I’m resurrecting this. This was written in March 11, 2019.
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I’m on vacation right now but I’ve written and saved a few posts on various topics before I left. They’ll be released at random moments…because I’m a first-class bitch and I love being erratic.
Go ahead and leave your comments. I’ll respond when I get back.
For Wenchanteur, the “W” fanatic. Are you following this blog?
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This review is almost three years late since W: Two Worlds aired in the summer of 2016. But as the old adage goes, it’s better late than never (unless it’s a heart attack or something just as catastrophic. lol).
I’ll limit myself to four observations.
1. The episode presents a series of beginnings, all of them without conclusive endings.
I’m not sure if this is a foreshadowing of the writer’s intention but in Episode 1, I can count at least three beginnings for the male Kang Chul and two for the female lead Yeon Joo.
Typically, in a story that begins in media res (or literally, “into the middle of things”), the plot goes directly forward from the critical junction in the story to its logical conclusion. The backstory is only revealed to the viewers through flashbacks. In other words, the narration skips Point A and begins instead in the thick of things, Point B , then reaches its conclusion at Point C.
In this kdrama however the plot starts at Point B, moves toward Point C, only to falters and restarts again at Point B. There’s a cyclical motion because it’s perpetually rebooting and starting all over again at Point B.
Updated 3/28/2022 to post this illustration. Kang Chul is stuck in time. He’s perpetually in the middle of his story or his life. His literally in “media res,” never advancing, never progressing, never resolving the mysteries of “Who?” and “Why?” Only when his creator, the manghwa artist decides to conclude the comic series (aka his “life”), does he move along with his story towards the endpoint. And that’s because of the introduction of YeonJoo in both his life and the manghwa.
Take for instance Kang Chul.
His story began with his improbable gold medal win at the Olympics for his pistol shooting (Point B). With such a gripping tale of success, one would expect a bright future for him. One night, however, his whole family was found massacred and he became the primary suspect. He ended up in jail (Point C). The reversal of fortune doomed the once-promising future for this youth.
But he appealed his case and won because of the lack of evidence. This marked his new beginning in his life. He returned to an empty house and it hit him then that he was all alone in the world (Point B).
For a year, he endured people branding him as “murderer” until one night, he decided to end it all by jumping off a bridge (Point C). As he was about to plunge to his death, he suddenly changed his mind. Out of the blue, he was inspired by his previous experience of a “come-from-behind” victory at the Olympics. He latched on tightly to the bridge and vowed to continue living to discover the real murderers. As he walked away from the bridge, he rebooted his life with renewed zeal (Point B).
From there on, he became a multimillionaire very much admired by everyone. His trajectory in life seemed assured until one night, he’s found stabbed and almost near death in the rooftop (Point C). Then, without reason or rhyme, the female lead YeonJoo found herself pulled into this world of his as he lay dying (Point B). She rescued him.
For YeonJoo, this was her second beginning in Episode 1. Like with Kang Chul’s story, hers started in the middle of her being roused from sleep by the insistent ringing of a cellphone. She woke up in a panic and rushed to meet her senior medical officer. Unlike Kang Chul who won gold in his first Olympic competition, she barely passed her senior’s approbation. Her second beginning was her encounter with Kang Chul. She was sucked into helping him.
The funny thing is, as soon as YeonJoo literally entered the picture and both her world and his world collided, the concept of “continuation” was introduced to the plot. The words, “to be continued” literally appeared in the picture.
No longer did Kang Chul have to live his life in fits and starts, as if somebody, an Outside Influence, just kept creating these improbable cliffhangers (or “bridge” hangers) for him to jumpstart his life. With the introduction of YeonJoo to the story, his existence became an ongoing process.
2. The process of creation
Lol. Come on, you writer-nim! You didn’t think I would miss this, right?
