Chapter 715: Post-Serialization Afterword!!
Chapter 715: Post-Serialization Afterword!!
Hello, this is Planaria Hamburger.
I would like to express my infinite gratitude to all the readers who have stayed with me throughout these 714 chapters!!
I struggled with being late quite often during the serialization, and I’ve always felt both sorry and grateful to the readers who waited for me.
B-but, I never took a single hiatus until the very end!!
I think not taking a single break is actually quite an achievement... don't you think? (Glances around)
Anyway! I’m relieved that the story concluded exactly as I envisioned without any major issues.
Some of you might feel that the final episode progressed a bit abruptly.
To be honest, I agonized over that quite a bit.
Technically, I could have inserted as many filler episodes as I wanted in between.
However, there was a gap between the end of the movie filming and its release.
I felt that if I inserted episodes during that gap, the emotional buildup from the final shoot would be completely severed.
Also, I was worried it might create a sense of dragging until the movie's release.
I thought it might be difficult for readers to get back onto the emotional track of the final episode once the movie finally premiered.
So, I decided to skip time as soon as the filming was over and jump straight to the release!
But since Seo-yeon’s precious senior year of high school is too good to waste, the side stories will pick up from the end of the first semester of her senior year.
In other words, it will be the point right after the final movie filming concluded.
I’ll talk more about that later...
First, I’d like to talk a bit about the journey of I Want to Be a VTuber so far.
1. How I came to write this novel.
As many of you know, I Want to Be a VTuber started because I enjoyed Act-Age so much (...) that I wanted to try writing an actor-themed novel myself.
I had some concerns at the time because the actor genre hadn't been performing very strongly lately.
I knew that actor stories in web novels tend to have a slower tempo than other genres and a significantly high percentage of female readers.
Specifically on Nobelpia, the actor genre was almost non-existent at the time and wasn't even in the rankings, so I had a lot to think about.
That’s why I decided to keep the overall "taste" as light as possible, reducing the weight of the "film-within-a-film" segments and focusing more on the protagonist’s performance and the surrounding reactions.
Among these, I actively incorporated the "streaming" (Internet Broadcasting) vibe, which is a strong suit of Nobelpia.
In other words, while it is an actor story, I structured it to be more accessible by leaning into the more stimulating "streaming" sensibility.
That’s why I mentioned early on that I wanted to include reactions like those in The Prince of Tennis or Cooking Master Boy but ended up toning them down.
However, there was one problem...
Actually, there’s something I’ve been keeping a secret: the only actor-themed works I’ve ever seen are Act-Age and, among Korean web novels, a work called King of Death Acting...
I felt that if I let this show in my writing or mentioned it, it might interfere with the readers' immersion...
I thought that if I felt insecure about my own content, the readers would feel it too.
So, I decided to just be shameless about it.
With a "it's probably something like this~" kind of vibe.
Ah, of course, I’m just saying that; in reality, I was worried in many ways... sob.
I thought about reading more in the genre while writing, but I refrained because I felt I would inevitably be influenced by them...
Though I did ask my friends about various clichés.
Because of that, my initial plan only covered the first 100 chapters.
To be precise, the "The Chaser" arc was the extent of my initial concept.
Honestly, I started writing it half-impulsively, so I only planned the story up to the point where Seo-yeon makes her comeback.
Then I thought, if it does well, I should write up to 100 chapters. (And then head into the final episode.)
So, originally, Stella was supposed to appear much, much earlier.
When I first conceptualized I Want to Be a VTuber, I had two characters in mind besides the protagonist, Seo-yeon.
Stella and Park Jung-woo. Just those two.
Then, while writing the child actor part, Lee Ji-yeon was added.
The very last one was Jo Seo-hee.
In Stella's case, I even thought about ending it around chapter 200 with a full-blown showdown after The Chaser.
But the novel did much better than I expected!
So I ended up adding a lot more meat to the story.
In fact, I only started building the full framework of the novel right after The Chaser ended.
