Chapter 11 - Episode 3: Create an Incident (1)
◈ How to Become a Star Writer ◈
Episode 3: Create an Incident (1)
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To put everything that happened to me in order:
One, I became the protagonist of a novel I had written.
Two, I had no memory of writing or uploading the novel.
Three, every story I experienced became a novel and was uploaded.
Anyone who heard that would think I was insane.
A novel had been uploaded under my ID and in my style, yet I had no memory of writing it?
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[99 Ways to Kill a Regressor]
Cumulative Views: 20,812 (5 episodes total)
Recommendations: 1,211
Favorites: 1,524
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But the proof was right in front of me, in an utterly glorious form.
“An average of four thousand views...”
I clutched my head and tried to make sense of it somehow, but my cerebral cortex, steeped in literary realism, simply couldn't accept this situation.
Damn it. This wasn't even magical realism. This was outright fantasy.
If I had merely gone into a novel and come back out, I could at least insist it had been a dream. But the views...
Even if Professor Freud rose from his grave, there was no way to explain this.
“Dust...”
That had definitely been its name.
In the dream, I had received a currency called Dust from those things called “Stars.”
And when I woke up, the Dust had been converted into recognition for the novel.
But how?
By what principle?
Could the Stars be readers?
...No, that couldn't be it.
There were too many things I couldn't understand.
Then again, it made no sense that I had entered a novel in the first place.
Still, seeing the views made me happy.
Four thousand views, with a 99 percent read-through rate for five episodes in a row.
I couldn't be sure, but it felt like an incredible result for a rookie.
I felt dazed. It didn't feel real.
The novel's comments were exploding, and my once-empty inbox was glowing with a red N.
It was enough to make me wonder whether entering the novel hadn't been a dream, but this reality was.
Surely I hadn't failed to wake up yet?
I pinched my cheek to test it.
It hurt.
I was happy.
But...
“...What a shame.”
It was such a shame.
This novel probably couldn't become my work in the end. It had been influenced by Yoo Chan-young.
Damn it. If only this were my work. If it were my novel, published under my own name...
Knock, knock.
...Knock, knock?
Someone was knocking on the door.
Who would come at this hour?
Had a late-night delivery for the neighbor been sent to the wrong place?
Or was it the landlady?
...Surely not.
I hurriedly tidied up the room.
Damn it, why had I left so many pairs of underwear lying around?
And why was there so much laundry?
I rolled up the blanket to hide the underwear, gathered the tissues scattered across the desk, threw on jeans and a wrinkled track jacket, then opened the door.
A small, pale face came into view.
A few strands of black hair had fallen across her forehead, as though she had rushed here.
Her flushed cheeks made it hard to recall her usual cold, ruthless image.
“Pant... Editor. It's four in the morning...”
Ji Eun-yu stood before my door, her face flushed.
* * *
Since there was no way I could receive her at home, we headed to a nearby café.
I lived near a university district, so finding a twenty-four-hour café wasn't difficult.
“Here, Writer.”
The moment we ordered two Americanos, Ji Eun-yu pulled a string of file folders from her shoulder bag.
“This is a collection of material on regression fiction, and these are ideas I put together after reading your work. Take a look.”
Some of the ideas had been typed up and printed out, while others were organized in Ji Eun-yu's neat handwriting.
Even at a glance, the materials had clearly taken a great deal of effort.
“Why are you giving these to me...?”
“Why? I'm your assigned editor.”
Ji Eun-yu narrowed her eyes.
“Were you sitting around delighted just because you got four thousand views?”
“N-no, I wasn't.”
“It's too early to celebrate. You've only published five episodes. You can't relax until you reach Episode 16 and see how you do on Platinum Best.”
It felt like I had been struck hard on the back of the head.
Right. This was only the beginning.
“Besides, Platinum Best is only the first hurdle. If you want to reach paid serialization, there are mountains beyond mountains. You know even popular writers hit a rough patch around Episodes 30 or 40 and drop like flies, right?”
I didn't.
I'd never written a popular work before.
“And you started publishing without even giving me, your assigned editor, a word of notice...”
