The Famous Millionaire

But that’s it. As soon as the writer was fully geared to develop his story, the readers began to lose interest in the novel all of a sudden. The problem was the reality of the story. Sometimes, the writer created a situation that didn’t fit the main character’s personality, and sometimes turned an impossible situation into a ridiculous coincidence casually. He even brutally crushed the readers’ expectations. For example, he jumped to the conclusion right after the beginning of the story without detailing its development, crisis and climax. And even the conclusion was completely contrary to the readers’ expectation.

Hyunwoo felt regret about Pilgaeks’ writing ability. If he had the ability to develop the story, he could be a terrific writer. He could join hands with another writer who was good at developing a story. He could also try writing short novels because he could conclude the story quickly before its structure could collapse.

When Hyunwoo thought as far as that, Hyunwoo opened his eyes wide all of a sudden.

“Oh, short novel?”

He suddenly thought of the Anifan club of the House of Happiness, the creator of Garbage World. He felt Pilgaek and Anifan could be a great mix. Anifan kids didn’t create animations with a long story. All their works lasted up to 10 minutes. If they had a good idea, Yu Soim, its member, could make great story out of it. If Pilgaek’s idea were added, they might create another great animation that instantly.

Suddenly Hyujnwoo’s heart began to pound because he was imagining Pilgaek’s joining hands with the Anifan kids, but there was one problem. Anifan kids were amateurers. They were not making any money from their animations. They got some contract money with respect to Garbage World, but it was far from revenue. In such a situation, how could Hyunwoo ask Pilgaek to join?

Agonizing over how to persuade Pilgaek, Hyunwoo googled his novels to find out his residence or location. However, there were nothing about it on the internet.

Fortunately, Story Mecca had a good communication system in which the writer and the reader could exchange their opinions.

“Okay, let me make good friends with him first. Someday, the day might come when he and I join hands together.”

Hyunwoo opened his email box in Story Mecca and thought hard about what to write.

The quickest way to get acquainted with someone is to meet him or her directly. However, Hyunwoo could not request a meeting in his first message. Pilgaek would rightly reject such a request from a strange reader.

There is no better thing than a gift in making friends with someone. What would be the reader’s best gift to a writer? Pilgaek might be great moved to read some nice recommendation that is clearly different from the typical ones he had been sick and tired of.

“Okay, let me write a beautiful recommendation, but how should I write a recommendation?”

It had nothing to do with his writing ability. What really mattered was his sincerity.

Hyunwoo thought about Pilgaek’s weakness and strength as well as his future. If Pilgaek could further develop his strength and make up for his weakness, he could be a great story teller.

Hyunwoo snapped his fingers, “Okay, let me write that way.”

Hyunwoo began to write, with the intent to join hands with the readers to help him grow as a great writer. However, his recommendation was too long when he was focused on details of its contents. Suddenly an idea came to his mind, “What about writing a recommendation in a webtoon style?”

Actually, there were such recommendations in the Story Mecca, and the readers’ response was very hot. Hyunwoo felt Anifan kids could write a great webtoon style recommendation on his behalf.

I think I have to stop by the House of Happiness to ask for their help.

In the meantime, Hyunwoo posted replies to some chapters of his novel series, and in particular to those that attracted the readers’ complaints. He also sent private messages to Pilgaek, encouraging him to overcome the current difficulties for his bright future.

“Let me post replies to his novel chapters every day from now on.”

Then, he saved his recommendations to Pilgaek on a USB and turned his attention to other writers.

Hyunwoo also showed interested in a writer called Kkaturi. Kkaturi was also a unique writer. Most of the writers ran series for money, but Kkaturi had nothing to do with money. He put up a slogan in his study,

<All my materials are free. You can make full use of them as they’re for public consumption for the development of Korean mythology.>

The number of materials he posted for free use was more than 3000, divided into seven categories. And the content was excellent, mostly concerning Korean mythology, but they were not popular.

When Hyunwoo examined the reason, he knew why. The mythology he posted was no more than the relay of relevant stories in the routine form of introduction, development, turn and conclusion. Perhaps, he admitted he was not good at developing a story.

What Hyunwoo regarded as important, however, was the vast material that Kkaturi collected. He might have made enormous efforts to collect such a vast volume of mythology material, and he offered such materials for free.

