Writing a book is no easy feat, but it is something you can do if you have an idea and set your mind to it. For myself, the journey to writing my first book was a long, meandering path that lead me to finally putting my thoughts on the electronic paper. As I tend to do, this is a story that is long and full of details that aren't useful, but I'll include them anyway - because it wouldn't be me if I didn't.
To find the genesis of The Knights of Nine, first we must venture back to eight grade writing class, and my mother's favorite soap opera, General Hospital. Now, growing up I was never what you would call an avid reader, nor was I well versed in some of the more popular series. In fact, the only times I ever read were when I was required to by my teachers. It wasn't until seventh grade that I had heard of, "The Hobbit", when a classmate of mine had read it for his free choice book. This was before the internet had taken off for me, and thus my recommendations for books were whatever was available or told me.
For me, the fantastical stories came from television and movies. I watched more T.V. and HBO than a child probably should, but it helped build the foundation for the kinds of stories I would go on to love: ones with magic and knights, heroes and villains. In eighth grade, I had finally read the Hobbit, the first book that I had chosen to read on my own in maybe forever, and was completely entranced with the idea of building another world. That same year, it was writing class that would start me down the road that would eventually lead me to my first book. In the class, we were required each trimester to write twenty different 150 word essays or stories. At the beginning of each trimester we would be given a list of prompts with which to write from, and were also given the ability to have five open ended stories of our choosing. In addition, each trimester we were to have a single 1,000-word piece written.
I had taken to the idea of using all five of my free prompts and final 1,000 word piece for a story that was developing in my head. It would take place on a space ship prison, that overlooked this planet that was half vegetation and half machine. A character, Jasper Jax (named after a character in my mother's soap opera), was stuck in a cell, with a single window to view the planet below, and bars made of lasers stopping his escape. He exposits about the planet, the state it is in (I believe there was some fight between technology and non-technology, with five elements being the McGuffin of the story), and suddenly hears a voice from the cell next to him. It's a new character, whose name I forget, talking about how to escape to the planet. All of a sudden, the ship is rocked by a hit of some kind, and the lasers that kept the prisoners within go out.
That story served as the kernel of the idea that would blossom one day into TKOK, my main character meeting another character in a jail cell. I had that single scene and Jasper Jax (whose name would change through many iterations until it landed on Oliver).
High School came and went by with not much more than a fleeting idea of the story I had written in eighth grade. Yet, no matter how much time had passed, the idea of Jasper and meeting someone as a prison in a cell stuck with me. Then, senior year of high school, as this character floated around in my head, I saw a flyer for the start of a creative writing club. The first meeting was to happen and you needed to bring a sample of writing to share with the group.
That night, I sat down and furiously wrote a three-page scene, now taking place in a sandstone-desert like city. I had recently been playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, and was in love with the idea of a second voice in my character's head, one that had agency but also wasn't necessarily helpful. Jasper in this story was remembering a time when he was traveling with his family in the city, and was kidnapped, only to be snapped back into focus with a soldier in front of him, and a voice in his head urging to strike the killing blow. It was the only meeting of the creative writing club, but it spurred more thought into my character, and now I couldn't do anything more than think about him - and who he could become.
Off to college I went, with a dream of becoming an accountant, and of building my world. I discovered Microsoft OneNote, and was instantly hooked by how easy it was to use. I was always a faster typer than hand writer, and the program reacted just as a true notebook in real life might. The first "notebook" I created on it was called "book notes", and on the first tab, titled "Main Characters", I wrote down the specs for Mordykhai (Jasper's new name). As if I was building out a character for an RPG game, I gave him physical attributes, magical attributes, personality attributes, motives, weapons - anything I could think of. Soon, I had tabs of notes, ranging from ideas I would have, to things I would learn in school, to interesting quotes I liked.