The first hint was when YeonJeo stabbed Kang Chul with a – get this – a pen. She stabbed him with the pen, not to kill him, but to save his life. She hesitated at first because she didn’t want to take the risk of making a fatal mistake as she was rookie doctor. But she took the chance and he lived. The pen that she used was symbolic of her new role as creator of his life. She changed the direction of the story intended by its original creator, her father.
Second was after she escaped the delusional world and returned to her real world. In disbelief, she tapped the screen with a finger. lol. The screen had the bloodied Kang Chul lying on the ground, and she touched the screen with her pointer.
To me, this moment alludes to the iconic “touch of god” painting by Michaelango or “Creation of Adam.”
In the painting, God touched Adam and gave him life, the spark of humanity. Likewise, YeonJoo touched the screen with her pointer finger and gave the manhwa a new life, the spark of humanity. Kang Chul will begin to live as an individual, an individual with choices to make, and not just a simple drawing in the created world of YeonJoo’s father.
To me, then, Kang Chul made sense when he announced to his secretary and his bodyguard, that YeonJoo held the key to his life. He might sound flippant as he said it, but it’s true. He said, “She has the key to my life” and added, “The reason for my existence. I think she’s the person who will tell me the reason for my existence.”
Third hint was when Subong, the assistant, suddenly entered the room as she was touching the laptop screen. He waved a digital pen at her as if to ward her off. lol.
Although these three incidents may seem insignificant and unrelated to other viewers, they indicate to me that once she entered his world, and their two worlds collided, she unwittingly became the creator of his world.
3. The god concept
To me it’s noteworthy that although YeonJoo became Kang Chul’s creator, she didn’t view herself as god. The word “god” was bandied about to often in this episode for me to miss its significance in this kdrama.
YeonJoo insisted that she was human. Her boss in the hospital loved to point this out. He said, “Why are you like that? If your father is the famous Oh SungMoo, how come you’re just Oh YeonJoo?” To which she answered, “I’m sorry for being ‘just Oh YeonJoo’.”
The acclaimed gods in this episode are the menfolk like her boss and her father…and Kang Chul, too.
Her medical supervisor, “Crazy Dog” was a “god.” YeonJoo hadn’t assisted yet in an open-heart surgery and her boss had the power to declare who could open and sew up during an open-heart surgery. Crazy Dog was a god in the medical field. Contrary to the moniker she gave her boss, she was the dog in their relationship because she ran to him, like a dog to his master, whenever he whistled.
Her father was also a “god.”
YeonJoo assumed that her father disappeared because he was having a hard time parting ways with a character he’d drawn for then years. He was only being “human,” she reasoned. But Subong assured her that her father felt no such thing. Subong told her, “What do you mean upset? He always talked about how sick and tired he was and how badly he wanted to kill the guy. Kang Chul. He said he was going to kill Kang Chul in the last scene.”
Of course, the implication here is that only humans felt attachment. Gods don’t. They can kill of their characters whenever they wanted.
And to top it all, gods don’t give away spoilers. lol. The deities do as they please with their creations. They don’t give away clues or warnings to prepare their created beings and their audience of the future.
And Kang Chul is a god too in his dimension. According to the voiceover. He was a “co-CEO of JN Global, a business involved with electronic commerce. The market value of JN Global: $1.5 billion. With personal assets of $800 million, a super millionaire.” When he was treated for his injuries in a hospital, people rallied in the front of his hospital to express their concern for his health.
All these people were gods in their fields, but not YeonJoo.
4. Two worlds will hopefully coexist.
Since I’m stopped watching this kdrama at Episode 6 three years ago, and have yet to rewatch Episode 2, I don’t know yet how these worlds would mesh together: his fake manhwa world and her real medical world.
But my gut sense tells me that “hope” will be a central theme in this kdrama.
(lol. I exercise my option to use my intuition as this is about my “first impressions.” Thinking will come later, if my fluffy brains cooperate.)
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You see, the creative process relies on hope. Creation is always a work in progress; it’s evolving; it’s a “To be continued” not a “The End.” It’s a comma, a dash, and an ellipsis, but not a period.