Suddenly, Hyunwoo felt ashamed because of the Anifan kids’ matter.

In fact, they were only children. At that age, they were supposed to be more concerned with learning than with making money. Nonetheless, they were all downcast, complaining their animation work could not generate enough money.

Hyunwoo was no exception. Instead of being satisfied with the completion of their works, he found himself wondering why their animation works could not generate money. In some respect, his attitude instigated their greed for money.

After all, greed was the heart of the problem. If they wanted to succeed, they had to empty their minds and focus on enjoying their work.

“Yes, I encouraged their greed for money. I have to change my thinking and start anew.”

***

The following afternoon Hyunwoo was pretty much tied up with sorting out various stuff at the company warehouses, when he had a call from Jihun Kang, the senior member of Anifan.

Jihun let out a sigh as soon as he called, “Phew…The Imagingpia went bankrupt.”

“Bankrupt? Imagingpia?”

Hyunwoo’s eyes opened wide suddenly. He heard their financial situation was bad, but it turned out it was much more serious than thought.

Hearing Jihun, the direct cause of that company’s bankruptcy was the animation Garbage World. They poured all their money into marketing the animation with an aggressive marketing campaign.

Hyunwoo understood why Jihun was so disappointed. A moment ago, Hyunwoo would have felt as much disappointed, but he didn’t. Although he felt sorry about the fact that the employees of Imagingpia would be jobless, his new discovery of the great potential of the Anifan kids was a big reward to him.

And this was the new beginning to Hyunwoo. They were only middle school boys and girls with boundless potential.

Actually, what they needed at the moment was their strong determination, not anything like animation technique.

“Hey, you don’t have to be downcast over such a matter. You’re only students. Don’t think of immediate success, but look at your future. So, cheer up and study hard. Okay?”

“Yes, brother Hyunwoo.”

After the call, he called Gyongsu, a former employee of Imagingpia. Gyongsu was not aware of his former company’s bankruptcy, but he was not that surprised as if he knew it was expected.

“In fact, Garbage World had some awkward story development. It should have some unexpected turn in the story flow for success in the market, but it didn’t. That’s why it didn’t go anywhere in the market.”

“Got it. By the way, how is your business? Any progress?” asked Hyunwoo.

Gyongsu let out a long sigh at that, “Looks like we will go through the fate of Imaginpia. The guy who made a big investment in my start-up company is in financial stress these days. He keeps talking he wants to give it up all.”

“Why? You don’t make any money?”

“Well, we spent almost 300 million won as the initial investment, but our business maintenance costs more than 40 million per month, but the revenue we rake in is less than 10 million won. How can we keep doing business like this?”

Though Hyunwoo felt it might be a big challenge when Gyungsu said he would do animation business, he didn’t know how bad his company was financially. He never thought they needed such a huge money to do animation business.

“Cheer up, brother. As you know, you’re going to make lots of money if any animation work makes a big hit in the market. You really can make it, I believe.”

“Thanks for your encouragement.”

After the call, Hyunwoo felt under the weather for no reason. As the saying goes, misfortunes never came alone, and Hyunwoo felt that was exactly what happened to Gyongsu and Anifan.

In particular, the kids of Anifan would be greatly disappointed at the news about Imagingpia’s bankruptcy. He felt he wanted to offer some comforting words to the kids.

When he returned home in the evening, Hyunwoo stopped by a bakery’s and bought a handful of bread before heading to the House of Happiness. He found the Anifan kids’ faces sullen. It was not because of Imagingpia’s bankruptcy or the failure of Garbage World.

“To be honest, we don’t see any future before us. Though we want to study hard, regardless of money, it’s not that easy.”

The problem was that there was no teacher who could teach them about animation. No matter how hard they tried among themselves, they didn’t make any tangible progress in developing their abilities. That’s why he asked Gyongsu to offer his talent to these kids, but Gyongsu had to stop it because of his own business.

“Hummm…Is there a good idea?”

Pressing his hands against his forehead, Hyunwoo thought of a good idea with them. At that moment, Jihun, scratching his head, was trying to say something that he had conceived for long but found it hard to bring up.

“Just tell me the idea if you have a good one,” said Hyunwoo.