Unfortunate Transmigrator

Hey! Fate Unraveled, the rewrite of Unfortunate Transmigrator, has been approved and is already up on the platform (more on that later), so as promised in the author note at the bottom of the last chapter (which you should really read if you haven’t done so), I’ll be going over here pretty much everything you have to know about the future of the story.

First of all, the seven chapters of the rewrite—called Fate Unraveled—have already been published (you can check them out by clicking here). Going forward, I’ll be publishing chapters following an accelerated release schedule of one chapter per day until Fate Unraveled is caught up with Unfortunate Transmigrator (that is, until I publish chapter the last chapter of the first arc of Fate Unraveled), after which I’ll resume a regular, more sustainable release schedule of two chapters per week. If you’re curious about what exactly the changes I’ve made are, I’ve summarized most of the big ones below—just click on the “Spoiler” icon.

Title: The title is now Fate Unraveled.

Pacing: The pacing is now much tighter.

Setting: The setting is no longer a generic xianxia setting.

Info-Dumps: Most instances of info-dumping have been removed.

Cultivation System: The cultivation system has been significantly revamped.

Navel-Gazing: All unnecessary instances of introspection had been removed.

Spiritual Skills: Spiritual skills have been significantly revamped (and simplified).

Meta Commentary: Most instances of meta-commentary—that is, commentary that references cultivation novels—have been removed.

Character Names: The family name of every character is now comprised of three Chinese characters and the given name of two Chinese characters, making them much easier to remember (and more accessible to a Western audience). For example, “Hao Zhen” is now “Haoyujin Jieyuan” and “Tian Jin” is now “Tianzijun Daojue.”

Prose Style Guide: Moreover, in the prose, I’ll generally only be using either a character’s given name or their family name to refer to them (depending on whom the POV character is and their relationship to the character being referred to). For example, in scenes in the new Hao Zhen’s POV (or, to be more precise, Haoyujin Jieyuan’s POV), he’ll be exclusively referred to in the narration as “Jieyuan” (similarly, other characters will mostly call him and refer to him as “Jieyuan”—not “Haoyujin Jieyuan”). That should also help make the story more accessible to a Western audience.

Characters: There have been changes to all characters in pretty much every aspect (personality, background, appearance, abilities, and so on). Among these changes are that the characters are all two years older now, and that Hao Zhen (now called Haoyujin Jieyuan, or simply Jieyuan) is now much more competent in pretty much every way.

Weave and Weave Theory: Finally, the Weave and Weave Theory. That’s a major topic (perhaps the most important one, considering its effects on the story), but also really complicated. You see, I’d be spoiling a lot of things if I were to go over how exactly that has changed, so on that front I’ll only say that both the supposed “Weave” and the protagonist’s interpretation of the situation have changed significantly, much like everything else. I’ll add, however, that in Fate Unraveled, all characters have just as much depth as the primary characters, with their own motivations, wants, and needs, as opposed to being flat, stereotypical xianxia characters.

I’ve only listed the major changes above; there are many other ones. I think it also bears noting that I didn’t just edit the chapters of UT and published them as Fate Unraveled. I wrote every single of FaUn from scratch, without referencing the old UT chapters (I did skim them over before I started the rewrite, but that’s it). So Fate Unraveled is a rewrite in the truest sense of the word—not merely an edited version of Unfortunate Transmigrator.

On a related note, I’ll be keeping the current version of Unfortunate Transmigrator (the one this chapter was published in) for a month so that most of the old readers get a chance to read this message. I actually considered deleting the current entry of Unfortunate Transmigrator before publishing the new version since some of the information present in the current chapters of Unfortunate Transmigrator will only appear much further down the line in Fate Unraveled (though with all sorts of changes), and there’s also the fact that a lot of what’s revealed here is no longer true. However, I decided that waiting a month was better (again, to give old readers a chance to see this announcement), so I’ll just advise you guys to refrain from making assumptions about what’s going on in Fate Unraveled based on information revealed in Unfortunate Transmigrator.

I’d also like to note that, based on my experiences writing and publishing Unfortunate Transmigrator, I now have a much better idea of how time-demanding writing is and just what kind of release schedule I can comfortably follow. Because of that, I now feel confident in setting up a Patreon page for the story (where I’ll be offering advance chapters), with the goal of transitioning into a full-time writer. You can check it out by clicking here. Over there, you can get access to chapters up to 7 weeks ahead of the regular release schedule (which is two chapters per week, not the aforementioned temporary release schedule of daily chapters), so be sure to check it out. Going forward, I’ll be treating writing like a job, strictly following the goals and schedule I set and properly communicating any delays or anything along those lines. Obviously, you don’t have to subscribe to the Patreon—not subscribing just means you’ll just have to wait a bit more till the rewrite’s caught up. I do believe that the rewrite is sufficiently different from the current version to make this worth it, however.

Now, I would have certainly liked to be able to release more than one chapter per day of Fate Unraveled until the story’s caught up with Unfortunate Transmigrator—or even to release the entirety of the first arc on day one. However, I decided against those for a number of reasons, the main one being long-term sustainability. The thing is, I’m now prioritizing quality over quantity, so it takes me much longer to write a single chapter than it used to, so doing things this way is what I determined to be the best way to make publishing Fate Unraveled at a fairly frequent release rate sustainable in the long run.

(On a side note, because of time constraints, I’ll only really be responding to comments with suggested corrections and edits going forward. I also won’t be responding to any of the comments made during the hiatus, as I believe that pretty much everything was already explained above. Therefore, if you want to talk, either send me a direct message through here or reach out to me on Discord, either privately or on the story’s server, and I’ll get back to you when I have the time.)

Anyway, that’s the gist of it. I hope to see you guys on the rewrite!

EDIT (2024-09-15):

Per requests, Unfortunate Transmigrator won't be deleted a month from now and instead kept on Royal Road indefinitely for archiving and legacy purposes.