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The Architecture of Sound
Morichard Swift writes by ear. Every sentence is shaped aloud before it reaches the page, refined until it can stand without explanation. The work is built through sound: alliteration creates structural momentum, internal rhyme marks emotional territory, and silence carries as much weight as speech.
The prose moves between tonal registers within single scenes. Philosophical meditation turns to biological slapstick without transition or apology. This is compositional method: Swift writes the way dreams unfold and children think, where melancholy and chaos occupy the same moment, wisdom arrives through absurdity, and tone pivots on a breath. The shifts are the architecture.
Language is compressed, never sparse. Elliptical constructions eliminate unnecessary scaffolding. Descriptions work through rhythm and repetition rather than elaboration. Where most prose explains, Swift's enacts.
Characters speak in distinct registers – military formality, archaic courtesy, breathless enthusiasm, laconic understatement – each voice calibrated through cadence. These are not stylistic ornaments but characterization through sound.
Humour arises where biological observation meets absurd situation. The comedy follows the logic of how creatures behave, which makes even the ridiculous credible. Magic follows rules; behaviour follows nature.
This is literature made for rereading across decades. A child hears adventure and comedy. An adult reading aloud hears what the child will understand later: the loneliness of survival, dignity preserved through diminishment, a mother's love in the shape of a tear, enchantment that captures through desire rather than force. Nothing is explained because everything is shaped to be heard.
The work finds lineage in specific qualities: Tove Jansson's emotional precision without sentimentality, Ursula K. Le Guin's philosophical clarity embedded in action, Peter S. Beagle's lyrical melancholy, Alan Garner's refusal to simplify for young readers, and Terry Pratchett's marriage of absurdity with moral seriousness.
Swift works without haste or compromise. The prose answers to no category and follows no commercial expectation. This is not a departure from tradition but an evolution of its internal mechanics, reclaiming the musical intelligence once inherent to children's classics and transforming it into compositional logic. Where traditional fantasy externalised wonder through world-building, Swift internalises it through rhythm and tone. The prose becomes performative, self-resonant, and alive. Sound itself is the locus of magic.
Follow the making of The Forest
Subscribe to the newsletter to receive regular updates and rare story fragments as The Forest grows. The first book, The Play of Dreams, begins its journey on Kickstarter September 15, 2026.
Excerpt from The Play of Dreams
Arrival and reconnaissance
“Ha, did you see that dog with the funny hat? Aah, those roasted almonds smell delicious! Yes, yes, yes, I want to throw acorns, too! No way, how did the duck do that? Scary – a nasty blackbug almost got me! Oh, let’s paint face furs, Henry! Wait, I don’t believe it, it’s a waterslide!”
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“Oh,” said Henry.
“Could we glue them together for permanent equilibrium?” proposed Sylvia, flagrantly failing to disguise her rush as a stroll, in a futile effort to catch up with her daughter.
“Tighter than this?” responded Harriet with a light laugh that shifted into a short sigh and finally found its true shape in a lingering smile.
They had arrived at the leaning field by the lake near noon. Given the barking, bellowing, bleating, chattering, cooing, croaking, drumming, growling, hissing, hooting, roaring, screeching, snarling, snorting, snuffling, squawking, squealing, squeaking, tapping, thumping, trilling and, last but not least, whistling, they were not alone. In fact, any betting badger would put approximately half the forest in attendance.
The Wayward Wonders consisted of a myriad of small islands of delight in a seemingly endless archipelago of astonishment. Bountiful bellies courtesy of a brisk luncheon, extensive exploration had begun. Cruising as wind and whimsy took them, the hedgehog and squirrel miniature armada visited one treasure island after the other, the two smaller ships towing and tugging, the two larger obediently trailing behind, trying to project a semblance of serenity.
Henry had just stepped over a rallying of wrestling snakes – as far as he could tell not part of the regular entertainment, though the overly enthusiastic and quickly growing crowd predicted solid potential – when a shouted whisper reached his ear:
“Sergeant Hedgehog! Squire Squirrel! Silent and speedily, scamper hither!”
