So, ofc if the order wasn't clear. You are supposed to read the story first, because i will spoil certain aspects of it here.

I do well with pressure... Yeah, i'm not sure that's true.

I read the new years contest announcement right on 1st jan, but it took me till 28th or 29th jan till an idea really hit me, and i started to work on it.

The initial idea, and it's remnants i left in the story itself. Was for the protag (who's nameless, i'll explain that later) to move into the building and go to college. But college didn't turn out well even though he did want to change. But the landlady's daughter, who is a social engineer in the same college, sees it and talks to him about it. He agrees to take part in her 'experiment' where she tells him what to do to overcome this.

It was supposed to be more of a PUA style, i.e. "Pick Up Artist" stuff, like the protag talking to girls mostly and then the story would end with the protag finally being able to talk to girls and he realizes the one he really likes is the social engineer and stuff and the normal story cliche.

That was the initial idea, which i changed from a 'pick up girls' to a general 'social anxiety' since that is much more accurate to what the protag actually faces.

But just before writing it, i realized, no, this isn't it. I want the story to be relatable. It's about the new year's resolution. What if someone who actually suffers from social anxiety reads it and starts to think that he can't cure it because he doesn't have a social engineer/ psychologist friend living in the same building?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

So that is when i changed the direction of the story. There has to be some way that he realizes what he is doing/ thinking wrong about interacting with someone, and that information has to come from somewhere.

Since he can't get help from outside/other people. I made him recieve messages/emails from an unknown sender.

And then the first thing that came to my mind is that those messages are from his alter ego. Which i instantly shot down. If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, social anxiety should be the least of your problems.

So the only other way, which is also something i did myself (oddly enough) is for him to write messages to himself, from the past. i.e. he recorded those messages himself say 5-7 years ago and he starts to recieve them now. after he forgot about it

Which is why the protag constantly mentions the messages have a sense of familiarity.

And that is how i ended up writing the current story.

Also, after writing all of it, i realized i only mentioned the protag's name twice in the whole thing, and that too in the beginning, after his roll number that blank space and then the landlady refers to him and he says she's the only one who knows his name.

So i simply cut it out.

Also while i wrote it as if the protag was male, i think it's fairly relatable even if you don't put gender as a consideration.

I do feel the ending was a little bit rushed.

There could have been a lot more development between the time that the protag talks to the people in the gym and the time when the last message arrives.

I think it's possible to fill that with a few more details of his journey/ adaptation to his new ability to talk to people. But the thing is that i don't know what to fill it with. It's basically just talk to more people, try to notice what you did wrong or could have improved, rinse and repeat. If it was PUA stuff i'd be able to fill it with a lot more since i've read a lot about it.

But general social anxiety, i can't really write more about it than just keep practicing talking to people over and over. At least that's how it worked for me.