What Is Love?

Afterword

Hello, I'm Sansetto Raitā (Sunset Writer), and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read What is Love?.

I hope you got at least a little bit of enjoyment out of it.

This is the first official novel I've ever written. I've been writing stories since I was in 8th grade, but they were always short and never had a plot. I just enjoyed creating a world that was different from the one I was living in. I was also writing with 8th grade English, so the writing was tragic. Sometimes I look back on some of the first stories I ever wrote and think to myself, "thank goodness for English classes." Which is ironic because I was never particularly fond of English classes. The assignments always bored me. Writing based on prompts about nonfiction were boring to me.

When I first started writing stories, I continued working on the same one for about three years and it was essentially one world, and each chapter I wrote was like an episode in that world. There was no overall plot whatsoever so it would essentially just keep continuing forever until I got bored of it, so it was in no way a story. I think there was around 60 chapters (episodes). It was just my first experience creating a world that didn't exist, as well as my first attempt at writing subplots because each little section did have a plot, there was just no ending in sight and some of the chapters didn't even align with the other chapters. That story was also a military story because that was my original topic of choice when I would write.

In my junior year of high school, I was taking college level English classes and I took my first class that focused only on writing stories and poems. I learned how to create actual plots. The hard part for me was always how to lead up to an ending and finish the story without leaving too much unfinished or losing the audience before the end.

"What is Love?" was something that came to me after my obsession with anime and Yuri. 2020 was quite the year with the coronavirus and all. I was in my third year of college and I lost a month and a half of school because of it. I was also stuck in my house for about four months. That was when I really started getting into anime and Yuri. Being stuck in my house for the majority of the summer gave me lots of free time and birthed this novel. (Fun fact, I am an information technology major, not English. Writing is just a hobby of mine.)

I, like Natsuki, have never experienced romantic love in any way. But I wrote this Yuri and will probably continue to write Yuri because of a quote I read in the afterword of a Yuri manga I recently read. I can't remember who it was that wrote it, but it was essentially saying that Yuri is something the author enjoyed writing because it has more emotions involved than normal romances. I agree, and that's why I like writing these. Emotions make stories something the reader can truly enjoy if you ask me. The more it makes you feel it in your heart, the more enthralled you become (kind of like love, but how would I know that).

A lot of the writing details I included in the chapter where Natsuki and Katou start working on their first manga are details completely from my own personal bias and experience. I didn't do any research for that. It simply came from my experience as a writer, and as someone who enjoys reading and watching anime. I also made the chapter where Natsuki and Katou try things like kissing and hugging similar to my experiences. As a writer, I do believe that it's easier to write things descriptively if you have actually physically felt what you're writing. I've never actually been in love someone yet, but I have experienced all of the three things they tried for her research (for the first time) very recently. I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's harder to write descriptions of things that you've never felt and make it interesting (I'm talking about that certain love scene towards the end. Plus, there was also a time when I was writing before I had experienced it and I was just going off of movies and other books, much like what Natsuki was doing). So essentially, the majority of the writing details Natsuki encounters in this story are very similar to my life experiences with how I write, and this is the first story I've written that has such a huge tie to my real life. The rest of it though is completely my imagination. :)

When I write stories, I usually end up thinking of one big part of the plot and then starting with that. Then I usually fill in the rest around it. The point that I start at is usually always the climax or the second most important part of the story because that's what comes to me first. I think to myself, "Ooh, this would make a great story." So sometimes the filler chapters are difficult for me to come up with. I suppose in some respects I still struggle with plots. I never intended to have the second half of this story after the ceremony for the manga award. I only created that because since this is my first official novel, the word count (and frankly the content gauge as well) was really lacking without it. After I've added the few extra chapters in though, I feel like it was a good way to wind down Natsuki and Katou's story and give a real feel that Natsuki truly learned what it was like to love Katou.

I'm an American, and I've never been to Japan. My only exposure to Japan is through anime and manga, so please don't be angry with me if I got some details wrong. It also took a lot of researching to do the Kyoto and Kaiyukan chapters because of that. Having no idea about anything in Japan, I was describing Natsuki and Katou's college as "a university in Tokyo." I didn't pick a specific college because I didn't want to have to do a lot of research on what the campus looked like, the majors they had available, the dorms, and such, so I just ended up making it some place that had no actual location and came up with the campus details from my own college experiences. However, when I was mentioning time frames for the two travelling, I was using Tokyo University as a point to act as where the college was.
Despite not having ever visited Japan, it's on my bucket list. I'm also learning the Japanese language. So, in some parts of the story, I was envisioning the two speaking Japanese to each other, which was kind of fun.

I've probably started rambling in this afterword, so I'll wrap it up. This is my first one after all. I hope you enjoyed "What is Love?!" It was a learning experience for me, and I feel like I've started to make a real jump ahead in my writing experience. And of course, I hope at least someone out there was truly happy to read this novel.

Until next time!

-Sansetto Raita (Sunset Writer)