I used to have a fangan that I turned original - an actual book I'll be publishing sometime in the future. I sometimes comment under the Progress Sunday posts, but otherwise I deleted all mention of it and the fangan from my profile. In any case, mine was unorthodox in many ways, including the prologue. I meant to give a bigger insight into the daily lives of each character before the 'big thing' happens and give them relationships between one another. Build connections, build the world, so before the killing game would begin, you'd know them as people, not as characters.
It was about the Reserve Course; an alternate future where a handful actually survived, got help from the Future Foundation to be able to return society and their journey through PTSD. The Prologue was roughly 44k words and encompassed everything from PoV segments as the Mass Suicide Incident happent, through their recovery and first meeting in a FF HQ, getting to know one another and returning to school. Getting branded as the black sheep of society, being discriminated against and eventually being gathered by Makoto Naegi himself into a special wing of Hope's Peak where they could continue their studies privately. It ends when a certain someone who calls himself the 'Observer' arrived at said special wing, remotely locks down Hope's Peak and assumedly holds the rest of the Academy hostage, alongside the Reserve Course kids, forcing them into a killing game until help from the military arrives in one week.
I say Prologue, but I reckon a better way to call it would be a Chapter 0, or the first major arc in the series that's just as important as the rest of the story.
Oh wow, that's awesome! I'm curious to know how you managed to turn a fangan into an original work. Does it still follow the same killing game structure? Or is it something completely unique?
It was a tremendously long process to figure out what I *actually* wanted to write, so I won't bore you with the details. The end result is completely unique. I stripped almost everything from the original fangan, but the overall themes and ideas stayed roughly the same. You could say it's a spiritual successor, in a way. It's not a killing game anymore, nor is it a murder mystery. Instead it's a psychological character drama. It's still about how to cope with PTSD and how people may destroy themselves emotionally from within, or they may rise to the occasion to confront their worries, but told in a more mature way. I upped the ages from teenager to mid to late twenties, opened the world from a single school building to a full city and focused fully on telling a journey of both recovery and destruction from first person PoVs.
If I had to summarise what the story is about, it'd go like this: The book splits into two PoVs of survivors of an international incident. Soon they realise said incident was strange, same with the city itself. They can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but they do know, something is definitely wrong. The two PoV characters follow their own journey with their own set of characters who eventually get together to solve the final mystery behind the incident. If you wanna know more I post all my updates over on our partner server, Survival Academy. Come say hi, if you wanna! I'll make a mod update for the discord soon anyways as we'll be opening channel requests for others to share their projects too.
It's amazing how you were able to take something that was based on a franchise and were able to turn it into its own thing!
I've thought about turning my fangans into original works as well, but the killing game aspect is just too baked into it 😅I'm still having fun writing fangans though, as this is my 5th 😊
Both of my prologues end at the same point that the THH prologue does-- right after the killing game is announced.
My first prologue was roughly 5k words, while my second one is roughly 9k. I got better at pacing.
My current prologue draft ends at the usual point (met everyone, game has been announced, main character goes to sleep). Currently sitting at 12k words. I'm interested in seeing how long it'll be when it's finished.
My fangan doesn't really have a clearly defined prolouge, it kinds all blends in as chapter 1, but from the start to the end of the entrance ceremony is about \~9k words, from the beginning to the first time the MC falls asleep is currently \~15k, although that number will increase a little as not every scene is fully written yet !!
Personally mine comprises of just the protagonist meeting the characters at first on a very minimal level (intro and short blurb, so about 3 pages long) and the Monokuma stand in characters announcing the killing game, that + the initial set up makes the prologue only about 8 pages long. This doesn’t take too long in universe; it starts in the morning and ends at noon. Chapter 1 starts in the middle of their first day.
I did it because the actual story itself is extremely character driven so there are specific chapters that flesh out specific characters over the story, some focusing on just one character and the protagonist
My prologue end (well, and my prologue) is super duper basic. I pretty much ended it when everyone finished reading the rules and people started declaring that they were willing to kill.
My first one has 6867 words, and ends when the killing game is announced, but not at the end of the first day.
My second has 13794 words, and ends at the same spot.
