Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XXXIII



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.


 * March's topic: Discuss a planet you created or heavily-expanded upon for your fan-fiction.

Leiamoody of Ysonesse
I've created a few planets in my version of the GFFA, and sort of expanded the history on an obscure canon one, but the first planet that I ever created was/is called Xaan Doro. It's a temple planet, home to a religion called the Order of Iziaka. The religious order has its own language called "The Lady's Speech", which is inspired by Lingua Ignota...but that's more about the culture than the planet itself, so never mind...

Leiamoody of YsonesseTalk11:55, March 18, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that talking about the culture of the inhabitants could be an important part of understanding a planet. Feel free to elaborate. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 16:14, March 18, 2014 (UTC)
 * I concur. -MPK , Free Man  03:39, March 20, 2014 (UTC)


 * I had the need for a planet where a character could seek refuge from the Empire during its very early days. So I came up with a planet that is a Force nexus populated by a diverse group of spiritually inclined beings who may or may not be Force sensitive (some are, some aren't, it's not a requirement of the Order). The Order of Iziaka was one of the first religious/spiritual groups in the galaxy (along with the Whills) to do "Force ghosting", and maintained that knowledge after the Whills ceased to exist (their records are preserved in the Temple).

I prefer creating my own planets because it was something I got used to since I started writing fanfic before I really came across the EU. I'll stick to a canon planet when it makes sense. But it's actually pretty interesting to rise to the creative challenge and try to fashion a world and culture from scratch.

Leiamoody of YsonesseTalk11:31, March 21, 2014 (UTC)

Atarumaster88
I don't create a lot of planets. There's plenty of marginally-used canonical planets that I prefer instead, like Tellanroaeg, Yanibar, and Commenor. However, for Force Exile III: Liberator ' s rewrite, I needed a planet with some very specific characteristics. In the current (awful) draft, there's a brief story arc set on Cato Neimodia. There's maybe one or two scenes there.

For the rewrite, that plot arc was expanded considerably, but based on canonical events and some other considerations, I decided to move the story arc off of Cato Neimodia. Instead, I placed it on another Neimodian purse world that I made up, Zeru Neimodia. I wanted to make the planet have an otherworldly vibe while also matching characteristics that the Neimodians wanted in their purse worlds. It also needed to be conducive to guerilla warfare. As such, Zeru Neimodia is a misty, mountainous, heavily-forested world covered by vast thickets of purple-leaved zerubis trees. The mist, trees, and mountains play havoc with scanners and reconnaissance, making it the perfect place for an insurgency. Aside from the now-abandoned Neimodian estates and the Imperial occupation forces, the planet doesn't host sentient life&mdash;or else the Neimodians wiped it out long ago! It's a remote, unfriendly world to the Imperial characters and does a very good job of hiding its secrets.

Influences for the planet include whatever that planet is at the start of Star Trek Into Darkness (specifically the jarringly different color palette), the planet from Avatar, Cato Neimodia, and contemporary accounts of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan&mdash;but with more trees. Atarumaster88 ( Talk page ) 14:19, March 19, 2014 (UTC)

MPK
I actually have a sort of unwritten rule against making up my own planets in fanfiction. The Star Wars galaxy already has a huge array of planets that one could use for almost any purpose - and it irritates me that so many writers rarely venture beyond the stock important ones that are most commonly seen in the movies and in the better-known EU sources. I realize that in some cases this is unavoidable - for instance, it wouldn't make much sense to write about large-scale political intrigue set during the reign of the Republic or Empire without Coruscant playing a role.

But there are so many people who think only in terms of worlds that appear in many stories, rather than what worlds might make sense. Canon isn't safe from this either - Tatooine is supposed to be one out of zillions of completely insignificant dustholes outside of civilized space, yet it has been visited again and again by important figures and events.

So I try to moderate. I pretty much always use planets from the canon, and when their geography, history, and culture are insufficiently defined, I just make something up for it. This isn't as hard to do as it sounds, so I generally frown on making new planets up from nowhere (though my short story River admittedly does have an original planet in it). I've done this in varying degrees to Malachor V, Castell, and Rutan - mostly history and geography for the first, history and the economic landscape for the second, and (I think) geography for the third. -MPK , Free Man  03:39, March 20, 2014 (UTC)