Author Topic: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: Thanks from Tahi
Tahi  5750 posts
Registered: Jun '02
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/10/05 6:19pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: For Writers and Readers - Date Edited: 4/11/05 4:15am (2 edits total) Edited By: Tahi
Okay, guys. Here it is.
******************************

Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place is very pleased and excited to bring to you totally cool, and obviously highly discerning wink , A/Ters the first in a series of interviews that focus on our faithful readers. For, indeed, where would any of us who are writing fics be without them? Whether they're the provider of extensive critique or the I'm-here-and-still-reading sort, the whole fic-writing shebang would collapse around our authorial ears if not for our fantastic readers.

Not only do they support us and our stories, they often provide us with a new perspective on our writing, or help us solve those irritating wrinkles in the plot that crop up from time to time. And we get to know them as friends, which is probably the best aspect of all.

So without further ado, I'd like to present a reader who many of us already regard as a great friend and supporter: drum roll, please for TahiriSoloFan.

I first met TSF in my Many Happy Returns thread, and found I soon began bumping into her in some of the other A/T threads I was following. She is one whose critique has been incredibly useful to me, especially when it comes to characterisation, and, in the process of various discussions about SW issues, I found to my delight that we not only share similar views about SW, but also about family and life in general.

TSF lives in the United States and is a busy mum with four children - three boys and one girl. She has been a SW fan since she was little and remembers playing SW with her brother - she, of course, playing the part of Princess Leia. I didn't ask what part her brother played, but as brothers are usually essentially evil, I think I can guess - and it wasn't an Ewok or a droid.

Like a lot of us, she didn't realise the OT story had been continued until one day, at the library, she discovered Zahn's trilogy. Since then, as she puts it, she has read everything she can get her hands on. She enjoys continuing storylines, so SW suits her very well that way - and not only in terms of professional fiction. And is that brings us back to the topic of fan fiction, I guess this is a good point to begin the questions:


Tahi: What was it that got you into reading fan fiction in the first place?

TSF: I started posting at the Lit. boards and then followed a link from one of my pals to the fanfic sites. After I got there I was hooked.

Tahi: We all have different things that spark our interest, so what is it that attracts you to push that first link to a fanfic?

TSF: A good title can pull me in, also the character that I enjoy. After I come to know an author is reliable, I will read their stuff regardless of subject matter, most of the time.

Tahi: What kind of things must a writer do to keep you reading?

TSF: Reliable posting, good grammar & spelling, good plot development, reader interaction . . . if you have most or all of these at least some the time, I think you'll manage to keep your readers happier and they'll stick with you from story to story.

[Tahi hears the bit about reliable posting and cringes, wink but grits teeth bravely and carries on.]

Tahi: As a fan of both the Anakin-Tahiri and Jag-Jaina (cough, splutter - just kidding wink ) relationships do you see any aspects common to both? For instance, are there any similarities in Anakin's and Jag's personalities, or in their dealings with their respective partners? Or are they total opposites?

TSF: For me, it was a matter of instant chemistry. I felt something special for them from the first time I read about Tahiri and Anakin, and the same for Jag and Jaina. I have a similar feeling for Luke/Mara and Leia/Han. They seem to mesh in a special way. In a lot of ways I think their relationships are mirrors of each other - they complement one another and balance each other out.

Tahi: Random and slightly odd question - but I'm curious to find out how people find their way around the boards, as this was something I muddled my way through initially. How do you keep track of a fic? Do you add the writer to your Watched User List and track the story through viewing their posting record, or do you have another method?

TSF: Ha! I'm so backward. I keep track of everything on yellow notebook paper. I write down the stories that I'm reading, and then the page number I'm at. I've never been able to make the watched user method work for me. Am I slow or what? wink

[Tahi hugs TSF for upholding the old-fashioned ways, and for being a fellow internet gumbie. grin ]

Tahi: Further curiosity - how do you find out when the story is updated? Do you skim the first few pages of forum, or do you bookmark the story on your computer?

TSF: I usually skim the first few pages, then if I don't find it for a few days I'll do a search.

Tahi: As one whose stories often languish for long periods way down in the depths of the forum, I have to say that that's very good to hear. LOL. Do you have a particular preference for AU or canon stories?

TSF: I usually prefer canon, but I'll read both, and it definitely depends more on the writing!

