Telling a story through more than four-minute songs is not enough for Ben and Ben frontmen and twin brothers Miguel and Paolo Guico.
For years, the band was constrained to distill complex emotions and select only the ‘meatiest’ narrative elements.
Breaking out from that contained, tight structure of songwriting-saying more with less-the two ventured into book writing and launched the physical copy of their debut fantasy romance book, The Traveller Across Dimensions.
‘We feel a bit of imposter syndrome,’ Miguel admitted to the audience present during their book talk at the Manila International Book Fair last September 12. ‘It’s our first time doing something like this. But then, what is creativity if not taking risks and trying out new things?’
The book expands on the universe of their 2024 studio album of the same name and centers on Liwanag, a traveller who awakens and only remembers her name, consumed by a heavy internal anxiety and questions about her existence.
Saying more with more
Charting this new territory of book writing is a challenge, yet an exciting experience for the twins.
The literary format provided a larger mirror to reflect human experience by breathing life into characters encountering new people, experiencing conflicts and resolutions unique to full-length book storytelling, Paolo said.
With a song, Miguel said they only have three to five minutes to tell the whole story from the first verse down to the last note.
‘The difference with a book is that there is so much space to express the story and convey each idea,’ Miguel said. ‘[It’s] also very challenging to get more out of you. Because if a song is how do you say more with less, for a book, it is how do you say more with more.’
The writing process
It began with an unfinished set of songs alongside visual storytelling in 2024, Miguel told reporters in a separate interview. He was actually the one who pushed to flesh out a full written story, as visual art and music alone left essential details unsaid.
The storytelling process moved inward: the brothers wrote chapter summaries for each song, zoomed in to draft specific scenes and dialogue and gradually introduced new characters.
This narrative construction created a two-way synergy with their music: the overarching story arc helped them finish incomplete songs, and the narrative’s conceptual ending directly dictated how they wrote their final songs.
To turn their manuscript into a cohesive book, they sought the expertise of their former high school teacher, Ella Mallabo-Mutas, who is now dean of the College of Arts and Science at Manila Tytana Colleges, to sharpen their prose, interrogate character motivations, and deepen narrative logic.
They also partnered with independent publisher 8Letters and Puppeteer Studios, a local animation studio, to produce animated music videos alongside the project.
Beyond the songs and the book, Miguel said they share the dream of The Traveller Across Dimensions becoming a full-length animated film or series to fully convey the color, sound and narrative they want to express.
Liwanag’s journey
The anxious traveller is drawn from the band’s listener community, called ‘Liwanag,’ and their personal stories of struggle with heartbreak, grief, forgiveness, among others, Paolo shared during the interview.
‘Most of the time, our songs are about unprocessed struggles and eventually, rising above those hardships,’ Paolo said. ‘Even if we only know them through messages, facing heavy struggles in life, love, friendship, work, or studies takes true courage, which inspired the character of Liwanag in The Traveler Across Dimensions.’
For Paolo, how he wants the readers of the book to understand the concept of struggle is not to put their identity in their suffering.
‘Don’t identify it with yourself. It’s such a sticky thing-suffering-that we tend to identify with it so much just because we endured it,’ he said. ‘If you make it your identity, it will affect how you view life through the lens of the suffering that you went through 10 years ago-that’s still the lens that you see life right now.’
In the story, Liwanag meets an older traveler named Gabay, who tells her that travellers pursue two goals: a ‘Big Dream,’ or reaching the dimension of inner peace called Duyan, and a ‘Little Dream,’ which is to be present with love.
She embarks on a journey to reach Duyan, and in her journey, she goes through three dimensions: Light, depicting innocence; Energy, representing struggle and pain; and Feel, portraying maturity and love.
‘The takeaway we wanted to share is that even if there are many things we worry about or fear that haven’t happened yet, and even if we have many ‘what-ifs’ and past regrets, perhaps the most important things in life are happening right in the present moment, and we shouldn’t forget to cherish that,’ Miguel shared.
‘Big dreams are important, but the little dreams matter equally-and the point of all this is to be present with love,’ he added.