It all started from the beginning...
Tower of Wishes didn't get its name at the start of its creation. It began with a proposal to do a collaboration between writer and artist. We met each other through Instagram and became good friends after a while. Soon enough, we started off with that idea and began to brainstorm.
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At the time, we thought about making a romance novel or a supernatural one, but we settled in for fantasy in the end. We were inspired by anime like Made in Abyss and Sword Art Online for its premise and world. Made in Abyss for their protagonist being children, and Sword Art Online for their emphasis on exploring a tall tower filled with danger.
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With the ideas flowing and production starting, Tower of Wishes was born.
Japanese Inspiration
The story of Tower of Wishes is set in the Edo period of Japan, an era rich with culture and recorded history. A lot of stories have drawn inspiration to this time period and we wanted to do the same but in a way that can respect the original source as much as possible.
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We started our research with a certain theme in Japanese culture. First was yokai, so we started by going into yokai.com made by Matthew Meyer. We were inspired by the database and art made by him that we continued to use it as our base of research on yokai.
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As for characters and clothing, we figured that out together by taking existing tropes and added our own spin to it. We gave them uniforms based on traditional outfits, ancient weapons made grander in scale and power. We gradually built our world one piece at a time and introduced more in the process.
First Chapter
The first chapter of Tower of Wishes was released to the public on December 26, 2019. It was released on Wattpad by the account belonging to Matropik, the writer of Tower of Wishes. That would be the start of Tower of Wishes' public appearance.
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It never got much attention other than a few friends that wanted to support us. We didn't aim for that and continued our work despite the low amount of exposure. Our goal was to finish the book and handle everything else later.
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After that day, new chapters would be released every week. To meet that consistency, we would constantly keep in touch and make sure to remember the deadline. Our methods were relatively laid back and we never pressured the other for their work. Breaks and Hiatuses would be frequent, however, due to us still being in high school. As we reached our senior years, it would prove to be harder to focus on Tower of Wishes and we proceeded to go on a long hiatus to focus on studies
Reformation
After that long break, we noticed something bothering us as we began to work. The previous chapters showed cracks and had lower quality than the newer ones. To be expected from early chapters, but it proves to be a pain to go back to and proofread. Several attempts were made to fix the old chapters, but most of them never really stood out.
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In July 2021, we began work on remaking the entirety of Tower of Wishes from the ground up. By using the previous work as a base, we essentially used an opportunity to expand the world into a greater scope and one to get easily immersed in. From around 2500+ words per chapter to around 5000+ words per chapter. We decided that to maintain consistent quality, we would need to start all over. Luckily, the research and ideas had already been present and all that's left to do is to expand on it.
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This will be the format that will mark the start of Tower of Wishes' reformation and would make it possibly eligible for publishing and finishing. The rest of the story will be for the future to decide on the fate of Tower of Wishes.