Hello everyone!
I wanted to take a moment to talk to you about the story. I wanna talk about the story, characters and that sort of stuff.
The story takes place during the Sengoku period. In the late 16th century. The era is marked for its many wars. I really want to show that in this story. Nobunaga has to go fight a battle or something a lot and it's such a big part in everybody's life that even Harumi is studying up on warfare. Next to that I try to incorporate the culture shock that hit Harumi every time she learns something new about the era. I never had Japanese history in school so everything I know about it is from manga/anime/otome games/stories/wikipedia/ect. Not only that but I myself are European. I know a little about Japanese culture in general thanks to the internet and the things I listed earlier. Still, It is a very different world and I know that things that are scandalous in Japan are normal over here. I think that is one of the things I struggle with the most. I know I don't know anything about the sengoku period, so I look it up. But I have this image in my head about who Harumi is and I'm scared that she comes off very different than how I envisioned her.
Since I was young I really loved to write story's. At first in my diary and stuff but when I was around 11 or 12 years old I started to write stories online. It were all fanfics about a band that I really loved at the time and all the stories were written in my first language. With the years I kept on writhing. Every story I wrote was in my first language on the website I started to publish my work on so many years before. At that point I still mostly wrote fanfiction. One, because I liked it and two, because those stories were more populair. But I also started to write my own stories were every character was made up by me. All my story's are very different and are set in very different worlds. But when I write I want to write about love. I want to write stories that are intriguing but also funny. I don't want to write a too cheesy story and I like to write more about two people falling in love than two people who are already in love and together. I don't want to make it to easy for the protagonist. I don't want her/him to be too powerful or something. That is also the reason I made it that Harumi hated history in school. So she wouldn't know too much about it and have too much knowledge about everything. I want to keep the story interesting and although I like to have a happy ending, I really enjoy hardship and some melancholy in a story. I really hope I can convey all of this.
The reason I decided to publish this story on here has a few reasons. The biggest one is probably that the site were I used to publish my stories hasn't really changed. Well, the website had, but the audience hasn't. I would be 10 years older than the major demographic of the site. Since my stories are a lot darker and mature than most stories they didn't really do well on there. It was also a website from my home country, and eastern stories aren't really big over here. I hoped with writing my story on here it would get some more traction but also so that people who enjoy this genre can read my story as well, if they like of course. And last, but definitely not least, so I could practice my english writing skill.
My inspiration for this story comes from a few things. I always enjoyed fantasy/historical books and movies. When I really got into manga and anime a few years back I quickly realized that those were also my preferences with manga and anime. I've read a few manga's about Oda Nobunaga, mostly romance, and I really enjoyed them. I also read some other historical manga's. This was the beginning of the idea for this story. One thing led to another. I got more into otome games on my phone and here also, I liked the historical ones the most. At some point I had read all the stories from the genres that I really liked and were available to me to I began to search for more. That was how I ended up on this site. At first I read a lot of stories and surprise! Again, I liked the historical/fantasy ones the most. Still, the my own story was getting more bigger and bigger in my head. So finally I decided to start my new story on this website. Before I even wrote the first chapter I had already had the base line for al least the first volume.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts about the story and why I wanted to write it. I'm planning to do more of these author thoughts chapters now and then in the future to share my opinion or just for me to explain something. If you have any questions about anything, ask them below and I will answer them in a upcoming chapter.
I was planning to write a normal chapter after this but it's already getting pretty late and I'm really tired (I went to bed around 7 a.m. yesterday and slept for like 3 hours. So I'm pooped! I will write a new chapter tomorrow and I'm really exited for it! I have been looking forward in writhing this story arc since the beginning!
Have a lovely morning, day, evening or night, wherever you are! <3