NISIOISIN
Skimming again the wikipedia page of Nisio Isin, and I refuse to believe this guy is human. A normal prolific author is when the wikipedia page makes you go “oh sweet, he released a new book!”, whereas with Nisio Isin you find out that “oh he wrote a new series with 15 books, added 5 books to Monogatari, and also adapted one of his series to manga”.
Interview of Nisio:
After this, every time I released a book, I would announce the next work. I think this was one reason why I was able to write for 15 years. Above anything else I, as a reader like it when I see an announcement for the next work. It makes you excited when you think that “there’s going to be a continuation”. I think it would be nice if I could offer such a thing.
If I just write, the story will naturally connect and continue. Even for ‘Owarimonogatari’, which will soon be adapted into anime, I couldn’t have imagined it would end like that. But I think it ended in the most beautiful way. When writing novels, there is a part of me that writes wanting to see the ending, thinking “I wonder how it’s going to end?”.
– What! Really? So you don’t have the plot decided already?
I don’t. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to feel satisfied whilst writing.
– But for a mystery, wouldn’t the ending and it’s foreshadowing be important!?
It’s important, so that’s why I continue to write so the mystery can be solved. So to explain this from the point of view of a character, for example I tried putting a girl, Senjougahara Hitagi into the story, but she’s incredibly fierce. Then why is she like that? I write this sort of thing whilst continuing to search around and look deeper. That’s why when the character is fully understood, the story ends. There are some characters where this is more difficult. I had a very hard time with Sengoku Nadeko. I think it took around 8 years for me to fully understand her. I have yet to understand Kagenui-san or Ononoki-chan, so I want to continue to dig deeper. After writing, if I end at a point I’m a bit curious about, I can write another additional work.
I am very healthy at the moment. It’s relaxing, exciting…. in this way, I enjoy writing very much. Certainly looking at the timeline and simply at the amount I was writing, there were times when the schedule was ridiculous. Like when I was releasing ‘Katanagatari’ as a monthly work whilst writing ‘Kizumonogatari’. Or when I was releasing a serial work for WEEKLY JUMP whilst releasing a novel for the ‘Monogatari Series’ every few months. But once I start working on something, I don’t tend to think about other things in the schedule. This may be my trick in being able to overcome this sort of thing. To be in the state of mind that “At this moment, it is only this that I’m writing”. To not think that the situation is too busy and hard. “This is all I need to do”, the idea is repeated and accumulates to produce this final result.