And because creation isn’t a terminal stop, hope is integral to it.
Just remember what we’ve seen of Kang Chul’s life in this episode. There were many obstacles that prevented him from reaching his destiny. Sure, having a “winning” mindset allowed him to confront his difficulties.
But I think, at the end of the story, he’ll realize that, in the inevitable twists and turns of life, he’ll need something more than this winning attitude and his “self-mastery” to carry him through. Some things are simply going to be out of his control and it is during these trying times when he’s most desperate that he must HOPE that there’s something better for him in the scene, in the next chapter of his life, in the future. Otherwise, what’s the point of enduring when he’s going to repeat the same crap the following moment?
Same thing with the creative process.
One thing certain about creation is that it comes with problems, limitations and challenges. It’s never easy. But as long as hope exists, then nothing that the world and “gods” dish out can ever stop the progress of creation from unfolding.
So here ends my post on First Impressions. Hopefully, I can continue some other time.
Wenchanteur, where are you?
Yah! I’m here, boss!
I feel like I’ve seen this drama so many times as a child, without seeing certain things. As I expected, you managed to surprise me.
The symbolism of the pen used as a medical tool, and as a means of saving the hero from the manhwa. It seems obvious, I’ve never thought about it before, though.
There is a connection and of meaning in there. What I called, for lack of anything better, a “multi-contextual” scene.
In addition, the pen fits into Kang Chul’s chest, like a key would fit in a lock!
The scene where Yeon-Joo touches the tablet with his finger is in the script, but without any explanation about the “touch of God”.
The scene where Soo-Bong holds the stylus like a sword. I missed that too!
I don’t know what it means, but in this scene, he brings Yeon-Joo back to reality by scaring her.
The stylus is pointed at her, as a warning, or to say “you too have been drawn now”.
This detail comes from Jung Dae-Yoon’s staging, and is not in SJJ’s script.
It’s really well received, this director is exceptional in more ways than one, but it would take too long to talk about him here.
God upside down does Dog. Just a funny side, which only works in English.
I’ll add the scene where Yeon-Joo runs into the hospital to find Professor Park.
The scene is abnormally long, and serves to show the personality of the heroine: she rushes before thinking.
Instead of considering the obvious (Professor Park is in his office), she runs around.
We can assume that she is a bit of a wakeful girl, not yet fully aware of the realities, and that something extraordinary or supernatural will not frighten too much.
It’s a “first impression” article, so I’m not going to comment too much!
I had trouble understanding your analyses with points A, B or C. (it reminds me of the movie Primer, ah ah ah!)
I just see things in a simple way:
– the first scenes are a trap for the innocent spectator. He thinks that all this is real, although there are indications that there are some inconsistent things.
– First suspense… what happened to Kang Chul? Is he dead?
– the attention is focused elsewhere, on Yeon-Joo… but what does this hospital and this stupid girl have to do with it?
– then Professor Park introduces the manhwa… we understand that the beginning of the drama was a manhwa…
Later on, I find it quite surprising that SJJ chose to present Kang Chul in a series of scenes with a voiceover.
Besides, I don’t know what voice it is. Yeon-Joo’s? The one of a narrator?
The big advantage is that it allows Kang Chul’s entire life to be spread out very quickly, without wasting time.
Oh good! I am about to give this drama a second go. I dropped it after 6 eps.
Hi, how are you, packmule3?
W’s season 2 writing is over! All episodes, from the first to the last.
The pitch is also made. It’s just 3 sentences, but rewritten 100 times to find the right text.
I am writing the synopsis to make the project presentable. And it’s very difficult to summarize the whole drama.
I think I might produce a short synopsis as well, I don’t know, would it even make sense?
I don’t know what to put in a drama synopsis, and what level of detail.
I can’t find any examples anywhere. Even synopses of American films or series are not available (I am talking about the copy that is sent to the producer, not summaries made on websites).