I knew I wanted a sword and shield adventure. Star Wars was my bible, but I didn't feel as though I could go into Sci-Fi with a clear head. One of my favorite movies was A Knights Tale, and I thought, "If I could capture the tone of that movie, current juxtaposed with medieval, then I could be in a world I truly enjoyed being in." So, I kept thinking about my world, my characters. Soon I realized that I wanted more than one character, so two more arrived. As I began building those characters, I realized I wanted them to be as different as they could from Mordykhai, and to be their own beings. I didn't want "The Adventures of Mordykhai and his friend", but rather I wanted them to be full and rich and their own beings, not just a support for my main character.
In doing so, I realized that people would gravitate towards different characters based on how they identified with them. Seeing this, I decided I wanted more characters, each unique and qualified enough to carry their own story. Don't like Mordykhai? That's okay, we've got Character B for you. Hate Character C? So does Character G, so you're not alone. Each character became their own, and in doing so, my planned trilogy started to expand. At first I had six, and then nine.
I wondered how I could accurately portray this large ensemble without reverting to the basic notion that Mordykhai was the main character. The answer, was born out of a randomness of thought: Each book would dedicate the first half / part to that single character. I would achieve this in a first-person narrator, and then the second part of the book would switch to a more classic third person narrator. Thus, the idea of reliving previous events and timelines through the eyes of a new character was created.
Fast forward to post college life. I'd spent all of college and six years after writing notes, ideas for scenes, magic systems, and all the while playing out different moments in my head. I began to describe the entire series in detail to my friends, and it was one night at the cheesecake factory that finally pushed me over the edge.
I had gotten dinner with my best friend Paige, and spent 45 minutes telling her all about my first book, and the rest of the series - who the characters were, how they related, what their motives were, how it would all work. After I was done, she said in the most serious of tones, "You need to write this book." I emphatically agreed with her, enjoying the feeling that someone was as excited as I was about my story. But she didn't stop, and pushed for an even more serious tone, "No, like, you need to write this book."
It was a push she knew I would need, given that I tended to have big dreams but never follow through with them. And to be fair, I didn't. I kept taking my notes, I kept playing different scenes in my head, and I kept not writing the story.
Because to be frank, I had no idea how I wanted to start. I knew the story I wanted to tell, the bones at least of the first book - but as for the rest of the organs that make up a body - I had no idea what I was going to do.
I was at her house for the 4th of July, watching GLOW on Netflix while we waited for her husband to get out of work. We finished an episode and she turned the T.V. off and said, "Okay, now we're going to write for thirty minutes." I was all for it, but the thought of actually starting was overwhelming. We sat in silence, each on our laptops beginning to write our individual books, when suddenly I just started. A simple scene of waking up in bed and I was off. Oliver (Mordykhai's name had changed to it's final version), was getting ready for his first day of school. I followed him through his house, I met his family, I met his friends, he showed me around his City - and the entire time I had no idea what would happen next. It was as if I was watching a movie, and just following along with the characters.
Soon, things I had never dreamt of before sprang up, including Yokel and Po. I finished my first two scenes, and realized that was how I wanted to format the chapters - into three seemingly connected scenes. Like watching an episode on your T.V. Soon, the floodgates were open, and I was spending every evening and any weekend I had free working on my book. I went away to my friend's lake house for a writing retreat, had Paige read the chapters as soon as I finished, and talked out plotlines and character arcs.
This point in my life was one of the lower ones. I was in a rut, a little bit lost and a little bit sad. But in that sadness and malaise, I found my book. I poured my energy and time into it, and it truly helped get me through a period where I was losing myself.
I finished my book in three months (I spent all of July and August, took September off, and finished in October). It clocked in at 189k words, after first edits. I emptied my soul and let it all filter onto the page - and I fell in love with the world I had created.
And then I took some time off from it. Taking a step back let me see the forest through the trees (and allowed some of my friends to read it and give edits). Five months later, I picked up those edits, and the thoughts I had had about my book, and began to revise it - into version two.
The Lightning Knight is a classic heroes journey, mixed with a bit of teenage romance, set in a super interesting sword and shield world. Every time I dive back into it, I realize just how much I love it, the characters, the arcs, and even more - the future. This book took over 10 years to finally come to life, more if you count the seeds from when I was in middle school. Oliver is so special a character to me, and has helped me so much over the years. I hope he and his world can do the same for others.
-Sean