“Ah, well.”
I didn't know what excuse to make.
Should I say I hadn't planned to serialize it in the first place, and hadn't even done it myself?
But that would have been even stranger.
Perhaps she misunderstood something from my stupid expression. Ji Eun-yu suddenly held out her hand.
“Writer, give me that.”
“Pardon?”
“That.”
I wondered for a moment what she wanted, then carefully placed what I thought she meant on top of her hand.
“...No, Writer. Not your hand. Your phone!”
“Why do you need my phone?”
“Just hand it over.”
“...”
“You need to unlock the pattern first.”
My phone was snatched away in an instant.
The screen that appeared after I unlocked it was, of all things, Textpia's front page.
“Your favorites went up again. You've already passed fifteen hundred. You were around thirteen hundred just two hours ago.”
“...”
“You got a ton of messages, too. Have you read them all?”
“Well... No, wait! Why are you looking through someone else's messages...!”
Ji Eun-yu opened my inbox without paying any attention to me.
“Shinhwa E&M: Greetings, Writer. I am Hwang Tae-seong, editor-in-chief of Shinhwa E&M. The reason I am sending you this message is...”
“Cat Management: Hello, Writer! A management company for the writer, by the writer, and only for the writer! I am editor Na Soyul from Cat Management. You must have been surprised to suddenly receive a message from us, right? The reason I am sending you this message is...”
“Paper Books: Writer, I will get straight to the point. We would like to sign you. It is extremely rare to contact a work that has only been serialized for five episodes, but...”
There were five more messages besides those.
At that moment, I understood why Ji Eun-yu had asked for my phone.
“Editor, I know what you're thinking, but absolutely not.”
“...No?”
“Absolutely. How could I possibly do that?”
Honestly, it would have been a lie to say the thought had never crossed my mind.
But I had a conscience.
Dragon Management and Ji Eun-yu had practically made me what I was now.
They had paid me for the project, too.
And above all...
“I'm a ghostwriter right now, aren't I?”
Bitterness slipped into my voice without my realizing it.
Suppose I signed with another management company.
Would Dragon Management really sit by and let it happen?
Even if the contents were different, this was still a novel that borrowed some of the original work's setting and main threads.
No matter how well I wrote it, this wasn't my novel in the end.
“No, it might not be.”
“Pardon?”
“This work could become your novel, Writer.”
“Are you talking about what you mentioned before?”
She had definitely said something like that.
That if things went well, I might be able to own the copyright to this work, depending on the circumstances.
At the time, I had thought she was just saying it.
“Um, no. This is a little different from what I said then. How should I put it...”
Complex emotions passed through Ji Eun-yu's eyes.
I didn't know exactly what she was thinking, but I could tell her forehead was overheating.
Ji Eun-yu took a long sip of her iced Americano before speaking.
“Writer, do you trust me?”
It sounded like a big sister saying, “Trust me.”
Come to think of it, how old was Ji Eun-yu?
She looked at least five years younger than me.
...But that couldn't be right.
If she were five years younger than me, she would be a college student.
“Of course I trust you.”
“Good. Then let's do this, Writer.”
“Do what?”
“If our management contacts you about signing a contract...”
“About signing a contract?”
“Don't respond.”
“Pardon?”
“Got it? Until I tell you it's okay, don't respond to them. No matter what.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“They'll probably ask you to sign an adaptation contract.”
“But strictly speaking, this is an adaptation...”
“Writer.”
“Yes.”
“How similar do you think the novel you wrote is to Yoo Chan-young's original work?”
How similar...
How should I put it?
“To me, they're completely different novels.”
“...”
“The plot, the theme, the writing style, even the title. They're all different. This is a novel only you could write, Writer. It isn't an adaptation of Yoo Chan-young's work. It's undeniably your own original work.”
Hearing Ji Eun-yu say it made my heart lurch for some reason.
“If someone wanted to nitpick, the only issue would be the setting.”
“That's not just a minor issue, is it? Settings are important. There could be plagiarism problems, too.”
I deliberately spoke more firmly, trying to shake off the excitement in my chest.