Tahi: Yep - for writing I tend towards canon, mainly I think because I like to see some of the gaps left by the pro-fic authors filled in more satisfactorily. However, that's an interesting comment about the importance of the writing, and it raises another point I'm curious about.

Something that can be a bit of a point of contention in AU stories is the characterisations of canon characters. How much, in your opinion, can an author play around with them in an AU setting? In other words, are you comfortable with a writer changing aspects of a familiar character's personality?


TSF: I dislike it if a character is totally "out of character"! LOL happy

Tahi: And I guess this leads on to the next question which is how seriously you take fan fiction. Do you regard it as very much a second string preference to the professional SW books?

TSF: That probably depends on the author and the story. Some is just light, silly, and fun. However I can tell from reading some people's stuff that they have the potential to move on to big things and we fanfic readers are really just their "test market."

Tahi: [gets a crazy image of TFN swarming with readers dressed as guinea pigs wink and writers swanning around in Noel Coward-style smoking jackets] Well, I guess a lot of writers write as a way of gaining a kind of pseudo-ownership of their favourite characters, and of feeling they can have some input into their "lives". And then, of course, there's the issue of wanting to "set the NJO right" as far as correcting what some of us see as major discrepancies in characterisation and planning.

After reading Vector Prime, the first in the NJO series, most of us probably had a few ideas as to what direction we thought or hoped the series might move, which no doubt we probably readjusted after each successive book. So after reading Keyes's Edge of Victory duology, how would you have liked the storyline to develop, either in terms of your favourite characters, or with the whole Yuuzhan Vong thing as a whole? And what would be your overall assessment of the NJO series as a whole?


TSF: I wasn't initially all that pleased with Vector Prime. It felt very harsh to me. I don't read fiction to be dowsed with reality, thank you very much. However, I was willing to give the series a shot and see how the characters developed over time.

After the EoV duology, my hopes went way up. I thought the potential for Anakin & Tahiri's storyline was really strong. The build up was incredible and they had all these plot threads going that could go so many ways, so I couldn't wait to see what would happen. Also there was a ton of potential with the twin worship idea.

I hated to see any of the Solo kids die, but I still maintain it was done badly and at the expense of the story. I would have complained if any of them had died at that point, because I felt as though all three were just being built up for the next "phase" of the plot. As sad as it would have been, if one of the Solo kids had been killed at the end of the series, I think it might have felt more "natural" . . . though it's hard to say for sure at this point.

I found that some authors handled the Vong more believably than others. Sorry, I can't say for sure who I liked the best as their author, besides Keyes, at the moment.

My thought for the NJO has been that it was too over-reaching, and had too many authors over too short a timeframe. Great plot threads were always being dropped, or lost, because each author only had so much space to devote to their own arc, and so only had so much space to fit in the overall story arc. And half the time they really didn't know how the author directly before them would be finishing their part when they began the next book. The new author would have his or her own pet ideas and would just kind of drop any of the previous "extras" that they didn't have to include for the main story plot. (This is also why I think we heard a lot of "out-of-character" complaints.) Believe me, I like to get a new book as quickly as the next guy, but not at the expense of quality. My hope is that the Dark Nest series will be better, with fewer authors involved, so they can keep it a little more focused, and not lose track of those threads.

Tahi: I think I hear the thunder of spontaneous applause for that, TSF. grin And, yes, let's hope that the upcoming series will treat our favourites more sympathetically. Hope breeds eternal as they say.

On a lighter note, I have one final question - and I'm making the assumption that some of the readers have noted the reference in your sig to you being a "Chicken Wrangler". I sense a story waiting to be told here - care to fill us in?


TSF: Ah! One day on TKL's Echoes of the Past thread we were chatting about chickens running around with their heads cut off. And there were a few uninformed people who didn't think this was actually possible.

Well, as a child (of about 3 or 4), I used to watch my grandma butcher chickens, and after she had cut the heads off she would drop the bodies on the ground. When she did, they would usually run wild for a few minutes. But one day, one of those crazy, headless chickens proceeded to chase both my younger brother and me for what felt like forever, and it scared us silly! happy

Tahi: I can't help feeling there's a metaphor hiding in that story that somehow relates to the NJO. LOL

Anyway - thanks a million, TSF, for putting up with several sessions of me pestering you over the email system, and for giving us both your perspective on fanfic as well as some discussion-worthy points about SW fiction as a whole.


