Beneath
Beneath
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Ariel Sullivan on Beneath
In their own words: quotes and insights from the author.Why they wrote it
The character who stomped in uninvitedSullivan didn’t set out to write a second book. They were mapping the historical underpinnings of the world in ‘Conform’, their debut novel and the first entry in a nine-book series, when a character arrived without an invitation and refused to leave. That night ended with a burned dinner, a pizza order, and rough outlines for three books.
I was working on world-building and writing about why things were the way they were. Sasha showed up. She just stomped into the picture and sat down.
Sullivan has described ‘Conform’ as a book written during postpartum depression and COVID isolation: a way out, constructed while they were still inside. ‘Beneath’ drew on what they found once they stopped climbing.
Conform was the ladder I built myself to get out of my depression. It was the light at the end of the tunnel — hope. Beneath, on the other hand, was all the things I found in that depression — giving them a home in that book will forever be one of the most vulnerable and heavy writing experiences of my life.
That distinction between the two books, one built for escape and one built to house what was left behind, shapes everything about how ‘Beneath’ reads against its predecessor.
How they wrote it
Structure inherited, grief encodedWriting ‘Conform’ meant constructing a universe that would need to sustain nine books and three separate trilogies. By the time Sullivan turned to ‘Beneath’, that years-long labor had already laid the rails.
Conform was such an expansive experience because I was creating the entire universe in which all three of these trilogies live. The amount of time and mapping that went into writing Conform led to a much smoother writing process for Beneath. Beneath had to fit within the guidelines of the timeline and the universe. It had structure from the beginning.
The novel’s central team, Unit Seven, an elite group whose composition readers encounter gradually, carries a hidden architecture that Sullivan built in deliberately. They have confirmed the design exists and said they plan to release the full key, though they hadn’t done so at the time of the interview.
You’ve got shock and denial and anger and bargaining and acceptance. It’ll be interesting if readers can find out which characters are what.
Sullivan has named the dual-timeline structure, in which the novel moves between past and present to let each thread reframe the other, as the part of the project they found most satisfying to execute.
My favorite part of writing Beneath was tying the two timelines together for the reader. Executing on that idea was such a fun experience.
The personal thread
The observer who collects other people’s storiesSullivan grew up as a military child, moving every two years, and credits that itinerant childhood with forming how they see people: always on the outside, watching rather than belonging. This observation, made during a conversation about ‘Conform’, applies equally to how they write characters in ‘Beneath’.
I think being an observer is lonely but also very interesting ‘cause you are surrounded by so many different stories. [paraphrased from audio]
Sullivan does not treat a warning about the future as an abstract gesture. They locate it in a specific method, one that connects to their interest in writing prequels and in building the historical layer of a world before its present crisis arrives.
I’m a firm believer that if you want to warn someone about the future, the past is always a good place to start.
What they want us to sit with
The coin’s corroded sideSullivan is precise about what ‘Beneath’ is actually about beneath its dystopian architecture: not political systems or worldbuilding mechanics, but the force that makes characters act in ways those systems can’t contain.
At Beneath’s core, it is a story about the depth of love in all facets and the lengths we go to when it’s threatened or taken from us.
For readers who finished ‘Conform’ first, Sullivan has a specific warning: the tonal and emotional contract of the first book does not carry over. The two novels share a world and a timeline but occupy opposite ends of it.
‘Conform’ and ‘Beneath’ trilogies are the same coin, different sides. ‘Conform’ is that shiny side. ‘Beneath’ is hidden and corroded. It’s emotional and character-driven. It’s darker. It’s grittier. So anything that you expected from ‘Conform,’ don’t expect it in ‘Beneath.’
The relationship runs in both directions. Sullivan has said that once a reader finishes ‘Beneath’, ‘Conform’ will never read the same, meaning the prequel retroactively rewrites the original rather than simply expanding it.