Actually, at that point, the plot I had originally conceived was finished...
Ah, of course, the "Final Episode" that just ended was something I had planned from the beginning.
I always intended to end the story in exactly this way.
Essentially, the movie she was supposed to film after The Chaser was originally meant to be her last.
Anyway! Even though that was the plan, since I hadn't read many actor stories, I had to think a lot while writing.
I figured that since actor stories are still within the framework of web novels, the points that provide enjoyment would be similar!
That’s also why the proportion of variety shows increased significantly after chapter 100 (...).
I needed to buy time and naturally lay down foreshadowing for future content!
Variety shows were a device for that.
A way to resolve foreshadowing and to highlight the supporting characters in a novel that had been centered almost entirely on the protagonist.
Once I found my rhythm, I just kept writing!
From a certain point, I stopped intentionally planting foreshadowing in the variety shows.
I wanted the variety shows to be episodes where people could just laugh and enjoy themselves, like real-life variety programs.
I tried to structure them so they could be self-contained and satisfying on their own.
Of course, I occasionally tucked in some foreshadowing so you wouldn't feel like the plot wasn't progressing.
But my ideal goal for variety episodes was for them to be purely for laughter and enjoyment.
The zombie episode was an example of that.
It’s an episode I personally like very much.
From chapters 1 to 200, I focused on balancing variety shows and acting projects.
After chapter 200, I shifted toward making the arcs longer for the sake of readers who binge-read.
When you read chapter by chapter, it’s not as noticeable, but some content can feel strange when binged.
So, from chapter 200 onwards, I focused on structuring the content so it wouldn't feel awkward even when read in one go.
From chapter 300 onwards, I started emphasizing the parts I personally wanted to write.
...Since I’ve written quite a lot now and didn't expect to write for this long...
2. Regarding Romance
I like both directions, but since readers feel differently depending on the gender dynamics, I kept that in mind and tried to write so that everyone could feel it was fair.
For example, regarding Park Jung-woo, in TS (Gender Bender) stories, a male "heroine" (?) tends to have a very strong presence just by appearing.
There are general stereotypes based on gender, after all.
So, even if his screen time is relatively low, I believe the perceived presence is much larger.
Taking that into account, I kept his actual episode count low, but instead increased the frequency of Seo-yeon reacting to him first, giving the impression that his role was significant even in short episodes.
Physical screen time (number of chapters) was low, but I wanted the feeling to be... not so low? (In fact, I gave him various advantages in other areas as well.)
Furthermore, when there’s romantic appeal, people naturally perceive it through the lens of a "male-female relationship," which makes it feel more intense, so I had to be careful with those parts.
Conversely, with Yuri (GL), the strength lies in them being the same gender, allowing for direct physical contact. Or even if someone like Stella confesses, the nuance doesn't always hit as heavily.
I used that to make things feel as "natural" as possible while increasing their screen time, and used "Stella" to naturally bridge that gap.
I wanted readers to become desensitized to it because there was so much stimulation.
So, I thought that from the perspective of those who only dig "Amta" (falling for a man) or only "Yuri," both sides might feel their preferred part was lacking... but that was unavoidable!!
Also, I made sure that Seo-yeon’s reaction "never" surfaced during these times.
Even if she did react, it was just momentary embarrassment at the situation.
I felt that if the protagonist reacted to either side, it would immediately give off a strong romantic vibe.
At least, that’s the impression I got from the many TS novels I’ve read!
I had to be extremely careful in that regard...
Honestly, balancing this was much harder than developing the acting plot...
Though it was fun in its own way!!
Anyway, if I were to mention some regrets...
I racked my brain to ensure the story didn't feel like I was just "milking" it for money, but since it went on for so long, I’m sorry if some of you felt that way...
There were moments while writing where I felt the anticipation dropping, and those were areas I struggled to fill due to my own lack of "input" (reading/experience).
Of course, since there are people who enjoyed my novel, I won't put myself down.