Wishing everyone a happy and productive week, and remember to watch this space for more interviews and reviews - all brought to you in continuing appreciation of our favourite teens, Anakin and Tahiri.

Aroha
~Tahi~

 

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YodaKenobi  11645 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '03
49382_Anakin Solo (1005091)
Date Posted: 4/10/05 11:07pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: For Writers and Readers
That was great grin I especially liked the part about TSF writing all the fics she reads down on a yellow pad. As someone who still does most of his writing with pen and pape, I can identify. I also agree with pretty much everything she had to say about the NJO sad And of course the comment about Anakin and Tahiri having "instant chemistry" wink

Great interview, a lot of fun to read grin


I've heard Natalie really likes guys who use double negatives and play the banjo.

You don't not say? *Strums banjo like the kid from Deliverance*

 

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Tahi  5750 posts
Registered: Jun '02
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/11/05 4:27am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: For Writers and Readers
Not that I'm not meaning to not confuse you, Yoda, but I wasn't being completely truthful. wink

I meant to post that interview using the Gr8terThanSumOfParts nickname - whoops. Sorry about that.

Glad you enjoyed it. I agree about pen and paper - it is much under-rated in these days of computers methinks. happy

 

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Thrawn McEwok  13641 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '00
43231_Chiss Ewok
Date Posted: 4/11/05 5:30am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
Tahi: I wonder if the same technique will work on Ewan?

You won't be looking out for no Obi-Wan/Formbi 'ship in Outbound Flight, then...? tongue

- The Imperial Ewok

 

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TahiriSoloFan  1688 posts
Registered: May '03
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/11/05 7:44am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
I especially liked the part about TSF writing all the fics she reads down on a yellow pad.

And here I thought I was one of the only computer illiterate people on the boards! silly

 

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Tahi  5750 posts
Registered: Jun '02
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/12/05 4:36am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
Thrawn
You won't be looking out for no Obi-Wan/Formbi 'ship in Outbound Flight, then...?
Formbi? George Formbi? Imagines Obi waiting at the lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little lady passes by. wink

TSF
You the only computer illiterate one? Heavens no, there are scores of us. If I was a bit more computer literate I'd start an interest group. wink


 

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TahiriSoloFan  1688 posts
Registered: May '03
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/12/05 7:06am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
I don't know Tahi , it took me ages to figure out that I could reply to people by copying & pasting their replies! blush What kind of interest group do you want to start?

 

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J/J ~ Unstoppable force vs. unmoveable object
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Tahi  5750 posts
Registered: Jun '02
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/12/05 9:24pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
I thought of starting an interest group for the computer illiterati so we could celebrate our ignorance. But then . . . I'm too computer illiterate to know how to start it. grin

Don't worry - it took me ages to realise that anyone could post comments in people's story threads. For some reason I thought there was some sort of special process you had to follow to do it.

And then Moff_D had to explain patiently how to add people to my watched user list. LOL

Actually I didn't know how to copy and paste either until somebody explained how to do it and use the mark-up codes for italics.

So you are not alone. [ET music]

 

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Tahi  5750 posts
Registered: Jun '02
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/16/05 5:09am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
Newsflash

The next writer interview is imminent.

A cyber chocolate fish to anyone who can guess who it is. wink

Clue: What do you get when you mix a Chiss with a native from Endor? wink

 

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TahiriSoloFan  1688 posts
Registered: May '03
19661_Tahiri
Date Posted: 4/16/05 1:54pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
... grabs chocolate... drooling

Would that be Thrawn McEwok ? wink



Guess I should have waited to see if
I was right before taking the prize... blush


I really wanted that chocolate! silly

 

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YodaKenobi  11645 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '03
49382_Anakin Solo (1005091)
Date Posted: 4/16/05 2:35pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan - Date Edited: 4/16/05 2:36pm (1 edits total) Edited By: YodaKenobi
I'm more interested in who the incredibly handsome interviewer is...



tongue

 

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Gr8terThanSumOfParts  89 posts
Registered: Jan '04
7740_Tahiri and Anakin
Date Posted: 4/17/05 1:18pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan - Date Edited: 4/17/05 1:21pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Gr8terThanSumOfParts
Welcome to the third in our series of author and reader interviews here at Anakin n' Tahiri's Place happy

I'm very pleased to announce that today's interviewee is non-other than everyone's favorite blue-furred, Scottish Ewok: Thrawn McEwok!

