On Writing Oceansong by C.W. Rose

When I think about what inspired me to write Oceansong, the first thing that comes to mind is my love for the sea and all of her mysteries. After all, the sea is the least explored place on Earth. This fascination began when I saw Disney’s The Little Mermaid for the first time, and later, Splash with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks. Mermaids captured my heart as a child, these beautiful mythical creatures, the guardians of the sea.  

All my life, I’ve suffered from asthma and bad knees. I remember running and jogging being tough on my joints during school PE classes, and Singapore’s—my childhood home—humidity making my asthma flare up and I would struggle to breathe. Fortunately, Singapore is also an island surrounded by water, so my family and friends and I would take weekend trips out to the shore. The sea breeze alleviated my asthma symptoms. Swimming became my favorite form of exercise because my knees wouldn’t hurt.

 I went snorkeling for the first time as a teenager when my mom took my brother and I to Tioman Island. What I saw beneath the glassy surface utterly captivated me. There was an entire world just beneath our feet, and so many beautiful animals. I felt comfortable and in my element when I was swimming, and I was never afraid of deep water. Water, an element that can both give and take life, and yet an entire ecosystem could thrive in it. I like to believe that I was a mermaid in a past life, but more likely, I was probably a fish. In 2019, I got lifeguard and scuba-diving certified, and I dove in the ocean for the first time soon after. It felt as if a whole new world had opened up to me.

In the fall of 2021, I was on a cruise headed to the Caribbean, and it was a sea day. I was waiting on my family to get ready for the dinner, and since we had no reception for our phones, I went to the balcony and stared out to the sea. The waves were angry, churning, rolling. I wondered, if I were to dive beneath the sea right now, what would I find? From that, the initial premise for Oceansong was born.

I wanted the setting to be in Alaska, somewhere cold and isolated, where the merfolk could hide from the humans. I visited the state over a decade ago, but I never forgot her natural beauty and majesty. 

Yet I knew I wanted to do more with the story than just write a straightforward romantasy. I’d grown passionate about the topics of feminism and environmentalism and sustainability over the past several years, and the latter became a motive to start the human-merfolk war. The merfolk believe the humans are destroying the seas for their own nefarious use, while the humans believe the merfolk are intent on starving them since in Oceansong, they rely on seafood to survive. Their confrontations become more violent and escalate as the story progresses, resulting in all-out war between the species as they fight for control of the sea’s resources. 

Women’s rights and equality is a topic that’s important to me as well, and especially as a BIPOC. So many girls in the world don’t get the same opportunities as we do in the West, and as gender inequalities became more apparent to me as I got older, I became a staunch believer that women’s rights are human rights. In Oceansong, the main character is assertive, brave, and loyal (but not flawless), and the merfolk are a matriarchal society. 

Injecting environmentalism and sustainability into Oceansong was a choice I sat with for awhile. I eventually decided on it because it’s an important cause to me (in tandem with animal and women’s rights), with the consequences of ocean pollution and overfishing being of particular interest. I’ve seen trash floating around the ocean and on the beach, despite cleanup efforts. I’ll never forget going for an ocean swim and being hit in the head by a floating York peppermint patty still in its wrapper. I saw how polluted some of our oceans, lakes, and rivers have become, and most devastating of all, its effect on marine wildlife. It pained me to see beautiful seascapes ravaged by human interference. Learning about overfishing’s devastating effects on the sea’s ecosystems broke my heart. Additionally, it threatens food security for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. These issues created the big question for Oceansong: what if sea fish were disappearing and merfolk were responsible?

Finally, I’ve been an avid reader for much longer than I’ve been a writer, and I grew up on a diet of fantasy and romance books. Yet I never saw myself in them, and while there is much more diversity in representation in the adult fantasy and romance spaces these days, I still find marginalized representation in romantasy lacking. I wanted to share my culture with the world, and if there was just one other person like me out there, an Asian person who wishes to see themselves in a romantasy book, as a main character, and as a love interest, I hope Oceansong can be that book for them.   

On the surface, Oceansong is what I pitched it as while querying – an Asian Romeo & Juliet meets The Little Mermaid, set in the grittiness of the real world. At its core, it is a story of forbidden love, polarized violence, and ultimately, acceptance and understanding of a group that, despite how it may appear at first, might not be so different from yours. I wrote this for the ocean children of the world, environmentalists and ocean conservationists, the feminists and feminist allies, the romantics at heart, and for anybody who’s had to choose between duty and their heart. 

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C.W. Rose is a Fantasy and Romance author who writes about ordinary Asian women in extraordinary situations, and find themselves, and sometimes—okay, usually—love along the way, and the cinnamon roll (not always human) men who adore them. She is also a certified scuba diver and lifeguard with a deep love for the world and animals around us, though she hasn’t spotted any mermaids yet. Outside of writing, you can find her buried in a great book, learning to sing in different languages, and finding any excuse to spend time outdoors. She’s also a third culture kid who grew up in Singapore, and currently lives in New York City with her family, working as a Physical Therapist.

Find all of her socials, website, and newsletter sign up at http://linktree.com/cwrose

OCEANSONG

Fish are mysteriously disappearing, starving the people in Angie Song’s Alaskan hometown. Angie, an aspiring marine biologist and dock worker, enthusiastically joins the hunt to find out where the fish are gathering. When her family and the villagers discover that merfolk are responsible, they vow to destroy every last one. In the midst of the conflict, Angie faces off with a merman and fails to pull the trigger.

Inquisitive Mer-Prince Kaden is just as snarky as Angie, but he’s willing to talk and stop the brutal massacring of his people. The two form a cautious alliance to broker peace between the humans and mer before any more of them die.

As tensions clash between the two races fighting to control the sea’s resources, Angie and Kaden’s forbidden relationship ignites. And as she learns about the mer’s mysterious world and the reason why the fish are gone, Angie starts to question who the true monster is, and where her loyalties lie. Taking the wrong side means choosing between family and her job, or the man she’s fallen for and the merfolk she’s come to respect-or losing it all.

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Category: On Writing