawl or spouting any y’alls. As for Tobias, Alice certainly is intrigued by his accent in the Prelude chapter. Because while he says he comes from Westgard, she hears a bit of a Wonderian lilt and r-rolling here and there in his accent, among other subtleties. He’s quite the mystery.
Which brings us to Wonderian accents! Many of the naming conventions throughout Wonderia, of places and peoples, come from Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Saoirse is a beautiful Irish name, and like a number of Irish names, can be confounding for Americans to try and say. So, if you’ve been mystified by it’s pronunciation, be mystified no longer: it’s pronounced “Sur-shuh.” It means freedom, which just fit for the Queen of Hearts, which may sound odd considering who and how she is, but if you think about it, what is she about? Not being controlled by others, but being the one in control: being free. It’s a very twisted idea of freedom, but that fits our Queen of Hearts to a T. And so much of Wonderia itself is inspired by Irish and Scottish language, and so the accents throughout there come from that. Saoirse has an Irish accent, while White’s “Northern Wonderian brogue” is akin to Scottish. He’s a Scottish rabbit. How fun! Muirrach, Eilidh, and Alystair speak with Irish accents as well.
But all this talk of accents can feel… odd, right? Maybe not to everyone. But I do think it’s easy for people to make fun of accents that aren’t their own, or to be exoticize other accents in uncomfortable ways. I really have a fascination with accents, but that’s also a fascination with language, and it all stems from me just loving how people communicate with each other. Loving the ways we communicate, being very interested in the ways we interact with each other. And I love that there are so many different ways for us to talk to one another, to relate to one another, to communicate. I love that we don’t all have the same accents, the same ways of speaking, because it really speaks to how all of us are unique. When you think about accents, don’t just jump to the stereotypes. Think about how much nuance there is in an accent. English accents, have variance, not every person in London talks the same, from queen to copper to farmer, you find so many different speech mannerisms and nuances. Even in more regionally specific accents, like Irish or Scottish, there is plenty of variance and nuance there, too. Not everyone in Ireland talks exactly the same. Nor everyone in Scotland, or England, or even jolly ol’ London. I live in a small town in Indiana, working at our local high school, and I run into all kinds of different nuances in accents every day just in our 1400 students. Look across the vast United States, and you’ll find hundreds of different ways people talk.
So, uh… yeah, I got a bit carried away with all of that, but I just… I really love to think about and talk about the ways in which we communicate with each other. Writing’s part of that — and it’s something I love about writing, and about reading other people’s writing, because wow, so many people can communicate the same ideas in wildly different ways. It’s fascinating! And it’s enriching, too, to be exposed to so many different ways of writing, of speaking, of interacting with each other. I think accents, when you cast aside stereotyping or making fun (which is rude) and really listen, it broadens our perspectives. It shows us just how much more there is to the world than just our own little place in it.
This tangent went on longer than I’d planned. But that can bring us right back to the story we’re talking about, because remember how I said I felt a bit of a kinship with Roland? Yeah, some of his chapters go off on little tangents here and there, focusing in on his own fascinations. And he has a similar idealism about peoples and varying cultures and places of origin and all that.
So. Song of Elysia. To wrap up this little trip down memory lane, this reflection about how the story you’ve been reading (and hopefully will continue to read), I want to touch on that title. Because music is such a core element of this story — and that was a late realization as I was starting to really finalize some choices and put the first story Arc into motion as the web novel to follow Greysons.
I love music. I think that massively undersells it — but for those of you who also love music, I think you understand. For some of us, music just lives in us. It has this place in our hearts, in our souls, it drives us, delights us, motivates us, inspires us, speaks to us in ways that words can’t, that other forms of communication or expression don’t. It translates emotion in a language of its own, it tells stories that no other medium can tell, it transports us to places we could never visit physically.
Music is magic.
That was touched on a bit here and there in Greysons. In Song of Elysia, it is the truth of this world. Tobias and Guinevere’s swords have musical scores and lyrics engraved along their blades. Tobias and Sheena both talked about and wielded various “resonances” or “harmonics” when fighting against Saoirse’s mechanical card soldiers — they literally used music as a weapon. Muirrach defeated a whole huge squad of masked Reunion soldiers just by singing a powerful song. Each of the Fantasians Roland has formed a Pact with have their own unique song, and speak to Roland by singing, and Roland calls upon their magics with specific songs. Ninian speaks True Elysian, a language that can only truly be “spoken” by singing. And when sung, all that is sung is always true.
Music lives at the heart of this world and this story. Masters of their trade are called Maestros. The Songbirds fought with Song at the Fracturing of the realms. The Hymn of Discord Fractured the world — a song alone broke the world asunder. The “Bible” of this world is the Canticos, a collection of Songs that both tell the history of the world and prophesy of its future. Crystals are used to power technology and magical implements, and these all have various resonances or tones — sound, music — that embodies their power.
Music is magic. And this story, how I express this tale, it’s the written word, these stories don’t have an auditory component, so they can only capture that heart of the story, that magical wonder woven throughout this tale, so much. But to write a book is to open up a conversation, to create a relationship: between the story and the reader. The story isn’t just what’s written on the page. It’s what comes to life in your mind and your heart, in how your imagination responds to what’s written. You, dear reader, bring this story, this song, to life.
A story isn’t fully born until it is read. A song isn’t fully sung until it is heard.
So, I hope you’ll continue on this journey with me. And with Alice, Tobias, Guinevere, Sheena, Roland, Erika, Enrique, Tsubasa, Muirrach, and all the rest…
To Elysia.