At first, the editor asked me, “Would you prefer four thousand characters for a one-page spread or eight thousand for a two-page spread?” And I told him, “Eight thousand is too much for a short story, so four thousand is fine.” And then I handed in a manuscript that was thirteen thousand characters long! Am I stupid? Seriously, it didn’t just exceed one page, it went well beyond three pages…and forcing it into two pages made the text so tiny that it was nearly unreadable. If I’m allowed to defend myself a bit: when I said four thousand characters, I’d planned to write the short story about Alya in that white dress from the art book cover, and I thought four thousand characters would be enough for that.
By the way, the pinup illustrations of the heroines that I received afterward were so amazing… I couldn’t help but want to write about them instead. There were nine heroines, so obviously, I had to include them all. On top of that, there were four male characters, including Masachika, so that made a total of thirteen characters. If you figure about a thousand characters per character, then thirteen thousand characters actually seemed reasonable, right? Well, it wasn’t.
I’m truly grateful to the editor and Momoco who laughed it off and forgave me. By the way, among those four male characters featured, Takeshi and Hikaru were surprisingly not included. If you went “Huh?” just now, that means you haven’t bought the art book yet. I understand it’s pricey, so it’s tough to pull the trigger, but seriously, it’s incredible. Seeing Momoco’s illustrations in the art book’s large format are breathtaking. Every detail is flawlessly beautiful and utterly overwhelming. You can’t help but sigh in admiration.
Huh? So, you want to know who the four male characters that actually appeared in the short story were? Well, if you think about the named male characters, you can probably guess. First, there’s Masachika and Touya, right? And since Takeshi and Hikaru weren’t in it, then obviously Yuushou’s going to have to be one of the characters. And the last one? That’s right: Andou, everyone’s favorite Andou. He’s actually the very first named male character to appear in the main Feelings in Russian story, and in the anime’s first episode, he’s the guy who talks to Alya even before Masachika does. Yet after that, he never got another chance to make an appearance. He was a one-shot character, really, so we brought him back with a bang in the art book. So, if you’re curious, please buy the art book! That’s my unsolicited promo for the day.
Speaking of messing up word counts, I also had similar trouble with the bonus novel for the anime Blu-ray/DVD release. The original plan from the editor’s proposal was to write between fifty and one hundred pages for the bonus novel. Fifty pages is roughly a bit over twenty thousand characters, and one hundred pages is close to forty-five thousand characters. Considering that a typical light novel is around one-hundred thousand characters, that’s quite a lot even for a bonus story—about ten times the length of the usual short stories I write for preorder bonuses and the like.
Even I was like, “This is a bit much. Can we please cut it down to fifty pages?” Then the editor negotiated with the anime team, and they agreed. I was really grateful. That’s the power of a former sales pro, after all. So, I handed in a manuscript of ninety-six thousand characters and honestly wondered if I was stupid. All that buildup and complaining, only to end up doing this? And the page count? It ended up being over two hundred pages—basically a full light novel. Let me repeat that for you: it was basically the same length as your average light novel.
Just in case you guys didn’t bother to do the math, the combined word count for the short story in the art book and the bonus novel for the Blu-ray/DVD was almost one hundred and ten thousand characters. In other words, I’ve written the equivalent of two light novels. So yeah, you know how I just wrote about ten or so pages on how overwhelming work is for authors when their stories get an anime adaptation? Well, that was actually a story about how humans somehow manage to overcome difficulties when they’re cornered. Then again, I guess I didn’t do such a good job, since the deadline got pushed back by two months.
So what’s the takeaway? Simply put: my editor’s a saint. Even when I drastically overshot the planned word count, my editor smiled and forgave me. When the release date was delayed, they adjusted the schedule without a single complaint. Seriously, my editor is a true saint… That said, I really need to be careful not to take this kindness for granted. There’s no future for a writer whose editor has given up on them, after all.
Therefore, to express how thankful I am for them and how sorry I am for being me, I brought some sweets to the signing event celebrating the artbook release and gave them to my editor. I gave some to Momoco as well to congratulate her. And what did I get back? A hand-signed autograph board with an illustration! Huh? Strange… This is starting to feel like I’m the straw millionaire, totally ignoring the principle of equal exchange… Wait! Hold up! If I hadn’t brought those sweets, I would’ve ended up as a shameless author scoring a free autograph! Everyone, when you meet people you usually interact with online in person, make sure to bring a proper gift!
…No, seriously (straight face).