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The Knight Commander
Thither they scampered. A horned beetle, middle-aged and military-mannered, they met, perched atop a pole near a purple tent. Introduction already prepared and perfected, he proceeded forthwith:
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“I be Knight Commander Carapasse; battle-scarred beetle, veteran of more wearisome wars than even my mother and my elder, decidedly delirious – may-he-one-day-be-cured – brother, and decently canny but curiously cross-eyed crusader.”
His voice was raspy, as if dried out by endless dusty sand under an ever-present desert sun; his salute, front leg to horn tip, twice, solemn, serious and slightly sad.
“Beaten, bruised and buckled, but – to fellow soldiers, trusty allies, and, may hope never falter, potential friends – at your immediate disposal.”
“Did he say knight?” Serafina discreetly asked Henry. “And ain’t he a beetle? Could he, no, what, my, gosh, jolly…” A swarm of competing squirrelly thoughts rushed through Serafina’s mind. A split second later, one of them exited the intricate rodent maze victorious: “By the creator’s cone! You’re not part of the bark-baffling, free-flying, hard-hitting Chanting Chevaliers of the Charred, are you?”
“Part of? No, lass. I be Knight Commander of,” responded Carapasse. He bowed very stiffly, in his very least stiff way. His right eye ventured a little to the left, as if entirely by itself. His left eye moved more markedly to the right, as if strategically trying to compensate.
“Oh,” said Henry. “We’re not of the crusade, though.”
“Course you are, course you are, lad. No time for self-doubt with a common friend in captivity. That is straight from the Code of Conduct, I believe. Disguises ready?”
“Disguises?” ventured Serafina.
“Affirmative, Squire. You can’t very well walk in as yourself on a secret mission, can you? That would give it all away.”
“But you’re not disguised,” protested Serafina.
“No time for doubt, even less for jokes, Squire Squirrel. I’ve cunningly disguised myself as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Battling Bats, may-their-leathery-wings-shrivel-in-the-sun. See?” He spun several turns on the spot while vigorously flexing his plates and wings. ”See?” he repeated. “That’s why I had to introduce myself first thing first.”
To the untrained eyes of Sergeant Hedgehog and Squire Squirrel, Knight Commander Carapasse – allegedly disguised beyond recognition, clearly in considerable personal discomfort given the particular costume in question – still looked very much like the very definition of a beetle.​
Sounds of The Forest
The Play of Dreams is the first of ten stand-alone books in The Forest, a world composed of sound and silence, to be read alone, reread aloud and remembered together.
Selected sounds, yours to enjoy today:
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Language and rhythm
Damp noses quivering, white whiskers twitching, tufty tails a-trembling, four rabbits sat silently in a row, the tautest testament of expectation.
Wit and absurdity
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"Alas, an invitation to dinner is the definite and most decisive way to defeat a dung beetle. Otherwise, they tend to be pretty much invincible, hardened shell and unrivalled tolerance for smell. Young Dederick – inexperienced and naïve as he was – didn’t even stand a chance,” explained the expertly experienced Knight Commander.
Melancholy and memory
“But no father should outlive his children. Brumble lost his mind soon after, I heard, and wandered ever deeper into the woods. No blessing to grow old alone, son, remember that.”
After several minutes of shared silence, Henry went to bed.
Courage and curiosity
So it was that Henry and Serafina waved mothers Harriet and Sylvia goodbye for declared salamander diversion by the creek. And so it was that they, in fact, ran to a walnut wagon instead, crusader-issued pin in paw, smudgy lockpicking field notes a skeletal guidance.
“By the wings of the whip-poor-will, I will, but the darned padlock won’t,” Serafina complained. Then a single click, sweet-as-sapling-sap, released tension and reversed her view entirely: “Ha, got it! Almost too easy.”
Order and chaos
“From your parents, you learned to fear fire,” began Lady Fay. Her voice was mountain water, strawberries sweetly tickling tongue, sunshine on a winterbitten cheek, it was all and everything, at once. The smallest of flames, a mere flicker really, rose from the pyre.
“Here, the heat is readily contained, see. But is it satisfied so? You know the answer. This creature of destruction already wrestles for control, fights to break free, ever dreaming fiery dreams, of burning land and sky and sea.”
Philosophy and wonder
"But never the true thing. Never. Dreams attained lose their lustre, intricate illusions last forever. Reality being so poor a replacement, why add the costs and complications? See how satisfied this flame, consuming the world in thought, unconsciously serving the here and the now."
