Thanks for reading volume 1 of Unison Voice!

If you haven't checked out the rest of the Supernova Project yet, please do so at supernovastars.wordpress.com !

Since I feel like the completion of this volume is a big milestone for the project and myself, I wanted to write a post discussing my thoughts while writing and moving forward.

I've written a lot of stuff before this, but I never actually finished or posted the first volume of anything online. With that being said, it's really nice to see what all I've done, and it's definitely satisfying to finally have a finished work! Writing for Unison Voice started a few days after the Supernova Project itself was conceived, so it's nice to see how everything in the project has progressed since then.

Some Quick Stats:

It took 167 days to write this light novel

On average, a new chapter was finished every 6.88 days

The average word count is 3347, or 13.48 pages per chapter

The shortest chapter was at 1145 words, while the longest chapter was at 5076 words

The word "idol" was written 199 times.

Writing a Supernova Novel

The first drafts for volume one started on November 30, 2019, which was only a few days after Hitomi was made and Sunny started inviting people into the project. As such, it always felt like what I wrote for this directly affected the project.

For me, that was both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, I was able to have a large hand in deciding things like who would be in the initial units and the timeline for the girls from debut to their first concert. This allowed a lot of creative freedom, although admittedly a lot of time spent was trying to plan everything out rather than actually writing. Thankfully, I had the help of my fellow Producers to help me figure out some of these details.

Since this was the first major work for the project, I wanted to both write about the story of Triple Point and about the NeoStars as a whole. That's why instead of immediately jumping into Hana's arc, I took a slower approach with the plot. From the prologue starting with girls auditioning, to the NeoStars' reveal to the audience, and then to getting their first photos taken and having a mini-live after that, I wanted to show as much of the project as I could before needing to focus on Hana. Even after that, I tried to include other girls as often as possible.

Hopefully, this didn't turn away many people from enjoying the story!

One of the things that I also worked the hardest on was trying to make sure that despite being a brand new branch, this would feel like an iDOLM@STER story.

Writing an iDOLM@STER Fan Novel

The Supernova Project as a whole wouldn't be a passion project if it didn't have references to the original works that inspired it.

As such, I tried to allude to the 765 All-Stars and Million Live girls, songs, and more often throughout this first novel.

When I was writing the first chapter, I wanted to feel like it was a passing of the torch from the Million Stars to the next generation. That's why when in the plot, when Haruka couldn't make it to the auditions, she picked the main girl of the Million Stars, Mirai. And then at the end of the chapter, Mirai sees the main character of this novel, Hana.

Speaking of chapters, I feel like a more-obvious reference was how I named my chapters. Every chapter name was either an iDOLM@STER song title (in some cases, translated to English) or lyric. The only exception would be Beautiful Chapter, in which I used Hana's song title. Aside from being a nice creative choice, I felt like this would be nice reward for those long-time fans who could recognize every song title/lyric that I used.

With Million Live in its 7th year, I also wanted to explore the idols' personal development from the manga/mobile games and how they might affect a new generation of idols. The development, shown in scenes from the iDOLM@STER Movie and Yukiho's theater scene in Blooming Clover, were things I wanted to emulate in Unison Voice the seniors would impart wisdom onto the NeoStars.

I do hope that when I wrote in an All-Star or Million Star, I characterized them accurately. As for the song lyrics that I included, I also hope that I did them justice.

Additionally, as for the name of the series, Unison Voice is a reference to the very first episode of the iDOLM@STER anime. Specifically, it's a slight change from The World is All One!!!, where the girls say "Unity Mind" at the end of the chorus. I intended the title to also be a reference to Hana's strongest suit being her voice, while also alluding to how Triple Point will need to work in harmony in order to succeed.

Which brings me to the next thing that I want to write about.

What's Next for Unison Voice?

More content!

The story of Triple Point isn't over yet. Seeing as the Supernova Project hasn't even had their first official concert yet, we still have to follow Hana, Reina, and Akari until that point.

More idols!

Out of the 30 NeoStars, only 18 of them actually had lines in volume 1. Only around half of that number spoke in more than one chapter. In the next volume, look forward to meeting other girls who haven't had the chance to shine yet! Once the story of Triple Point is over, they might get a novel (or more) of their own!

More activity!

As I will be trying to write at a faster pace than this first novel, expect to see volume 2 content being posted weekly, along with more posts similar to this as I discuss my thought process while writing. I think that a work of fiction should be able to be read without notes from the author, but I also think that it would be a good use of the site to have extra updates featuring more information on the girls or the timeline that this story takes place in. Additionally, writing extra about Unison Voice would help organize my thoughts as I write more!

Final Thoughts

I want to give a special thanks to everyone in the project who helped me with proofreading these chapters and giving responses about the plot. A lot of those people also helped answer questions regarding planning the world and what certain characters would do in certain situations, so I really appreciate the help that I had throughout these past months.

For those who aren't in the project, and have read until the point, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to read your thoughts!

Thanks for reading,

Aaron