Forum:FC:Café Fanfic XXVI

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.

August's topic: If you could go back and retcon something in your stories, what would it be?

Discussion

• I know we did something similar to this last year, but it's always an interesting topic to see how people's opinions and thoughts on their fan-fiction evolve. Note that this is specifically referring to retconning elements within stories/series, rather than shelving/canceling entire works. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 20:20, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Brandon

I don't recton, I just stop writing and do it over again. So... pass. >.> - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 01:58, August 2, 2013 (UTC)

• What about The Tragedy? Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 15:03, August 8, 2013 (UTC)
  • What about it? - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 16:55, August 8, 2013 (UTC)
    • Well, a yearish ago, you said that The Tragedy doesn't fit with your current vision of TCO. So what would/could you change to make it fit that vision besides adding a comic relief Gungan, a bunch of CGI, and Natalie Portman? Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 15:07, August 9, 2013 (UTC)

Ataru

I'll go ahead and throw some things in here. One of the things that I wish I had done in previous works was create a more unified and structured storyline. I know my work is pretty structured already, but there were a lot of extraneous things in some of the novels that I wish I had toned down.

Fugitive and Smuggler I could have made these novels more unified, specifically with the Mistryl threat. It was sort of tacked onto the end of Fugitive and then continued in Smuggler, but there were no common characters to tie the work together. If I had to do it again, I'd create a persistent antagonist (perhaps Palla) and have her link the plot arc between the novels. Fugitive in general should probably have ended after Selu started working with the Hawk-bat and after Spectre handles the Jedi situation. The bombing and space-tramping are more or less extraneous to the main plot and could have been counterbalanced by having more development of Selu and Spectre prior to Episode III.

Liberator This novel is a giant mess, but I guess I'll just say that it has severe pacing issues. The protagonists spend a number of poorly-written scenes on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere, and to help spice up some variety, I added something like 3 other antagonists and a comic-relief Imperial scoutship. I feel that if the timing/pacing issues were resolved and the antagonists condensed, then a lot of the extraneous prose could be cut.

Guardian I overall really like this work, but Delvardus's plot line teeters on extraneous. Structurally, I like what having him in the story does to balance out the Rebel and Imperial perspectives, but he needed to be more relevant. Also, Spectre's inconsistent Force-usage was a bit conveniently resolved. Lastly, I wish I could have found more ways to bring Morgedh clan Kel'nerh into the story. Also, Mara Jade's cameo feels forced since I don't reference it in Prodigal. One of those should be fixed.

Warrior Once again, I like this work overall. It's heavily weighed down by the sheer number of story arcs and starts a little slowly, but there isn't much I'd change here.

Prodigal Overall, I like the work, though Jaina's delusions probably occupied a bit too much of the early chapters and the whole issue between Selu and the Council is conveniently resolved. If I could have found an elegant solution to prolong that conflict, that would be an improvement overall. Other things that would have been nice to show were more of the relationship between Ariada and her assassins, and some more tension/reconciliation between the Jedi and the Force exiles. That said, I also should have put Zekk with the rest of the Jedi who run off to save Jaina, because his exclusion feels weird. Including Face Loran is also a bit too extraneous, but it helps give a purpose to having Cassi on Coruscant. That should either be expanded, or cut out, not half-baked like it is now.

• I'm sure there's more I'd like to retcon from the short stories, but even most of these novel changes aren't likely to happen. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 15:03, August 8, 2013 (UTC)

Shoo-loosh

Ermz...Well, the only thing of mine that I really still like is Rakata. So...I'd fix the prose and stuff. Because it needs it. I really should do that. Hm. And actually say in the BTS what happened afterwards. :p Everything else I wrote I hate. :D -Solus ^{Talk to the Hand} 00:36, August 10, 2013 (UTC)