Finally, I started some steps to find a way to contact the scriptwriter Song Jae-Jung. It’s complicated, not speaking Korean. My first searches were unsuccessful.
Hey there, WEnchanteur! That’s great news! I remember you were still trying to wrestle some parts of the story the last time we talked. Yes, I heard about a “logline” that one- to three-sentence summary that will hook the producers to your script.
I remember teasing somebody that if I were to write a novel and pitch it, I’d say, “And then god died.” However, for the life of me, I wouldn’t be able to remember if that sentence should constitute the beginning, middle or the end of my story.
It would make a great beginning because after god dies, Miranda of “The Tempest” could protest “O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
And it would also make a great middle because everything would be twisted, reversed, double-backed, pre-and post-god.
But I would like it as an ending because everything that happened before god died would disappear. We’re only a figment of divine imagination.
lol. Isn’t that what W was afraid of? That once the creator died, the creation would die, too?
But good luck with your baby. I hope you’ll find a way to contact SJJ. Will you write your pitch in English with a translation in Korean?
Hi!
“And then god died”?
It’s a really huge pitch! No idea of the story that would go around. But I don’t think it would be the disappearance of creation. Moreover in W, it is not. I also talk a little bit about it in season 2.
“And then god died”… I think of a very realistic story with that. Something to do with the moral decay of society, its subjection to finance and mass propaganda.
It could also be the story of someone who has faith (religious or not), but whose faith is extinguished in himself.
It could also be a comic story whose answer comes immediately and unexpectedly.
“And then god died… so I had to replace him.”
W2: I can hire a translator for the pitch and write a letter to SJJ. Translating the entire script into Korean would be far too expensive. The volume of text is equivalent to half of “war and peace”. I don’t think the Korean translation of the synopsis is affordable either. Translation prices are very high here. And I can translate everything myself into English for free. I think the Koreans all speak English.
I regularly have crises of doubt about the scenario. It’s too long to tell here. The torments of the scriptwriter….
I have confidence in the Story, because it was 90% self-written, producing a result that is much better than my own talent.
My goal was to create a more intense story than Season 1, but I notice that the beginning is not as powerful.
I find the first two or three episodes too soft, not enough mysteries, etc. I don’t have the chance to establish a basic principle, as for season 1, so it’s a classic exhibition. What happened to the characters? What are they going to face this time? Comedy, good dialogue, and some hidden elements that will have an impact later. A lot of information dispersed in a natural way. The spectator may not pay the necessary attention, which is a good thing.
If you have time, you can read the first 4 episodes in a very user-friendly format. Photo-drama is made to give the impression of watching a drama on TV. There is not much spoil from season 1, and as you saw the first 6 episodes, that’s enough.
http://w4worlds.eklablog.com/photo-drama-episodes-c30479408
It is possible to write comments without fear of spoiling, and without registration. I’d be curious to hear your opinion.
We can observe a clear increase in power at the end of episode 3.
The episodes are supposed to be half an hour, and I have a doubt about that. Maybe it’s less, and that would be convenient for me. If we could condense 3 episodes into a single one-hour episode, it would be perfect for the cliffhanger of episode 3, LOL! And the drama would last 23 hours instead of 34 hours. But I’m suspicious, because once this script is transformed into screenplay, it can easily get longer. Slowed down scenes, with musical passage, slowdowns related to the exposure of a place or for any other reason. All you have to do is watch a drama to see how things go from a script to a TV pace.
For the moment, I haven’t worked hard on the screenplay aspect. The script is imperfect at this level, unable to be shown to a producer. Sometimes things like “while X is telling this, it goes into voice-over and we show a small scene of what he is telling” are missing. You can see it in episode 1, when the professor is doing her class. At times, you would have to show what she’s telling, a little comedy scene would be perfect. Each dialogue that takes too long without a visual is bad in a scenario. I think a professional scriptwriter would easily find all the passages of this nature. Even I can do it!