Thrawn McEwok has written dozens of fan fics on these boards (and I recommend checking them all out wink ) many having to do with Anakin and Tahiri. Dark Paths is probably best known and is easily one of the best stories to grace the Beyond boards. This epic story is filled with mystery, action, and emotional turmoil, as it sees Anakin Solo returned from the dead in a manner reminiscent of his grandfather, and leading a war against the GFFA. Things are never as they appear though, as Tahiri is actually married to Jacen Solo, who is more than the Jedi Master turned leader of the Federation that we see at first glance.

I won't say anymore for fear of ruining some great surprises wink

McEwok has also written Complications and Once a Warrior, which tell unusual tales of an Anakin/Tahiri romance.

Today's questions will be asked by me, YodaKenobi happy

I talked to the Imperial Ewok about Anakin & Tahiri, his fan fiction writing, those unattainable Golden Ewoks™, and of course his personal life— details below ladies wink









YodaKenobi: You seem to have some fairly unconventional scenarios that involve Anakin and Tahiri in your stories. The sharing of one body in Complications comes to mind, as well as the bizarre Once a Warrior and even Dark Paths. Is there a reason why you tend to write these sort of tortured romances between these two characters?

Thrawn McEwok: Well... most A/T 'fic is in one way or other a response to the NJO, and that means taking into account what happened to Anakin in Star by Star, and, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, what happened to Tahiri in Conquest and Reunion.

I'm not saying that's all there is to it, but if you're going to do something that relates to an existing storyline, you're going to have to start with the story elements you already have, and either build on them, or react against them. I suppose it would be possible to write a 'fic in which Anakin and Tahiri had a perfectly 'normal' relationship post-SbS, but they had to make her 'forget' her after every meeting to keep it secret... and even there, there's plenty of opportunity for both complications and comedy...

Of course, there are other options: Tahi, for instance, has written a wonderful AU in At The Oasis which is about as far from "tortured romance" as you can get...

YK:Well, since you brought up Star by Star, we may as well get to that question now, as it's pretty much a requirement for talking about Anakin and Tahiri tongue : Besides the fact that you credit it with helping you come up with some very original storylines, what was your reaction to Star by Star? Both the overall story as well as Anakin's demise?

TMcE:Well, my initial reaction was something approaching awe. tongue I definitely enjoyed the novel, but on my first readthrough, the climax, the bit that the plot seemed to sweep inexorably towards, and which practically made me jump to my feet and dance the Fanboy around the room, was the Battle of Coruscant, and Luke Skywalker climbing back into the cockpit and getting back to what he does best - tactical-level starfighter command.

At the time - or at least in my initial review - I read Anakin Solo's death as just an incident en route; its initial impact for me was as part of a wider storyline. I don't mean to diminish it as an incident, but it was precisely because such a dramatic event was by no means the climax of the novel that the whole novel acquired such impact.

Every time I've reread the scene since then, I've had a different reaction - but I think it says something that - with the possible exception of certain passages in Balance Point tongue - it's probably the single scene in the NJO I've gone back to most often, and most regularly...

In retrospect, Anakin's death is now the pivot of the NJO, the point at which the SW galaxy, if you will, 'breaks', in more senses than one - up to that point, the NJO is about pitting Star Wars heroes in the tradition of the OT against a dramatically alien enemy; but after it, it becomes something genuinely new and dangerous - the Yuuzhan Vong become as familiar as the iconic Empire, and the heirs of the New Republic become very different people indeed. Perhaps the creators meant the NJO to be about growing up, facing mortality, and taking responsibility; perhaps it's just cynically designed to sell - but what they ended up with was, in my view, something more than that. The whole story became muddled and murky, and there's an Anakin-shaped wound there that I'm not sure that readers, writers or characters know how to heal, which serves as the key for a more general wrongness... tongue

Sometimes, I think it's a subtle and brilliant plan, other times, that it's an incredible accident or expression of the Collective Unconscious, other times again that it's just me over-reading horribly.

Rereading SbS, I've certainly see a lot that hints that Denning was doing something deliberate, and my respect for him as a writer has deepened over time; but at the same time, I'm also aware that some elements - most notably, the logic of the Myrkr mission itself - seem not to make sense. Part of me wonders if there's deliberate meaning in that, either to intimate the characters' state of mind or create a sense of narrative 'wrongness'; but another part of me suspects that it's a case of putting 'pure' storytelling ahead of coherent logic...

