To Avoid Being an Annoying Author [GUIDEBOOK]

Story Finale Review | Berserk

Asiya:

Hey guys! I'm doing a segment in this book where I talk about my experiences and thoughts while writing a story that I just completed. I just want to talk about some old ideas I had for the stories and such. So if you're interested in knowing, just keep reading.

Recently (last December), I finished the last chapter of "Berserk (Phoenix)," my Haikyuu story about Ernestine Atia who is the protag and I'm sure that most of you have read it already if you even continued reading this.

I think I started writing it around August 2015 and I initially waited until "The Hidden Sunshine" was completed but *tear runs down face* yall knew what happened to that story I ABANDONED MY CHILD.

Anyways, at that time, I haven't planned out the direction of the story so MANY things changed from my originals ideas and it's crazy to go back and think about it now.

Even though I didn't have a story plan, the reason I decided to write it was because I came up with Atia's character and how she would be perfect for that universe. I thought that the story would take a quirky slice-of-life/drama turn to it about strange happenings during school and practice, and how Atia gets along with the others.

However, I only defined Atia's character by her "berserk skill" as I didn't think much of her personality at that time; which is why her personality was inconsistent throughout the story since I had trouble identifying them.

Like, before I edited the chapters, I wrote Atia as a "serious and intimidating badass who gets even more scary when she's goes berserk" before I dumbed her down to make her more human and likeable (It was because I still wasn't over Suuna so I projected her personality onto Atia *tear rolls down face*).

I played off her inconsistency as a "loss of identity" symptom due to her amnesia, but now you know the truth that I'm a shitty writer.

I think it's also safe to say that during the writing of this story, I couldn't decide whether to pair her with Kageyama or Tsukishima--and even bloody Tanaka. Could you just imagine?? Lmfaooo

Also, the ending that I first came up with is so fucking anticlimactic and stupid like I hate myself for coming up with it like wtf could you just ImAgInE if I actually ended it that way??

So basically, the ending that I first came up with had Atia getting into a fight with Karasuno in some way and quitting the team before the match against Doragonkuna (but I don't think I came up with DK yet, so it was probably against Taigaoka or Nekoma).

And so during the match, Karasuno was really struggling as Tanaka was injured, so the opponent was like "where's your temp now??" And the assholes decided to pick someone from the audience to act as the extra player because of a bet they made or something. So they picked the one who looked the most unqualified for volleyball; which was some person who was really overweight and looked old.

But then, when the person played volleyball they ended up being really good and SURPRISE it was Atia in disguise and she reunites with Karasuno in this match HEYOOO. And errrbody is just so happu.

And the opponents were like holy shit and Karasuno goes on a win streak and smashes the competition because of Atia. And afterwards, she just joins Karasuno again like old times and ends up with Tsukishima.

Also prior to that, I initially planned KeiTia to happen earlier in the story where Atia is rapidly remembering stuff and it drives her to randomly jump into a frozen lake in the middle of a snowstorm and Tsukishima got really concerned and decided to take care of her in his house which was when he was like "okay now you really have to tell me what tf is your problem" and she later opens up to him.

Yeah, those are some of the scratched out ideas and I'm glad that I didn't go with.

Since I didn't have a plan for the plot at first, the story was about to be a "Behind the Doors 2.0" sort of thing where everything is just bants, overdramatic scenes and brief angst before everything goes back to normal shortly after and everyone is memeing again,

but drama and angst in a regular HQ story really doesn't go together, unless it's primarily a love story.

One of my biggest mistakes was making it over dramatic in a way that it doesn't make sense in the anime. For example, when Atia almost got pushed down building and died.

I really hated chapters 15 and 16 because the action scenes didn't fit well with the original timeline and story as it should correlate it some way. I don't know why I decided to have Nekoma and Taigaoka join in this "Miyagi field trip" when theY'RE NOT FROM MIYAGI.

The reason I do this is because I try so desperately to put a certain joke or idea into the plot that I will do anything to make it happen, and it doesn't seem to be worth it in the end.

Overall, I did have a lot of fun writing this story and I want to learn from my mistakes. During the process, there were times when I thought about discontinuing it because I didn't seem to like HQ that much anymore after the first season, but I got hyped again when the second came out.

I'm happy with the way it ended and I hope that you guys did too :)

I'm planning on doing this same review with "Behind the Door" soon, so yeah, if you want to see more of that then let me know :))