SANTA CRUZ >> It is common for parents and grandparents to read stories to kids before they go to bed. Ryan Daniele’s grandfather took this concept to a new level by improvising elaborate fantasy stories for Daniele and his sisters at their bedside.

This level of storytelling stayed with Daniele for many years, and while he makes his living as a piano instructor, it should come as no surprise that the Santa Cruz resident would be inspired to write stories of his own. This has culminated in the publication of his first novel “The Ring of Experience,” the first installment of his trilogy of “Arrendar Academy” young adult fantasy novels.

Daniele said the idea came after reading another YA series and realizing he could write in that genre.

“I just kind of sat with an idea for a little while and started writing,” he said. “It just took off from there, and I fell in love with the story, the characters and the message that I was trying to convey.”

Daniele said the stories both of his grandfathers told left a big impression on him. One was a businessman, but Daniele said he would tell stories and “You could just listen to him talk for hours.” The other told more impromptu fanciful stories at bedtime, which always stayed with Daniele.

In fact, Daniele credits the impetus of wanting to be a good storyteller with “my grandfathers and that familial connection.”

Daniele read a lot of young adult and fantasy series from “Harry Potter” to “A Song of Ice and Fire” to the works of Andy Weir and Garth Stein, and in middle school, he dabbled in storytelling by writing a 420-page “Star Wars” fan fiction.

“Of course, I thought it was amazing and I was gonna get published as a 13-year-old, and boy, was I wrong, but that was a really fun experience for me,” he said. “Then fast forward 10 to 15 years later it was just something I kind of forgot about but always knew that I enjoyed it. During the pandemic with a little extra time on my hands, you just get struck with a wild idea.”

“The Ring of Experience” tells the story of 15-year-old Taydis Fletcher living in a world where humanity is slowly rebuilding. He is whisked away to an academy high in the mountains, which his late grandfather used to attend where he has to endure rigorous survival tests and learns that he has a unique gift: empathy.

Daniele said that is an emotion that has been lost in the world he created, where technology has been reversed so computers and cellphones no longer exist and people use horse-drawn carriages to travel from place to place.

“The theme is that humanity has lost the ability to empathize,” he said. “In real life, the world’s kind of been in some turmoil lately — I mean, it always has been — but my big thing is I feel like if humanity can find a way to increase their empathy — if we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes, if we can walk a moment in their life — we can understand them better. We can have an understanding of other cultures and people and really show compassion and sympathy more.”

Daniele said he had a general framework for the story but did not know everything that would happen.

“I took a lot of joy in the creativity of exploring ‘Where’s it gonna go? What are the characters gonna do? What are they gonna say?’” he said. “The term for that is a ‘pantser,’ kind of writing by the seat of your pants as opposed to a plot which really maps out every single little detail. For me, a lot of the fun and joy was in discovering what was gonna happen.”

Initially, Daniele wrote “The Ring of Experience” for fun without any intention of trying to publish it. He eventually decided to go that route and pursued having it published in the traditional fashion at first but did not like not having full control over the story, so he decided to self-publish, which had its own benefits and challenges.

“Self-publishing gradually became more and more appealing to me in the idea of having complete control over producing what I wanted to produce and telling the story that I wanted to tell,” he said. “The process has basically been you have to do everything. You’re the writer and a promoter and the marketer. You have to wear many different hats, and that’s very challenging at times. It’s also very rewarding and freeing to learn a lot of different things.”

The remaining two “Arrendar Academy” books have already been written, and Daniele is in the process of editing them. He plans to distribute “The Ring of Experience” locally at first by potentially selling it at farmers markets, and it is available as an e-book on Amazon and in physical form at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

“The Ring of Experience” is aimed at ages 10 and older, and Daniele said it has a lot of themes that age group can or will relate to, like bullying, friendship, loss and self-discovery. Above all, he hopes they will take away a sense of empathy.

“If we all had a little bit more empathy, this world would be a better place,” he said.