A season 2!!!! that would be cool!
We actually binged on this drama a few months back, hubby needed to know what happened next and I was panda eyed from staying up too late watching it…past my 2am bedtime. We felt there were gaps in the story because the rules of the two worlds were not consistent enough and left me with too many questions. It was frustrating but still I loved the whole story and the ending with was a happy one, but not still logical enough.
Hi skye,
As I did the FR subtitles of the drama, I can say one thing…
The drama is coherent, I was able to identify the different rules, and their evolution.
I needed to list everything, to be able to write season 2.
I had to be consistent with the past, as well as being consistent for new phenomena to come.
There are some things from Season 1 that I no longer use, since there is no trigger.
Although this is not my goal, Season 2 explains some of the obscure phenomena of Season 1, for the sake of the story.
Wow!!! Unearth post… I need to read this again. And also read the kind of stupidities I could answer three years ago.
@Packmule3 and @WEnchanteur, in saving Kang Chul’s life the first time, Yeon Joo certainly did display that the pen is mightier than the sword (knife, in this case).
[SPOILER] In a future episode, we see that Yeon Joo created Kang Chul and his world much earlier than the current action suggests. In a scene when she’s a child, keeping herself busy as her parents argue in the adjoining room, she’s drawing a young man pointing a gun. This was during the period of time when her father was failing in his career as a manhwa artist.
Additional comments (some mentioned on the rewatch).
“A series of beginnings.”
I’m not sure of which, but if it’s in the “hook” sense, there are several. The point of which is that the audience wants to know “What happens next?”. Mysteries like…
– Oh Sung-Moo has disappeared.
– Oh Sung-Moo wants to kill Kang Chul.
– Yeon-Joo is sucked into another manhwa world.
– Kang Chul knows something “key of life”. Placed in the cliffhanger because it’s the most amazing thing… The hero seems to know something about the concept.
We should make a comparison of the number of “hooks” that we find in other kdramas by listing them. But just intuitively, here we break all records. Especially since some of them are very strong. There is the American series 24 which was very elaborate in this field. Each episode ends with a split screen showing 3 to 4 situations in suspense.
Yeon-Joo caught by Kang Chul’s hand.
My very first impression of this scene… I didn’t find the idea original. Not from there to say it’s a trope, but it was the way I could foresee. And I guess the writer is aware of which scenes she wants to be unpredictable, and which ones she accepts the audience to predict. And so in W, whenever you can predict, the point is that the scene is always better than what you can predict. This is probably the best way to proceed here, because it is very catchy (ahah), and involves a strong narrative sense (which is precisely the basis of the concept). The scene is very well shot, even a bit too much. The director uses a mirror at one point, but it’s too fast to notice… it creates a sense of flip-flop, as Yeon-Joo’s hand reverses. At the same time it’s good because it creates the destabilizing atmosphere, but still a bit confusing. We don’t know anymore which hand it is. However, the fact that the hand is coming out of the tablet is taken seriously afterwards, which improves the scene in retrospect. It wasn’t just for dramatic effect.
“Hope.”
It’s very hard to guess at the first episode and so it’s not really that. But there are many themes and everyone can find everything in it, “hope” is one of them. On the whole drama, what marks me the most is “free will” and “free creation”. The phenomenon is a creation ex-nihilo animated by the will. So in connection with something divine, hence some references to the famous painting of God and Adam. It is the director who introduces this notion. He does so in two other scenes later. One we saw in the rewatch at the end of episode 2: “God reaches out to his creature, but with fear of him”. And another great scene in episode 6. And I’ll post the script showing that the writer doesn’t insist on that. As she doesn’t give that meaning here either:
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#36. Sung Moo’s Studio (Daytime)
If the camera falls out of Yeon Joo’s bewildered expression…
The noisy sights in front of me disappeared in an instant.
No paramedics, no Kang Chul, no hotel staff…
Yeon Joo is standing there before being dragged in.
