Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XVI



Well, enough of the political realm from August's topic. Let's discuss something a bit more fundamental in fan-fiction. They're the guys lurking in the back corner, who toss in a scene here or there, maybe give out a few dialogue bits. They hinder or help the main players, but for the most part, they're largely unexplored and undeveloped. Let's talk about one (or more) of your minor characters, whether they're one-shots or Wedge-type characters.

If you're not sure if the character is a minor character or not, here's some general tips. They're not the protagonist or antagonist. The story is not about them. The largest exposure they get is a single plot arc in a larger work. They're there to provide other people for your main characters to interact with. A good example of a minor character from canon when talking solely about the movies is Firmus Piett. Shows up, interacts with the A-listers, and then largely remains unexplored until the EU comes along.

Just like the previous ones, we're going to talk about fan-fiction (yours). The basic ground rules are the same. Please restrict this to stuff from your fan-fiction, but aside from that, no pressure. You can suggest, make observations, but no condemning other people's work and "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer.

July's topic: Pick one or more of your minor characters and talk about them. What do they do in the story? What inspired them? If you feel like expanding their character or backstory more, feel free to do so as well.

If you have something you feel would be of interest for the café to discuss in a future installment, post it in the discussion section below. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 23:04, September 5, 2012 (UTC)

Atarumaster88
My favorite minor character in all of Force Exile has to be Taelros Bac, who appeared in Force Exile IV: Guardian. First off, if you've seen George Lucas In Love, Taelros is essentially a combination of that film's version of George Lucas and caricatures of a certain SWF admin, which made him fun to write. Taelros is the catalyst that triggers a couple of the main characters to end up on Coruscant, where they fend off some antagonists. He's also a foil for one of those main characters, with his absent-minded melodramatic outgoing flippant personality contrasting very sharply with the rigid guarded and pragmatic mannerism of Milya Kraen. The verbal and personality clash between "head in the clouds" and "down to earth" was fun to write. The other thing that made him interesting was that he proved to be quite a deep character, with an inner core of resilience and humanity under pressure that wasn't evident at first glance. I don't have a lot of utterly wacky characters in my work, so getting to write one like Taelros was pretty refreshing and helped lighten up FE IV. Collaborating with Brandon to help devise a backstory for him resulted in one of my favorite EGTFE entries to work on, because it fleshed him out and gave him some basis for that depth. There have been many times that I've looked back at the character and wondered, man, is there any way I could work Taelros back in somewhere in the story line? Sadly, that hasn't proven to be the case so far, but who knows. Atarumaster88  ( Talk page ) 23:04, September 5, 2012 (UTC)