Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XXXII



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.


 * February's topic: What canonical works have influenced your writing the most, or that you reference the most? Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 22:07, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

Atarumaster88
It's been a bit of a slow start to the cafe this month, so I guess I'll lead off. For me, it depends heavily on the work, as I try to work in a lot of canonical references to tie in what I'm writing seamlessly into the canon universe. I try and do my research on the canonical portion before I start writing, but it doesn't always happen that way. Here are some examples:
 * 1) For Force Exile I: Fugitive, Revenge of the Sith was the biggest influence, given that a lot of the book is concurrent with the film. I wanted to not only reference events of the film, but also set a similar mood and feel to the book, just from a different perspective. Also, whichever issue of the Republic comics that involved the Battle of Boz Pity was important. Coruscant Nights I was also good reference material for underworld Coruscant, while Serra Keto was pulled from the RotS video game.
 * 2) Force Exile II: Smuggler had the fewest canonical references of my novels. I did reference the Hand of Thrawn trilogy, providing backstory for the Mistryl's destruction.
 * 3) Force Exile III: Liberator referenced a lot of KotOR and KotOR II (and in the rewrite, the Revan novel). Also referenced were The Bacta War as well as Outbound Flight.
 * 4) Force Exile IV: Guardian has a ton of Return of the Jedi and Empire at War: Forces of Corruption references and influences. The Rogue Squadron comics were also important influences.
 * 5) Force Exile V: Warrior draws heavily from the NJO novels Star by Star, Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream, and Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand. The Force Heretic trilogy and Traitor also contributed thematic influences, while there's a lot of influence from Shatterpoint as well.
 * 6) For Force Exile VI: Prodigal, I was trying to be consistent with the state of the GFFA in Betrayal, so there's that. There are a good number of LotF influences there&mdash;in particular, I threw in an explanation for how Jagged Fel was recovered in that series.
 * 7) Anything with Quinlan Vos, the Rogues, or the Wraiths is probably an influence or a reference in my story at some point. I tend to steer clear of the "major" canonical characters (Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Han, Luke, Leia, Chewbacca) except as cameos or a few bit appearances. For the most part, my characters tend to play with a lot of the secondary canon characters and EU characters (Plo Koon, Lando, Wedge, Hobbie, Danni Quee, Jaina Solo, Kyle Katarn, Tyber Zann, Callista Ming, Face Loran, etc.)
 * 8) The short stories have a bunch of other references, including The Bacta War, Solo Command, and The Cestus Deception. Too many for me to list off the top of my head. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 19:30, February 19, 2014 (UTC)

MPK
Thanks for going first, Ataru. I'm just gonna plaguerize your method. My work tends to be influenced by my favorite canon novels - above all Stover for the RotS novelization & Shatterpoint, Luceno for Dark Lord and Darth Plagueis, and Paul Kemp for the Jaden Korr duology & Deceived. These books pretty much permanently changed how I look at Star Wars whenever I write for it - and it's 12 at night so I can't go further into detail than that while still being in general.


 * 1) Through Glass borrows a lot from KotOR II, given that it basically was me taking Revan and sticking her in my favorite part of that game - the tomb of visions - and making her face the same kind of moral texts that the Exile does. It was a lot of fun to translate the basic themes of each vision so that they made sense for Revan, but still echoed what the Exile would later experience.
 * 2) Burning Bright echoes KotOR very broadly in the character arc of its protagonist, Deyrus, a well-meaning Jedi fighting Mandalorians who becomes corrupt... Don't compare them too closely, though.
 * 3) The Beast of Rutan, now that's a good one to talk about. I was extremely influenced in this one by Kemp's Crosscurrent - I loved that book because it was able to incorporate some pretty grisly subject matter while still not draining the story of its Star Warsiness. That's what I was going for with The Beast of Rutan, and if I hadn't been prompted by Crosscurrent to take it in that direction, it would have been another bland, straight-up Jedi vs Dark Jedi story.
 * 4) Can maybe come back to this later. -MPK, Free Man  06:21, February 20, 2014 (UTC)