Sound and silence
Imagine being a cub or pup intent on playing with the salamanders of the Crooked Creek only to wake up and find them gone. From the howlings and hollerings, every single soul in the vicinity – and in adjacent areas, as well as on the other side of the Lake of the Seven Swans, for sure – could, with no assistance at all, arrive at the conclusion that the youngest generation of forest dwellers did not respond positively to the unanticipated amphibian absence.
Nature and magic
“The ghost will have to wait,” said the voice. “Royalty before wraiths, I rule. So bend your knees, if you have such, to the splendificous Sigismund. Sigismund the First, to be precise, King of Seagulls. Yes, your eyes do not deceive, it is truly he.”
Their eyes neither deceived nor perceived. To all appearances – or rather lack thereof – they stood before a ghost.
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“Enchanted,” said Henry, and bowed.
Interview with Swift (by his agent)
Why write for both children and adults?
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I don’t write for them separately; I write sentences that work aloud. When adults read to children, both listen. The child hears story and rhythm. The adult hears themes the child will understand later: loss and loneliness, dignity and desire. The duality isn’t designed. It’s what happens when you refuse to simplify.
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Your prose is described as musical. Do you build meaning through rhythm, or does rhythm emerge from meaning?
They grow together, but rhythm has the final word. I read everything aloud, every word, every sentence, over and over. If the sound or cadence is wrong, I won’t hesitate to replace a word or restructure the sentence, even at the cost of precision. Better an honest approximation than a false note. Meaning clarifies through repetition and echo. Sound is the structure.
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Your characters are animals, but their inner lives are vivid and precise. What does animal form give you that human form wouldn’t?
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Distance. Animals let me write character without the clutter of modern life. No jargon, no labels, nothing borrowed from today. Their behaviour is clean, their instincts readable. A beetle is formal because he wears armour, squirrels are intense because they move in sudden bursts. It lets me draw personality directly, without metaphor and without noise. It’s honest simplification.
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How do you describe place without maps or exposition?
By ear. Environments emerge from action, not from inventory. I name what the characters touch, hear, and fear, and I let rhythm carry the rest: water running, leaves whispering, claws on root and stone. The Forest is specific in sensation, not in cartography.
Why do you refuse illustrations?
Out of respect for the reader's imagination. A picture shows one image to all readers. Language creates a different image in every mind. Shared reading becomes generative: the child sees, the adult remembers, both build from the same words but neither sees the same Forest. Pictures would fix what should stay fluid.​
Your tone can shift from philosophical meditation to slapstick comedy within a single scene. Is that an intentional design, or simply the way your mind moves between moods?
Intentional. To a child, melancholy and absurdity may share the same breath. Dreams work this way too. The shifts aren’t transitions; they’re architecture. A scene can be comic and sad at once. Life permits it. So does the prose.
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You’ve chosen print over digital, and patience over speed. Is that a matter of craft, conviction, or temperament?
Conviction. The physical form suits the story and the intimacy of shared reading. A printed page doesn’t flicker, it stays, the words wait for you.
You write by ear, not by outline. When you revise, what are you listening for?
The sentence must sound right when I read it aloud. I want repetition, flow, humour. I listen for discord: a breath in the wrong place, words in conflict, an unintended echo. I rework until rhythm and sense agree, until the page feels alive yet still.
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The Forest is full of moral undercurrents, yet you avoid direct lessons. Do you see yourself as a moral writer, or simply an observant one?
Moral, but not didactic. The reader sees consequence, what happens when characters act. Tone carries judgment; I don’t need to state it. If a character is cruel, the prose turns eerie. If they show courage, the rhythm lifts. Children notice this instinctively. Adults have learned to ignore it. I trust both to think.
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The Forest exists outside time, without origin or boundaries. Why build a mythology that refuses to explain itself?
Because ideas are more interesting than explanations. The timeless asks for no compromises. Mystery is in itself a form of respect toward the reader’s imagination; what is already alive on the page doesn’t need to be proven again.
Contact
All contact with Morichard Swift is handled by his agent, Mattias Sjöstrand, through Cowboy.se® and Owlhowl AB: howdy@cowboy.se.