I’ve been making fantastic progress on revising Eververse Book 5 the last few weeks, so much I wanted to share some thoughts in general about the book, and where the Eververse series is going in general.
I found Charlie Jane Anders’ recent thoughts on David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas fascinating. The book’s unusual structure inspired me, as it has so many others, to push myself as a writer. I’ve been writing the fifth novel in my Eververse series for nearly four years now. The truth is, it’s really gone on since I first began writing the first book in 2016.
It was at that moment I knew the series would be nine books, with the fifth book this Russian doll amalgamation of Cloud Atlas and another personal favorite, The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Three stories, woven together, echoing off each other, and in my case, the entire series. This was an ambitious idea for a writer who at that point, was still discovering who he was as a person and an artist. But the idea stuck. Reading Charlie Jane’s piece helped me to understand why.
David Mitchell has been an enormous influence on me since I discovered him just after college. Right away, I reacted much the same way I did to Kelly Link, M. John Harrison, Samuel R. Delaney. Here is a literary writer using genre conventions, in which those conventions start to dissolve. I’d always been a bit of a mashup as a writer.
I was as much seeking the poetry of Seamus Heaney in my work as I was the pew-pew-pew of George Lucas. Somewhere in the middle of all that was the considered pulp of Chris Claremont. I pinged off Cloud Atlas exactly as I did The Hours. Here is a book I want to write, that can be written, but I want to write my version of it, with superheroes whose interior lives are as important as their external struggles.
The Eververse series features a daisy chain of narrators, not unlike Bridgerton, if you’re familiar with those. Book 5 returns to Kit Baldwin, the main character Ever The Hero, and the locus of the series. I’ve talked before about Eververse being nine books, but I’ve been vague on details. As I come to book five, with the rotating narrators coming back to Kit, I’m obligated I think to explain what the plan is. The series has a chiastic structure, with Kit the through line, and a cyclical nature which kicks in with book five. The series, SPOILERS, looks like this:
A: Ever The Hero (Kit)
B: The Judgment of Valene (Valene)
C: Nothing Ever Ends (Abi)
D: Black Market Heart (The Interdictor)
A: Book Five (Kit)
D: Book Six (The Interdictor)
C: Book Seven (Abi)
B: Book Eight (Valene)
A: Book Nine (Kit)
Some days, I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Other days, I still recall the inspiration, the heat coming off the pages of Cloud Atlas, and the fire in me to challenge myself to write the best book I could. These past few weeks, I’ve made real, purposeful progress. That’s thanks in part due to Charlie Jane’s insightful article, and touching back to Cloud Atlas. It’s been a long time since the initial spark.
You always benefit from touchstones in writing something as long and complicated as a novel. It’s easy to drift far from where you started. I think I’m getting where I need to be with the book. I can’t wait to share it, to hear what people think, and to continue the series.