Editing Slayers (section)

==Production==
The first ''Slayers'' light novel was written by [[Hajime Kanzaka]] for entrance into [[Fujimi Fantasia Bunko]]'s first annual {{ill|Fantasia Chōhen Shōsetsu Awards|ja|ファンタジア大賞}} in 1989.<ref name="afterwords">{{cite book|title=Slayers: Collector's Edition Volume 1|year=2021|last=Kanzaka|first=Hajime|author-link=Hajime Kanzaka|publisher=[[J-Novel Club]]|pages=137–139, 268–270, 396–398|isbn=978-1-7183-7510-9}}</ref> After it won, the new author was asked to create a follow-up. Kanzaka initially thought this was an impossible task as the characters had already defeated the Dark Lord. He called the second book a turning point for him and said it was initially very difficult to write. However, as soon as he added the "spike-wolves and stuff", from his love of [[yōkai]] and [[kaiju]], the "words just flew off the page". Kanzaka set the second book in a city so that Lina could not solve the story by simply casting one big spell. He said that this taught him how using circumstances and setting could change the "flavor" of a story. The author also said that the second book is intentionally "heavier" than the first.<ref name="afterwords"/>

Kanzaka described his writing process as like trying to put together puzzle pieces that have been scattered about, figuring stuff out as he goes instead of following an outline written beforehand.<ref name="afterwords"/> As a new author, he said he was not good at submitting plot summaries to his supervisor, who wanted them before he started writing. When the supervisor passively accepted the plot summary of the third ''Slayers'' novel, but was then ecstatic with the finished book, he stopped asking for plot summaries. Kanzaka assumed that he had finally realized that the finished story was always going to widely diverge from the initial summary. The first three books were written as the author thought up stories, but volume four on tell a grander epic. Because the first novel was written as a one-off before evolving into a series, there are some inconsistencies with the later installments. A few of these inconsistencies were corrected in the 2008 reprints.<ref name="afterwords"/>

Kanzaka stated the reason Zelgadis and Amelia do not appear in "part 2" is because of the plot point concerning a character's death. Although he speculated he could have written around the healing spells, it would have taken a lot of extra steps to get there and dragged everything out a lot longer than necessary.<ref name="5afterwords">{{cite book|title=Slayers: Collector's Edition Volume 5|year=2024|last=Kanzaka|first=Hajime|publisher=J-Novel Club|pages=216–218, 319–321|isbn=978-1-7183-7514-7}}</ref> In the afterward of the fifteenth novel, the original final installment of the series, Kanzaka said he wanted to end the story in an open-ended way in order to allow readers to imagine what happens next to Lina and Gourry. He also described the ''Slayers'' video games, television shows, and comics as "parallel part 3 stories".<ref name="5afterwords"/>

Kanzaka makes references to people and events not depicted in the novels, such as Lina's older sister and [[Gourry Gabriev]]'s first visit to Sairaag, which he referred to as "flavor" to stimulate the reader's imagination and clarified that they are not [[foreshadowing]].<ref name="afterwords"/> He explained that the fictional world would feel smaller if everything that appears in the story is explained; something he learned from a teacher's comment in design school. Although some of these he has not even thought about, like Gourry's visit to Sairaag, others he has created a backstory to, such as Lina's sister. Zuma's backstory was omitted because the novels are told from Lina's [[first-person perspective]], but Kanzaka gave some of the material to the staff of ''Slayers Revolution'' so it could be included in the anime.<ref name="afterwords"/>