There are a lot of ways you can read SbS or the NJO as a whole, and as a 'fic writer, a lot of what I've done has been about exploring those potentials; but ultimately, all of them seem to fall back to the same fundamental crux of Anakin's death...

I'm not really sure what to say, apart from that.

YK: I agree, it seems that Star Wars isn't the same without Anakin Solo. What is it about the character that made him so important? What is it you like about him and what is your approach when writing him into fics?

TMcE: I think Anakin was, in a real way, the inheritor of both Luke's clear-eyed heroism and Han's warped determination to fight the system every step of the way; in that sense, he's the reunification of the two aspect of George's original hero from the ANH draft scripts, Anakin Starkiller - who, incidentally, was also caught petting in an equipment locker with a blonde...

In story terms, this created a coherent, compact mainspring for the character - his motivations are founded on a sense of right and wrong in the best Star Wars manner, but, precisely because of this, he tends to cut awkwardly across other people's tracks - as McBride Allen said in the Corellian Trilogy, Anakin marches to the beat of a drum only he can hear; but also, precisely because he's not always on the same wavelength as the people around him, he's a character with a lot of potential for light comedy.

Ultimately, I suspect, there's something in that that almost anyone can relate to, and there are certainly broad parallels with other protagonists; he fits right into the "hero with the thousand faces" archetype - and then they load the pressure on him until he pretty much breaks, and kill him horribly!

But I think there's also an instructive contrast with Jacen. Jacen has a strong sense of right and wrong, and he's often at odds with the people around him, and he has something of the same comedy potential, but at the same time, I think he lacks something (or he thinks he does) - and he knows it, every bit as much as the reader. They're both very sympathetic characters - if anything, the source of Jacen's angst is probably more real to the average reader than Anakin's "people keep dying around me" despair; but ultimately, I think, Anakin likes the real world, with all its flaws, while Jacen, poor kid, doesn't...

As to how I write Anakin, I don't think I have any conscious strategy. Like most people, both in rl and in fiction, he has a repertoire of easy, familiar gestures - though perhaps a lot of them are twitches of the wrist to deflect away the slings and blaster-bolts of the Galaxy - and perhaps it helps in the portrayal of any character if a writer has thought about the relevant issues in the abstract, without specifically focusing on how that affects storytelling.

Ultimately, though, you start with a character, in a situation, and where you go from there is very much down to the elements and forces that you've begun with...

YK: You compared him to a mix of Han and Luke, but in Dark Paths you have Anakin Solo essentially becoming Darth Vader. Do you see a lot of similarities between he and his grandfather— Anakin Skywalker?

TMcE: Oddly, no - at least, not with the young Anakin Skywalker we've seen in the Prequels. While there are definitely similarities between the two characters, most of the relevant traits were laid down in the Anakin Solo of the Bantam novels and JJK before TPM opened. I tend to think of Anakin's action as far more governed by the idea of his grandfather, and by the legacy of Vader as we see him in the Original Trilogy...

YK: In many ways, Tahiri Veila as we knew her died in Star by Star as well. What do you think of the "new" Tahiri and how do you think she compares to the bubbly girl we see in the JJK books and the EOV duology?

TMcE: I think I see continuity in Tahiri - if she puts on a pair of combat boots, picks up a few scars, and has a new identity stamped in her mind, what gives any of that meaning is the fact that it represents the forces acting on the same basic character.

I don't know how much of Tahiri's character-development (and the NJO in general) was fixed at the start, and how much was shaped by changes in plan, responses to readers' reaction, and sheer chance; but I suppose I see her as a character who's still out of kilter with the Galaxy around her - wounded and in pain less because of what's been done to her than because of where she's found herself - for all sorts of reasons, Tahiri simply doesn't fit any more, and that's what hurts her - doubly so because of her understandable difficulty in admitting it.

As a writer, I think that, as well as being something that leads her into awkward positions, that also gives her massive potential strength as a character. The fact she can't settle easily also gives her an instinctive, acrobatic agility, an ability to move and strike like a krayt dragon; and there's also her multiple perspectives, which confuse the heck out of her, but also allow her to see round the corners that other people think themselves into. But more than any of that, while she's obviously her own woman, she's also the torchbearer for Anakin's legacy.