The sun is shining brightly through the window. Postcards are on the floor.
Yeon Joo, who was dazed and stayed there for a while and then turned around..
The picture you saw before is floating on the tablet as it is.
Kang Chul’s painting, which seems to have collapsed and died in the dark, seems to have moved at some point.
Yeon Joo, trembling hands at the monitor in fear. But a finger ticking against the monitor. It’s not three-dimensional, it’s just a picture on a flat screen monitor.
Yeon Joo, I’m feeling goosebumps, I’m afraid I’m staggering backwards
SOO BONG – What are you doing, noona?
YEON JOO – (! Looking back with a smirk)
Soo Bong opens the door and looks in.
SOO BONG – What are you doing? Why do you call and there is no answer
YEON JOO – (shivering) What happened…?
SOO BONG – What is it?
YEON JOO – Am I missing here..? for a while
SOO BONG – It’s gone? when?
YEON JOO – (expression) I was alone in the room.. You go out to report it to the police
SOO BONG – (interrupted) I didn’t call the police! Teacher, be safe, sister!
YEON JOO – What…?
SOO BONG – (Happy) Sir, it’s over now!
YEON JOO – (!!)
SOO BONG – I don’t know where you sent it, but you just sent it anyway!
And you brought Kang Chul back to life. Noona was right. I was about to kill him, so I was conflicted and went out to think again. I didn’t even know that, and I called my sister for nothing.
YEON JOO – (Face)
SOO BONG – See me~
YEON JOO – (dazed) Dad…?
SOO BONG – You haven’t contacted me yet, but I’m sure you’ll come in soon~ You’ve already finished~
YEON JOO – (Face)
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What she is interested in is communicating to the actress “is it a three-dimensional image”, because Yeon-Joo is still halfway between the other world and her own in her head. And she “taps”. Just for fun, imagine an animated version of Michaelangelo’s painting, and… God is tapping Adam’s hand!!! Angels… but but… God? What are you playing at? … Adam, who wanted to face the transcendental… suddenly in Bruce Almighty movie!!!!
For the “Pen”, Soo-Bong’s is absent from the script. But for the scene on the roof of course… One wonders how the writer manages to come up with this kind of incredible scene, with a stream of different meanings coming into the same nexus. All this being connected to the rest of the story, so series of impossible to calculate correlations that make you think… “it’s as if the whole drama appeared in her mind at once”.
If I break down what this scene requires:
– Yeon-Joo needs to be a cardiothoracic doctor.
– The hero must have a pneumothorax problem.
– To do this he must be stabbed (or something that can trigger a pneumothorax).
– We have to think about the “pen”. Indeed, Yeon-Joo first goes to the kitchen to get a scissors and some compresses. The most obvious idea for the scriptwriter was not to use a “pen” but something from the kitchen!
– Introducing the pen into the scene. Once the idea was found.
There are the basics that I don’t count like:
– The hero must be mortally wounded, saved by the heroine, in a story whose concept is fiction becoming real. But still… This story is related to a manhwa (use of “pen” or “electronic stylus”). The original idea of the writer was not a manhwa but just the painting. She only kept the postcard with the Goya painting.
The idea of saving someone from a pneumothorax in this way is fortunately easy to find, it has been used often. And as the writer knows and not to disappoint using a trope, she places a comical line “Oh heck, after all they do it in dramas”.
But then we are left with this mystery… how does the screenwriter’s creative process manage to combine so many factors to give an exceptional scene, which satisfies the main purpose and at the same time triggers other meanings, symbolisms and correlations? What I call “multi-contextual scene”, because I can’t think of another name. And the most obvious one is the one in episode 7 in the police station. Or the scene in the hospital parking lot in Memories of the Alhambra. Or the one in the phone booth at the end of Nine Times Travel. A specialty of the writer! I can hardly find any elsewhere (but quickly, there is a good one towards the end of Kairos).
As we would have to interview her on this specific point to know, I can only relate my own experience.
