Daichi Hiroi just needs to know that he is writing interactive fiction, not a play for his old theatre company.

That means player involvement and player engagement. Don't treat the players like passive spectators for a proxy main character. Throw in player choices, ask them what they think (even if it's only to crack a joke or offer an insight based off of completed optional content). Convince your players to 'clothe themselves in the fiction,' as Ishikawa put it. She understood this better than anyone else, which is why prior expansions were so memorable.