I believe my novel was always fun.
Still, the regret remains that I might have been able to write it even better.
3. Was the protagonist's super-strength attribute added suddenly?
Actually, some people have asked about this.
But it was actually there from the very first time I conceptualized the novel...
I just didn't emphasize it.
At first, I described it as "the strength of an adult male while still a child"—but I actually wanted to show her being incredibly strong even then.
It was cut now, but during the child actor days, there was a plot where people trying to kidnap the popular child actor Seo-yeon accidentally kidnapped Ji-yeon, and Seo-yeon found out and rescued her!
I really wanted to write it, but no matter how much I thought about it, it felt like "jumping the shark," so it was cut.
Actually, at that point, she could have already ripped a door off a moving car, but that didn't fit the atmosphere of the story at the time...
There are actually a few episodes like that.
The Lee Ji-yeon kidnapping episode...
The part where she and Pyo Ji-woo literally sent their club friends to the afterlife...
Even in the club drug(?) arc, there were many parts where I wondered if Seo-yeon should just slaughter everyone.
I left those parts out after much deliberation...
Anyway, it was hard to restrain myself.
What I want to write and what the readers want to see are different things. (And it actually would have been weird.)
So, in the side stories, I plan to show the things I restrained (?) in various ways.
4. Regarding the Side Stories
As already mentioned in the notice, the side stories will proceed chronologically.
I worried a lot about the order of the side stories because readers take that order quite seriously.
Basically, it will start from the end of the first semester of senior year (second semester) and continue into adulthood.
I’ll leave it to your imagination to decide who the "True Heroine" is based on the order.
I think it would be best if everyone considers their own favorite heroine as the True Heroine.
The reason the side stories are 20–50 chapters each is that I’m not quite sure myself; each side story involves filming a project or progressing through a major arc (in Ji-yeon’s case, doing VTubing together).
So, depending on the episode, it might be short or long.
Of course, if it feels too short, I’ll pad it out with variety shows or other methods to balance the weight!
And...
Before the first side story, which is Lee Ji-yeon’s!
I plan to write a small 5-chapter teaser of the "Hunter Ju Seo-yeon" side story that I wrote for April Fools'.
Just a little sugar rush before diving into the main side stories...
And after all the side stories are finished, I’ll think about whether to continue the Hunter side story or write a Murim (Martial Arts) side story.
I actually want to write Murim.
But while I enjoy reading Murim, I think writing it is incredibly difficult...
5. Regarding the Next Work
For now, I’m focusing on the VTuber side stories.
If I were to write a new work on Nobelpia, there’s a novel I enjoyed in the past called Kenkyo, Kenjitsu (Modest, Steady); I’d like to try writing that kind of "Ojou-sama" (noble daughter) story that isn't exactly about a conglomerate family.
If I write something, it will likely be in that vein.
Unfortunately, that one never finished either... T_T
6. Closing
I seem to have rambled on quite a bit.
I wanted to chatter about various things in the Author's Notes, but I didn't because I thought it would interfere with the reading experience.
The reason I don't often answer readers' questions is that I worry my answers might negate the things other readers were happily imagining, so I hope you understand.
Though I did mention when an episode would end if it got too long... ahem.
I think that’s about as much as I can say.
The upcoming side stories will likely continue for quite a while.
Since they are stories that happen afterward—excluding the part where they are separate routes—you can think of them as a Part 2 of the journey Seo-yeon will experience. Officially, though, it concludes at chapter 714!
(Of course, the romantic parts should be considered "IF" scenarios. Please view your favorite heroine as the main one.)
I intend to write the side stories with a slightly more relaxed mind.
I don't plan on taking hiatuses, just as I haven't so far, and the side story serialization will begin immediately.
Right after the 5-chapter Hunter Ju Seo-yeon side story starting tomorrow!
Thank you for everything so far!
I look forward to your continued support!!
Sincerely, Planaria Hamburger.