Well yes, of course, what she does is completely my thing, so it’s normal that I try to produce it. It’s not to copy, it’s just natural… Except that I can’t really do it by looking for it, it’s triggered in another way. And I finally have these kinds of scenes now, I’ve counted several, that are scattered in a very random way throughout the story.
Also, a bit after my previous messages, once the whole script was done, I turned it into a real screenplay to make it better and more clear. Improving in this kind of writing, reworked a lot the previous drafts. With additionnal ideas (it’s crazy, ideas from the conception, next in the writing, next in the correction, it’s endless).
I’m making a list of the multiple factors that promote that “multi-contextual” thing.
– A detailed design. Have as many elements as possible in the draft. Scenes, characters, all that agglomerates little by little. Beginning of plots that connect to each other. But still nothing definitive or chronological.
– Cohesion. It is a kdrama, a long and complete story. A beginning, an end. This would be much more difficult with a principle of episodes written over time or season series. The cohesion of the whole is important. Without cohesion, there are no multiple elements that could relate to each other and establish connections of meaning, natural correlations. Still undetected at a basic stage, but which will reveal themselves later, for sure.
– Immersion. It’s impossible to have the whole drama in mind when designing. But it is possible to immerse yourself in it. The mind is completely immersed in the story, for a very long period of time, day and night. It is not a concentration on one point, it is a diffuse concentration. And so, behind the scene of consciousness, incredible connections are formed… which will reveal themselves in a click later.
– The draft of very strong scenes before even having a structure or temporal continuity (outline). Or even before having a coherent plot. Just these scenes will guide the construction of the story. So they will draw to them the elements they need.
– Presence of mind. Free spirit, ready to receive anything. The way I use it the most. Intuitive connections are amazing when they happen. Proofreading feels like reading something written by someone else, with ideas you didn’t get personally. It just… happened!
– Experience. Thinking, being able to twist the scene, testing variations, enriching it. So the habit of creating situations. For Song Jae-Jung… we may forget, but before writing dramas (already in large numbers)… there are hundreds of sitcom episodes!!! This experience will add up to presence of mind. By groping, twisting, PAF!!! The spontaneous idea comes, the good one! Not the one just from brainstorming or calculation. I managed to use this… a scene that was not multi-contextual… suddenly… It turns out it was!!! It was just a matter of changing one element, or adding one.
– Exploitation. When the story has elements, try to exploit them to the maximum! It’s just logic. Pay-off. For the scene with the pen for example… Let’s say I haven’t found that scene yet. I just have other elements like “the heroine is a surgeon’s apprentice” and “it’s about a manhwa drawn on a tablet”. I can look into how to enhance that. Cascade of ideas… She’s a surgeon, so she could save the hero?!!! How… There is a manhwa and we use pens… so with a pen!
– The reverse enginnering. Lol, like in computer science. Here it’s the other way around. I have my hero about to die, and I want the heroine to save him. And that way, I have a scene where they can look at each other (first look!!)… Only, he’s in really bad shape. What to do? My heroine must have some skills… Only at first I wanted her to be a cartoonist, like her father. Okay, she becomes a nurse or an intern instead. Then cascades of ideas, it will be because of her mother, etc (back to the Exploitation stage).
I doubt it happened that way for this scene, but it’s not completely impossible. And for many other things, it can be done this way too. You want this, but you don’t have the triggers. No problem, we change what we had planned and do it again. This works as long as there is not too much structure in place. If it forces you to change too many things and redo everything, it’s probably not worth it. But for a lot of little things it works. Writing backwards, in reverse. Another example, more likely: At the beginning, the heroine saves the hero with a pen, but it’s her pen! The one she carries with her. But later, episode 4, I need my heroine to be chased by the police. And for that, I need someone who can identify her. Someone who is around. The waiter? Yes, but how? He doesn’t know her! In that case, I’ll put the waiter in episode 1, and the heroine will use the waiter’s pen instead.