Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XXIV



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 archival 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.


 * June's topic: What influences or other sources affect your writing? Are they books (canonical or not)? Films? Video games? Comic series/graphic novels? Movies? Theatre? Other fan-fiction series? Other Star Wars Fanon users? Archetypal concepts or tropes (such as Campbell's Hero Cycle?)

Atarumaster88
If you've ever seen any of the BTS (Behind the scenes) that I come up with, I have a wide variety of references and influences that affect my writing, which basically includes everything in the list above (books, films, video games, whatever). However, for the purposes of this blog, I'll just list some ways other SWF users have influenced my writing, as a way of showing my involvement in this "community." Some of these people are distant memories in the minds of the few of us grizzled veterans still left, but I'll still reference them anyway for the rest of old fogies. Now get off my lawn!


 * Solus As a connoisseur of terrible puns, Solus's pseudonym of "Sue Donnam" caught my fancy, and I repurposed it in Force Exile VI: Prodigal as a nod to her cleverness and all the incredible covers she's made for the Force Exile Series.
 * Jedi Master 76 JM76 gets credit for a few things. First, the droid J7's name is a reference to his username. Second, it was JM76 who first coined the nickname "Rhinny" for a character named Rhiannon. I was . . . surprised by that one at first, but later used it in-universe. Lastly, let's just say that a certain ill-fated Togrutan character in FE IV is a nod to a first draft of one of JM's (heavily underrated) novels, where he killed off a Togrutan character in a manner very familiar from The Dark Knight.
 * Jack Nebulax Back in the original days of FE that was actually something of a collaborative project (and by project, I mean a total trainwreck of jumbled plotlines and purple prose *shudder*), there was some interaction between the characters I created and Jack Nebulax. That carried over when I wrote the series and transitioned (thankfully) away from some of the sillier ideas. Still, the character name was perfect for a habitually dour and ruthless Imperial officer, so I asked to use the character in FE III.
 * Jaina Solo This was another interaction back from the original days of FE, where the canonical Jaina Solo had some interactions with the FEmpire thanks to narration from Jaina Solo (the user). Some of those story concepts were later re-imagined and made their way into FE VI.
 * Brandon Rhea Brandon Rhea came up with the name for Taelros Bac, a holodrama director in FE IV. Some of the holodramas that Bac came up with were also vaguely familiar. Inadvertently, he also helped supply some of the characterization for Taelros, whose personality is basically an amalgamation of George Lucas from George Lucas In Love and a caricature of Brandon Rhea. Despite the dubious origins, the character was an absolute blast to write, and yet had certain admirable qualities that I won't list here due to the need to never publicly inflate certain egos. Brandon Rhea also helped write the backstory for Taelros and basically embraced my ideas for the character in doing so. By far, the best "collaboration" I've ever worked on in writing SW stuff. Atarumaster88  Jedi_Order.svg ( Talk page ) 16:20, June 13, 2013 (UTC)


 * I just did a mental facepalm because I had no idea until just now that Sue Donnam was a pun to begin with. >.< -MPK, Free Man  13:58, June 19, 2013 (UTC)

MPK
Oh geeze gaiz, I dunno LOL.

Actually, I am able to drag up a few things that influence my writing. When it comes to Star Wars Fanfic, I think the first and perhaps largest influence is the canon novels that I like. One of the ways I used to attempt to drum up enthusiasm for writing was by picking up something from my Star Wars collection - to get my brain in the right box, I suppose. I have certain books to thank for many of my writing ideas, both specific and general. For instance, Kemp's Jaden Korr duology helped push the limits in my mind of what kind of tones you can get in a Star Wars story while still keeping it in the familiar universe. Crosscurrent in particular did a lot of that for me, managing to strike a balance of being darker and more visceral than average, but not reaching the unpleasant extreme of, say, Death Troopers (or a number of fanfics I could name). This demonstration greatly affected my novella The Beast of Rutan, leading me to turn my original conception for the story from a rather bland "fight of a Jedi against a dangerous evil Jedi dude" to a far more gruesome-but-I-hope-not-too-gruesome conflict with some mystery/horror elements.

Aside from that, I do sometimes get entire story ideas. Luceno's Darth Plagueis novel made me want to write a fic that did the same thing for the character of Revan - revealing a hidden backstory and a previously shrouded series of important galactic events in a way that the reader does not expect. I never yet started this story, though, and possibly never will.

