Writing Music Into Fiction Is One Challenge; Translating It Into Audio Is Another

When I began writing Descending Thirds, I wasn’t simply writing characters who happened to be musicians. I was writing a love story that could only exist through music. That distinction became the single greatest creative challenge of my life.

Set inside the elite world of classical piano competition, the novel follows Alexandra von Triessen and two extraordinary brothers—Sebastian, a dazzling “finger-proud” showman intoxicated by applause, and Conrad, a reclusive musical savant who composes with almost frightening emotional purity. Alexandra becomes emotionally and romantically entangled with both men, but it was her connection with Conrad that presented the greatest challenge on the page because Conrad and Alexandra often communicate through music rather than words.

At the heart of their relationship were scenes at two grand pianos positioned face-to-face, transforming performance into conversation. Their connection deepened not through exposition or dialogue, but through phrasing, restraint, trust. One introduced a melodic idea; the other answered. A pause became vulnerability. A variation became flirtation. A flourish became seduction. Music became the language of their courtship, until, as Alexandra reflects, "she was never quite certain where words had begun, and the music had left off." For a novelist, that presented a fascinating challenge: How do you write a love story in which the most important conversations are never actually spoken?

And then I was plagued with how to make deeply music-centric storytelling emotionally accessible to readers who may know absolutely nothing about classical music? That question haunted me constantly because I knew from the beginning, I did not want readers to feel excluded or intimidated. Technical expertise was never the point. I wasn’t interested in showing off musical knowledge or writing scenes that felt academically dense. I wanted readers—especially readers unfamiliar with classical music—to feel what Alexandra felt. Longing. Recognition. Danger. Transcendence.

I wanted them to understand how two people could fall in love while barely speaking at all.

While writing the novel, I often structured scenes the way I would structure film sequences as a director—through rhythm, silence, interruption, escalation, release. Music became the emotional architecture beneath the prose itself. Even sentence structure began mimicking musical movement. Long flowing passages mirrored seduction or obsession. Sharp fragmented sentences created rupture and tension.

And then came the audiobook adaptation. And suddenly everything became exponentially more complicated.

The first time I heard portions of the manuscript read aloud, I realized something essential was missing. On the page, readers imaginatively “hear” the music internally. Their minds fill in the emotional resonance. But in audio form, silence becomes literal. Moments built entirely around musical connection suddenly risked feeling emotionally incomplete.

Multi-award-winning narrator and audiobook producer (and dear friend!) Mary Jane Wells helped resolve this issue. Add music to the book. We knew a traditional audiobook approach would flatten something fundamental about the story itself. So, we began exploring whether it might actually be possible to incorporate music directly into the audiobook experience—not as decoration, but as emotional storytelling. That decision opened an entirely new creative labyrinth.

I discovered Naxos of America, Inc., a stock house for classical music. Working with their excellent licensing agent, Laura Annick, I began exploring their extraordinary catalog of classical recordings. For the first time, I could imagine listeners hearing fragments of the same pieces inspiring the emotional life of the novel. Tiny snippets of Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Chopin—musical breaths woven carefully into the narrative fabric.

But then a much larger problem emerged. What about the original compositions written by Sebastian and Conrad themselves? These fictional brothers had distinct musical voices throughout the novel. Sebastian’s work carried passion, seduction, theatricality. Conrad’s compositions were intimate, haunting, almost spiritually exposed. Readers needed to believe these pieces existed emotionally inside the world of the story.

Mary introduced me to composer Sally Bishop Melbourne, a brilliant UK-based musician who immediately understood what I was trying to accomplish emotionally. Sally began composing original piano works not merely inspired by the characters but written as though Sebastian and Conrad themselves had composed them.

It was one of the most creatively emotional experiences I’ve ever had. For the first time, imaginary music that had lived only inside my head while writing the novel became real sound in the world. And something unexpected happened. The audiobook stopped feeling like adaptation. It became expansion. And I still get goosebumps through certain passages where Sally’s music makes all the difference.

The challenge then became restraint. We quickly realized the music could not overwhelm the narration. It had to function almost like emotional oxygen—entering gently, disappearing before overstaying, allowing listeners to feel rather than simply observe. I began to understand something profound during the process:

Just as score in my films, music in storytelling behaves very much like emotion itself. It is associative. Fragmented. Personal. Difficult to fully explain logically.

That realization ultimately changed how I think about writing altogether. Writers often believe readers need information to connect. But I think readers are searching for emotional recognition. They want to feel something true before they fully understand it intellectually. That is what music does almost instantly. And perhaps that is why I fought so hard for the audiobook to preserve it even when it became a technical nightmare to produce.

I desperately wanted readers—especially those who may never have entered the world of classical music before—to experience even fleeting moments of its transformative power. To hear how a single unresolved phrase can ache like longing. How a melody can seduce. How harmony can feel like intimacy itself.

Because for Alexandra and Conrad, music is not performance. It is conversation. Foreplay. Love. Confession.

In the end, the audiobook became something even more personal than I anticipated. The inspiration for Descending Thirds began with my mother, Christa Hoven, a classical pianist and piano teacher whose life was devoted to music. Some of her own performances are woven throughout the audiobook, allowing her artistry to become part of the story that she helped inspire. Sadly, she passed two days after the audio-book’s release and only heard snippets. But I was so happy to have her spirit woven throughout the book.

As I listened to those pieces alongside the original compositions and my own beloved classical works that shaped the novel, I realized I had come full circle. My father bought my mother a new piano the day after I was born. Family lore holds that she placed me in my crib and sat down to play. Some of my earliest memories are of lying beneath her piano, listening as music filled the room and vibrated through the floorboards.

Long before I understood words, I understood music. It was my first language, my first storyteller, my first experience of beauty and emotion. Perhaps that is why music became the language of Alexandra and Conrad's love story as well. Just as the first communication I remember came through the sound of piano keys, their deepest conversations unfold not through words, but through music—where longing, intimacy, heartbreak, and love are expressed in ways language alone can never fully capture.

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