Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XXXIV



Café Fanfic is a discussion topic centered around fan-fiction. Authors are encouraged to contribute to the café's monthly discussion, which are designed to stimulate ideas and encourage engagement between members of the SWF fan-fiction writing community in a criticism-free zone.

Participants in Café Fanfic are also welcome to submit ideas for the next month's topic of discussion.

Previous topics can be found in the archive list at the bottom of the page.

There are three basic premises for Café Fanfic
 * 1) Please restrict this to stuff from your fan-fiction (written or possibly just conceptualized).
 * 2) You can suggest and make observations, but no condemning other people's work
 * 3) "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer.


 * April's topic: Often a character's journey is marked by suffering, hardship, or other unpleasant circumstances. How do you use these elements to give emotional context and depth to your characters?

Jedi Master 76
Oh man, this is my bread and butter right here. Wall o' text ahead.

Personally, I think the best way to learn about and empathize with characters in fiction is seeing how them deal with hardships. Someone somewhere once said you can't have a story without conflict. Now, I'm all for having a character be content with her life and relatability in a positive sense, but there's something powerful about watching a character go from their most despondent and literally in a hopeless situation, finding the strength to stand, and then beating the bad guy and returning home with her friends after the struggle is over to live happily ever after. Keep in mind, unlike what TOR would like us to believe, Star Wars shouldn't be a bloody mess shouldn't be about doom and gloom all the time.

It would take a novel (or five) to really get into the nitty-gritty of how I incorporate hardship into my characters and their backstories. So I'll go with two from my earlier novels: Gaiel Remus from Knight of Alderaan and Dynatha Aris, debuting in Convict's Dawn and in pretty much everything else. We met Gaiel all the way back in Convict's Dawn chapter 1, and he's pretty much the stereotypically Jedi Knight. A bit of an angry side, but pretty normal otherwise. Throughout the course of the novels in which he features, Gaiel has to deal with losing his Jedi friends to the horrors of the Jedi Civil War, find peace after Darth Malak bombs his adopted home on Dantooine and kills even more of his friends, including his mentor, he has to deal with his own shortcomings as a Jedi Knight, struggle with what Revan represents for a Jedi, and he interacts with Raen Benax, who is undoubtedly an unpleasant hardship. He watches the heroes he idolized before the war turn bad, he sees how powerful the dark side is, and he fails time and time again to complete a mission without casualties. But, in spite of all this, he never gives up; his determination and his passion to serve the Order force him to overcome his trials, and we see exactly why he's earned his place as a Jedi Knight. By the end, I'd hope the reader sees that his hardships were justified in the strength he finds.

Then we have Dynatha. Oh, Dynatha. She is, unfortunately, a woobie to the core (apologies for that link). From day one, she's set up as a naive, completely innocent young girl who has been forced into the Sith somehow. The Sith like patsies, I guess. It doesn't take long for the bad stuff to happen. But for all that can be said, Dynatha learns from her suffering and grows from a foolish young girl into a strong woman who, in spite of everything, remains idealistic and devoted to the light. She defends the weak, she fights injustice and brutality, and she nurtures those who have suffered just like her. Unlike many other Jedi, for whom such painful things are abstractions or else encountered rarely, her past gives her a reason to care and serve wholeheartedly. Of course, the fact that she was once a Sith haunts her; having tasted that darkness, there's a constant temptation to return to it. After all, she could hypothetically twist her life in such a way where she wouldn't have to suffer. But she rejects the dark side every time it appears and she refuses to leave the light, no matter how dark the situation around her gets. In the end, she gets to be the hero that I think she deserves to be (and I'd hope she is, considering all I put her through).

Having said all that, sometimes I just like pointless suffering because I'm a terrible, terrible author. -- JM76 09:19, April 8, 2014 (UTC)
 * I can attest to this last point. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 15:45, April 23, 2014 (UTC)

Atarumaster88
Kind of low turnout this month, so I'll talk about this as well. As Wesley says in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Conflict, pain, and suffering are all innate parts of the human experience and I believe that good writing should reflect that.

There are three specific points I wanted to discuss from my writing. The first was that use of suffering or pain in writing can be cathartic. When I was writing Force Exile I: Fugitive, one of my friends had recently passed away in a vehicular accident and I was struggling to express that grief. Being able to channel those emotions into writing the Jedi Temple scenes during Operation Knightfall was a coping mechanism.

Another instance of using pain and suffering is that it can tell a message&mdash;an inspirational one or a cautionary one. Feran Slayn, the protagonist of Iron Maiden, is a cautionary tale. She lets her guilt and isolation lead her to a very dark place emotionally. Other characters, like Selu Kraen in the first trilogy, overcome their adversity and suffering and are able to defend others and rebuild their shattered lives.

The last point is that pain and suffering are formative. Empire Strikes Back does this very well. While Han and Leia had been growing closer to each other from the start of the movie, Imperial pursuit and captivity forces them to express their feelings for each other probably faster than they would have otherwise. Likewise, we understand Luke's journey better because of how he grows and changes after fighting Vader and learning his true identity. In my writing, Selu's pain after causing the destruction of Emberlene in Force Exile II: Smuggler shapes his thoughts and mindset heading into Liberator. Introducing such negative elements helps round out the character and makes them more relatable. It also keeps their "power level" in check. If your character, Darth Awesome, never has anything bad happen to them and never loses any fights, well, it's likely s/he's a poorly-written character. In my writing, I'm very clear to establish that 1) Selu is the cause of a lot of his own problems and 2) he suffers due to being powerless to stop a lot of the bad that happens to him.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Atarumaster88 ( Talk page ) 15:45, April 23, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
Not sure if you already have a plan for May, Ataru, but I figured I'd pitch an idea. Since it's been talked about in regards to the Episode VII casting, perhaps talk about how we (or how we don't) have gender and racial equality in our fan fiction? - Brandon Rhea (talk)  23:42, May 6, 2014 (UTC)