Worldbuilding Meta: Basic Questions About the World

Written by WillowRiver

What

Cameryth is the world that encompasses the novel that Quicksilver_Rain and I are currently writing, The Blue Mariner: Clades. The pending world name more or less tells you about the genre, but basically it's a high fantasy adventure sort of story.

The story follows a young siren, Sierra Kidd, who is the daughter of one of the world's most infamous pirates, William Kidd. In the prologue William declares that Sierra is to be the new captain of the titular Blue Mariner and charges her with killing the man who betrayed him to the authorities. The story proper begins one year later, with Sierra and her motley crew searching for clues as to who tipped off the Lasposan government to the whereabouts of the old Captain Kidd. She seeks vengeance for her father and those of his crew who were unlucky enough to suffer the same fate.

We're still going through a hard editing and revision process at present.

The book was originally intended to be mostly lighthearted; a fun adventure romp that ended with the bad guy being killed in the end and everybody having a fairly happy ending. Discussions during the first round of editing, and still ongoing as we continue to edit, led us to realize quite a lot about the deeper ethos of the characters. For example, our main character, Sierra, is only happy and carefree on the surface.

Underneath it all, she's tormented by conflicting emotions about her father's death and the task set to her, all of which she's trying desperately to suppress because of a frankly unhealthy and dangerous misunderstanding about how her own species works on an emotional level. She's manically trying to run away from herself with self-destructive behaviour that she justifies on the logic that it's fine as long as it doesn't hurt those around her, while not realizing that, as captain, her actions still affect the entire crew regardless. And that's to say nothing of what happens to the poor doctor, Nix Nightingale, and his sense of self by the end of this book.

Honestly, it is still a fun ride, even with all the deeper stuff to it. We're talking about potentially getting a sequel done once this one's published, to pick up where the first book leaves off. It'll be a whole new adventure, but they'll have to deal with all the baggage they've accumulated along the way if they want to make it through in one piece.

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How

We began writing the novel using Google Docs, since we could see each other's additions in real time, and did some of the preliminary editing in it as well. Often how we'd handle the writing was one of us would handle a chapter in its entirety and continue on with what we thought, then discuss what would come next and from who's perspective the next chapter should be written in, then hand the next chapter to whoever we agreed would be best to cover it. It wasn't a perfect 1:1 ratio, and I would often ask Quicksilver to take over for voicing specific characters. There was still a basic outline for how we wanted the story to go and where we wanted to end up, even if a lot of the events in between were made up on the spot as we thought of fun things to happen.

We aren't using Google Docs anymore, instead passing edited versions back and forth on our computers since we're doing that individually now.

I discovered World Anvil a little over a year ago at this point and decided it would be a great (read: far more organized than my messy notes document) way to consolidate and organize our thoughts for the world, the characters, and how everything was supposed to work. Since joining, the two of us have come up with so many more things to add to the world that give it more life and depth than it might have otherwise had. A lot of the things we've come up with on this site have actually made their way back into the story.

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Who

Here's a good question: "You both wrote the novel from one person's base idea. Who's characters are whose?" Most of the main characters in the story, most notably the crew, were individual creations for the most part. It's only for more minor characters or ones thought up later in development that we actively worked together to create. And, of course, as we talked and brought more depth to our characters, we could both definitely be attributed to their overall growth into what they are today.

Fun fact: I was the one to create Trixie Hatter and her general deal, long before I ever met Quicksilver online. It turned out, Trixie's personality was, in Quicksilver's own words, almost exactly like her but with less qualms about rules and societal expectations. Thus, Quicksilver very quickly became the main writer for the Trixie chapters, as well as a good portion of Trixie's dialogue because her vocal quirks turned out to be more than I could manage myself a good portion of the time.

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When and Why

This world, as yet still unnamed, is something I came up with quite a few years ago now. I wouldn't be able to pinpoint exactly when it was that I came up with the concept for the world as its own thing, but I can certainly tell you what started it all!

Origins

Sierra Kidd was, appropriately, the first character that I conceptualized for this world, though long before anything else of the world ever existed. She began as a semi-self-insert character in my head for the well-known anime One Piece. Yes yes, you're all free to roll your eyes at me. That's just what happens when I watch and enjoy media enough. Don't even ask me about the one I made for Shrek by accident.

Sierra, as she was originally, was intended to be the daughter of the infamous red-haired pirate Shanks and adoptive sister to the main character Luffy. She was still a siren, notably different from the mermaids in the show as I had already worked out most of the mechanics for sirens that you see in this world back then. Her mother was still meant to be the ocean, and she had a kind of tragic romance going on with Luffy's other adopted sibling, the charming Ace. I know. I'm incorrigible.

Sierra continued to exist merely as an insert character in my head right up until I stopped watching the show, back when the English dub was just shy of reaching Fishman Island. I'd grown tired of the show and how some of its formerly endearing aspects were being played up far too much, I wasn't a fan of Brook's character, and the art style was getting far more sloppy and objectifying on its main female characters than I was willing to put up with anymore.

This leads us to the world itself.

For a brief amount of time (maybe a year, I didn't keep track), I was a member on a site called Otaku Zone. It was a hub for folks who love anime and manga to congregate and chat. It was on that site, probably sparked by a longing to play ttrpgs but having no one to play with at the time, that I began to get interested in forum role play. After trying to play in several different role plays hosted by other people, none of them getting very far before fizzling out completely, I decided to try starting one of my own.

By this point, I'd been toying around with a few other characters to go with Sierra so she could be part of her own story, rather than leaving her confined to someone else's world that I wasn't going to explore ever again. It was in starting my own role play that I really nailed down some of the other main characters in the story. Notably: Trixie Hatter, the eccentric master gunner; Luce Jackshand, a leopard-human mix; and Charon Milgrave, the very grumpy weapons master with shadow-based abilities.

The role play went nowhere, predictably, and I ended up leaving that site not long after.

The Beginning

Time skip a few years and I've made my way onto Tumblr. The pirate story has been kicking around in the back of my mind for a while, but with no clear direction or immediate drive to put it onto paper.

There's a post going around with people positing an idea that asexual sailors would be immune to siren songs. I reblog it, saying that it would be amazing if there was a story like that, since the subject matter hits several of my interests and I'm rather fond of the concept. Quicksilver reblogs the post from me, but with an added story that expands on the concept. I immediately love the story and send her a message suggesting that we collaborate on a novel together because of our similar writing styles.

And that's how it all began. Quicksilver asked me what kind of story we should write and I told her about my pirate story that was kicking around in my brain. We hammered out a basic end goal for the story and got writing.

We didn't end up making a proper plot outline until a good... I would say at least a third of the way through the story, but it all worked out. We got the first draft finished in a little over a year. Several proofreading passes and discussions later, and here we are today, making major revisions and eager to see our final product.