Fan Fiction Frenzy

In 2007, I saw and fell in love with the 2007 film August Rush starring Freddie Highmore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, and Robin Williams. With a cast like that, you know the story will be good.

Critics were critics and I think there are a lot of things wrong with the film; but when you're in love, you don't focus on the flaws, only the positives.

August Rush is a mixture of things: First, it's a story of a boy who believes that the music he hears and plays and creates will help him find his parents who he has never met, having been given up for adoption at birth. Second, it's a story of two strangers with a deep connection to music meeting for one night before being separated for over a decade and pushing music away. It's only when they start accepting music into their lives again that they move closer towards each other and closer towards their son, who they don't actually know is alive for most of the film.

My favourite part about this film is the developing relationship between the characters of Louis (Meyers) and Lyla (Russell), which we don't actually get to see all that much since the major point of the story is a kid trying to find his parents. The result is that, by the end of the film, we're left wanting more. What happens when they reunite? How does their meeting with August/Evan (Highmore) go? What are their lives like afterwards?

And I'm not the only one who wondered these things. If you explore the August Rush section of fanfiction.net or archiveofourown.org, most of the stories look at the subsequent relationship between Louis and Lyla.

Eventually, I saw the film enough times and read enough interpretations that just didn't match my own ideas, that I decided to start writing my own story about what happened after. What started off as an idea for writing bits and pieces of their life together soon turned into this unexpected saga that followed 50 years of marriage between the two romantic leads.

According to the story's stats, which I titled Much More Than Life after a line in John Legend's "Someday" from the August Rush soundtrack, I first published the story in December 2015. I published the last chapter in March of this year.

When I began writing, it ended like most of my other stories—I was interested for a while, but then that interest disappeared into the abyss. So it was strange that around June 2018, I began writing again (after seeing the film once more). I had completed up to chapter six my first go-around, and then wrote daily during my second go-around until it all totalled 50 chapters and over 200,000 words (not including the stuff I wrote and didn't publish).

It's worth noting that this is fan fiction and is nothing close to the style of a novel, but it was my chance to practice my writing skills and develop these characters who I had really adored.

But it turned into much more.

These characters gained backgrounds and birth dates, they gained hopes for the future and new children, and they gained qualities in their personality that weren't shown in the film. And even more so, characters beyond Louis and Lyla started to develop and come to life. Louis' brother Marshall, for example, quickly became my favourite character, which was completely unexpected. His story introduced a new character named Maya, and a child named Mateo. All with individual personalities and histories and tragedies.

This thing that started off with small ideas morphed into something where I could tell you whether the moon was out in New York on July 8, 2008 or what the names of Louis and Lyla's grandchildren were or what the less savoury neighbourhoods of Cork, Ireland are because I researched and planned it all, even things that didn't come up in the story.

I learned that if I really enjoyed what I was writing, I'd want to do it daily. I learned that I could complete a story if I was disciplined. I learned that I'm capable of writing so much more than I ever thought possible.

A lot of people dismiss fan fiction as lazy, but it's an excellent tool to develop writing skills and characters with a purpose already set in motion.

With August Rush having such a small fandom, I was also able to focus on taking the story where I thought it needed to go, which, I think, kept me from feeling limited and catering to the masses. Whenever I did get a review or message, it was always positive as well, which inspired me to keep at it.

I grew more confident in the written word and believe that if I can develop this frenzied work filled with so many different characters, I can probably do even more with my own ideas and my own characters.