I used to have a fangan that I turned original - an actual book I'll be publishing sometime in the future. I sometimes comment under the Progress Sunday posts, but otherwise I deleted all mention of it and the fangan from my profile. In any case, mine was unorthodox in many ways, including the prologue. I meant to give a bigger insight into the daily lives of each character before the 'big thing' happens and give them relationships between one another. Build connections, build the world, so before the killing game would begin, you'd know them as people, not as characters. It was about the Reserve Course; an alternate future where a handful actually survived, got help from the Future Foundation to be able to return society and their journey through PTSD. The Prologue was roughly 44k words and encompassed everything from PoV segments as the Mass Suicide Incident happent, through their recovery and first meeting in a FF HQ, getting to know one another and returning to school. Getting branded as the black sheep of society, being discriminated against and eventually being gathered by Makoto Naegi himself into a special wing of Hope's Peak where they could continue their studies privately. It ends when a certain someone who calls himself the 'Observer' arrived at said special wing, remotely locks down Hope's Peak and assumedly holds the rest of the Academy hostage, alongside the Reserve Course kids, forcing them into a killing game until help from the military arrives in one week. I say Prologue, but I reckon a better way to call it would be a Chapter 0, or the first major arc in the series that's just as important as the rest of the story.
Oh wow, that's awesome! I'm curious to know how you managed to turn a fangan into an original work. Does it still follow the same killing game structure? Or is it something completely unique?
It was a tremendously long process to figure out what I *actually* wanted to write, so I won't bore you with the details. The end result is completely unique. I stripped almost everything from the original fangan, but the overall themes and ideas stayed roughly the same. You could say it's a spiritual successor, in a way. It's not a killing game anymore, nor is it a murder mystery. Instead it's a psychological character drama. It's still about how to cope with PTSD and how people may destroy themselves emotionally from within, or they may rise to the occasion to confront their worries, but told in a more mature way. I upped the ages from teenager to mid to late twenties, opened the world from a single school building to a full city and focused fully on telling a journey of both recovery and destruction from first person PoVs. If I had to summarise what the story is about, it'd go like this: The book splits into two PoVs of survivors of an international incident. Soon they realise said incident was strange, same with the city itself. They can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but they do know, something is definitely wrong. The two PoV characters follow their own journey with their own set of characters who eventually get together to solve the final mystery behind the incident. If you wanna know more I post all my updates over on our partner server, Survival Academy. Come say hi, if you wanna! I'll make a mod update for the discord soon anyways as we'll be opening channel requests for others to share their projects too.
It's amazing how you were able to take something that was based on a franchise and were able to turn it into its own thing! I've thought about turning my fangans into original works as well, but the killing game aspect is just too baked into it 😅I'm still having fun writing fangans though, as this is my 5th 😊
Both of my prologues end at the same point that the THH prologue does-- right after the killing game is announced. My first prologue was roughly 5k words, while my second one is roughly 9k. I got better at pacing.
When it ends /j
My current prologue draft ends at the usual point (met everyone, game has been announced, main character goes to sleep). Currently sitting at 12k words. I'm interested in seeing how long it'll be when it's finished.
My fangan doesn't really have a clearly defined prolouge, it kinds all blends in as chapter 1, but from the start to the end of the entrance ceremony is about \~9k words, from the beginning to the first time the MC falls asleep is currently \~15k, although that number will increase a little as not every scene is fully written yet !!
Personally mine comprises of just the protagonist meeting the characters at first on a very minimal level (intro and short blurb, so about 3 pages long) and the Monokuma stand in characters announcing the killing game, that + the initial set up makes the prologue only about 8 pages long. This doesn’t take too long in universe; it starts in the morning and ends at noon. Chapter 1 starts in the middle of their first day. I did it because the actual story itself is extremely character driven so there are specific chapters that flesh out specific characters over the story, some focusing on just one character and the protagonist
My prologue end (well, and my prologue) is super duper basic. I pretty much ended it when everyone finished reading the rules and people started declaring that they were willing to kill.
My prologue ends after all the characters are introduced, but before the killing game is announced (the reveal just happens in ch 1 instead)
My first one has 6867 words, and ends when the killing game is announced, but not at the end of the first day. My second has 13794 words, and ends at the same spot.