Got nothing else right now. Might have more in THE FUTURE -MPK, Free Man  13:57, June 19, 2013 (UTC)

Sholush
'''What influences or other sources affect your writing? [etc]'''

oh, gawrsh. uh...

ALL THE THINGS! I find inspiration everywhere, any piece of media can be inspiration, even if that piece of media is crap. Real life can be inspiration for how things work or relationships or even people to base characters on. Architecture, technology, science, you name it! Anything can hold a little gem of inspiration. Now, I may get an idea but not use it, at least not yet, but that didn't mean I wasn't inspired. You know the thing about crappy media? Inspiration may come about how they could have done something better, and that may be what you get out of it. Most everything has some merit or holds something that a creative mind can use, even if its DON'T DO THAT.

Except chick flicks. They hold no merit because they're all the same. /rant.

Ah, as for things that inspired my specific stories? For "Rakata," there were lots of things, but mostly Twilight Zone and Planet of the Apes. Yeah, big surprise. :p

For Fate, the novel I'm currently working on (i wurk slow lol), the inspiration? So many things. Mostly it's built around the concept of deconstructing the idea of a Chosen One, so I guess kinda inspired by the Hero's Journey but not really...I dunno. Lots of things. From games to movies to TV to YouTube. I can't list them because I don't remember all of them, and even if I did, it'd be too long. How about, when I actually get to releasing it, I give you the whole backstory that I remember? That'll give me time to figure it out and give it context. Because some of the stuff you might be all like "wut?" and stuffs. So yeah. But just assume "a lot of things."

Dat's all for now, folks. - Solus          Talk to the Hand  20:53, June 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * How does architecture specifically help influence your writing? Atarumaster88  Jedi_Order.svg ( Talk page ) 20:50, July 5, 2013 (UTC)
 * It can help me figure out how to design a location and make it functional for what I need it to do, while, at the same time, making logical sense within its own universe. The location can change how a scene can go as different characters might react to the same location differently, and conflict can arise from that. - Solus          Talk to the Hand  16:35, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Brandon
I’ll start with Star Wars Fanon users. The primary sources of influence/help have come from Ataru, Solus, and Vic. I’ve worked with Vic on past collaborations (that went nowhere&mdash;shocking, I know), and he was always a good reviewer and a good artist for covers. Ataru was the first person who really criticized what I wrote. Prior to that, I got nothing but praise that really wasn’t very deserved. He helped me with my writing ability by being that first person to not just criticize, but to do so in-depth with positive reinforcement. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wash out my mouth with bleach for saying those nice things about him. Solus is the Angel of Death who does nothing but criticize and ask annoying questions (annoying because they expose plot holes). It helps. Good stuff.

Movies that influence me are the Star Wars movies. Duh. I like to embrace the feel of the original trilogy. I'm also influenced by the prequels, in that I kept working on the story of Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One because I felt like I could do better.

Fan fiction that inspires me would be TheStarWarsRP.Com. That’s where I really began writing, and where I’ve been able to write at the level I can now. What I’ve really found through SWRP is how much I love coming up with stories. As you might imagine, given that I have so little writing to show, the actual writing process itself is a bit tedious for me. However, coming up with the stories, ideas, themes, symbolism, myth, etc. is really exciting. Also, everything that I've written&mdash;the ill-fated Shadows of the Jedi novel, Star Wars: The Tragedy, and The Chosen One&mdash;is connected back to SWRP in some way.

Beyond that, I’m a follower of the Hero’s Journey. I very much enjoy myth and archetype, and I like to infuse that into my writing. Whether it’s The Chosen One which I absolutely never work on, or another project I may have in the pipeline (tentatively titled The Jedi Guardian), I like the main character to follow the Hero’s Journey. The trick in making that successful is to ensure that the specifics of the character’s journey are unique so as to not blatantly expose the myth behind it.

Got any questions? Ask away! - Brandon Rhea (talk)  23:33, June 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * So when you're taking a unique approach to the Hero's Journey, what helps you differentiate between the characters? What are some ways you help keep it fresh and new? Atarumaster88  Jedi_Order.svg ( Talk page ) 20:49, July 5, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the most important thing is giving them different motivations. For example, in the full story of The Chosen One, Logan Amator plays a rogue-like character who fits into part of that archetype and who you could identify as being part of that archetype. However, he's not like Han Solo, who was only in it for himself. Logan is a rebel with a cause. - Brandon Rhea (talk)  00:21, July 6, 2013 (UTC)