In the genre fiction world, setting plagiarism was common because a sort of lawless zone had formed under the name of “cliché.”
But if the target of the plagiarism accusation was Yoo Chan-young, things could be different.
Yoo Chan-young was an author with the strongest fandom in the industry.
The only reason I could avoid plagiarism allegations was because my novel could be seen as an homage to or spin-off of Yoo Chan-young's work.
But Ji Eun-yu thought differently.
“No, it really is just something to nitpick. Strictly speaking, Yoo Chan-young borrowed the worldbuilding, too.”
“Pardon? What do you mean...?”
“Yoo Chan-young's settings all came from open source. Didn't you know?”
Open source.
Come to think of it, one of the readers who commented had said something similar.
That Yoo Chan-young's settings were open source.
“Put simply, they're public-use settings. It's a world created by a creative group called Eoduksini. Anyone can use it and adapt it however they want. As long as you credit the setting on the final page when publishing an ebook, there are no legal issues whatsoever. Yoo Chan-young did the same.”
My heart suddenly started pounding.
What if the novel I had written was different from Yoo Chan-young's in content, and owed nothing to Yoo Chan-young's setting?
Then...
Then this novel...
“Could I sign a formal contract? Not as Yoo Chan-young's ghostwriter, but under my own name?”
“It's entirely possible.”
My own web novel, published under my own name.
It was something I had never even expected.
“But it's too early to get ahead of yourself. The editorial department won't think the way I do. You know the people in our editorial department.”
Of course I did.
I knew them well.
“Honestly, the editorial department is in an uproar right now, saying we need to take your work down. They say you've ruined a guaranteed hit. I'm sure I'll get an earful at the internal meeting this week.”
“Why go that far? The views aren't bad even now.”
“It was a novel that had first place on Platinum Best practically guaranteed. No matter how badly it went, the Yoo Chan-young name meant it would achieve at least modest success. And your anti-regression theme comes with risks in the plot, too.”
I hadn't considered that much.
I felt a little depressed.
“Then a formal contract will be difficult after all?”
“No. I think this is an opportunity. Maybe an opportunity that will never come again.”
“...An opportunity?”
“The solution is simple. If Yoo Chan-young's original work's views are the problem, you just need to surpass Yoo Chan-young's original work.”
Just as I was about to think, What is this woman talking about?
I suddenly met her eyes, and my heart stirred.
“I believe in you, Writer.”
The quiet trust in her voice made my heart tremble without my realizing it.
Why was this person willing to do so much for me?
“This work can definitely be a hit. We need to show people. Show them that this work will never fall behind Yoo Chan-young's original work. No, prove through the views that it's a much more entertaining novel than Yoo Chan-young's original work.”
“...”
“I'll persuade the editorial department and buy us time. I'll postpone the adaptation contract and keep buying time until this work is firmly on track and we can negotiate with the editorial department.”
Strength filled my clenched fist.
I felt that I had to repay this unfathomable trust.
Ji Eun-yu nodded.
“Leave everything else to me. There's only one thing you have to do, Writer. You know what it is, right?”
“I do. I'll work really hard.”
Ji Eun-yu smiled brightly at my determination.
It was a truly beautiful smile.
“Yes, write.”
“Yes!”
“Write here.”
“Pardon?”
“Right now.”
For a moment, I stared at Ji Eun-yu with a stupid expression because I couldn't understand what she meant.
The face that had looked like the Holy Mother just moments ago suddenly looked like that of a vicious pro wrestler shouting, “Right here, right now!”
“Don't you understand? You've already started serializing. Do you have any chapters saved up? No, right? Then you need to write now. Aren't you updating tomorrow?”
No, wait. Even if that was true, writing here... I didn't have a laptop...
Damn it. I had brought my laptop.
“You aren't going home today until you finish tomorrow's episode.”
In the end, I opened my laptop as though Ji Eun-yu had pushed me into it.
I sighed and brought my hands to the keyboard.
Then an important problem suddenly occurred to me.
Wait.
How was I supposed to write this?
Surely I didn't have to...
Go in there again?
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