Ultimately, I see Tahiri as a character who's trying to express herself clearly, both to herself and the Galaxy around her; when she does that, I reckon that she'll be pretty near unbeatable.

And, if she was a real person, I reckon she'd laugh, but not in a nasty way, at that sort of verbage I've just written...

YK: Tahiri was a bit of an outsider before Star by Star. She was an orphan, and she came across as very lonely with Anakin away from the Academy in Conquest. Do you think Tahiri would have went through this change without Anakin's death or do you think his influence would have resulted in something completely different for her?

TMcE: It would have definitely been interesting to see the two of them deal with everything else that went wrong in Star by Star together, and I think they would have provided support and understanding for each other, that Tahiri definately lacks in the later NJO - when instead, in contrast, the most acute parts of her grief are to do with Anakin's death.

So, yes, I think that Tahiri's journey has had a lot to do with Anakin dying; but at the same time, that's only one aspect of what's shaped her. Her basic development wouldn't have changed, I don't think - it's just that the galaxy seems more against her; in an odd way, it's less that she is different as a person than that the post-SbS Galaxy is different, if that makes any sense.

YK: What is it you like about the Anakin and Tahiri dynamic and why do you write it?

TMcE: The questions get easier and shorter as the story goes on? tongue

Seriously, though - ultimately, dispensing with all the foregoing waffle, they're basically good, engaging characters, and they fit together perfectly to form a seamless whole. It's not, at heart, complicated, or pretentious. It's just a boy and a girl, who're really into each other...

But obviously, as I said in my answer to the first connection, that essentially unarguable rightness is being warped by the wrongness of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion... Jacen might talk about the encroaching darkness and the threat that it will extinguish the good things in the galaxy star by star; but Anakin and Tahiri live that experience he's trying to express, and fight against it...

YK: That brings to mind something else. You have paired Anakin with Mara in a fic, with Wyn Fel in Horizons, as well as pairing Tahiri with Jacen in Dark Paths and a Yuuzhan Vong warrior in Complications— Do you think any of these relationships (or any others you can think of) work better for Anakin and Tahiri? Or is it more a matter of exploring a character in a different situation?

TMcE: Do I think they work 'better'? No, emphatically no. But do I think they work? At least up to a point, yes. Anakin/Mara, if you're taking it seriously, I see as something that you'd expect at a certain stage of Anakin's "Hero's Journey" (and Ben Skywalker's, and perhaps Mara's, too!), whereas pairing Tahiri with a young, 'liberal' Yuuzhan Vong warrior in Complications (who also happens to look and act a little like Anakin) I see as the sort of comfortable relationship she could find herself in if she stayed on Zonama Sekot after The Unifying Force.

I suppose that the tension, spoken or unspoken, between these pairings and A/T could be part of what you mean by 'exploring different situations'... but at the same time, I think there's a different level of connection between Anakin and Tahiri, a strong, stubborn tightness in the way they tie together, that's not necessarily 'sexual' or 'couply' - the nearest parallels I can think of are Han/Chewie, Obi-Wan/Anakin and Luke/Artoo - but does make them stronger and closer in other ways as well...

YK: Umm... how do you think this interview is going so far?

TMcE: Is that part of the interview? tongue

YK: Yes, I thought it would be funny to slip an awkward question in there. It was either "how do you think this interview is going" or "Do these pants make me look fat."

Moving along, Your writing, particularly your use of language is one of my favorite aspects of your stories. How do you go about crafting your stories (and yes, I realize this question might be impossible to answer tongue ) ?


TMcE: I simply try to write what I see. It's not always easy - especially when I'm trying to sneak in something like Anakin/Mara subtext or a same-sex 'ship - but loyal readers of my longer 'fic will have no doubt seen blacked-out posts full of half-written sentences...

In technical terms, I normally start with a scene in my head, and then it's a question of translating it to the page - first I tend to "rough out" the outline. I almost always write 'from' a character's POV, so I have to work out how I can use their senses to reveal the setting and the characters' movements, and I try to block in at least the sense of how their dialogue punctuates the scene, if not the actual lines; then I have to tighten that up, develop it as a coherent piece of prose, which is always the hard part...

I like language, but I think that my rather rich prose is more to do with the technical necessities of describing what I want to describe than anything else - and perhaps the limitations of my own ability as a writer... I'm just glad that it works for people...

Then again, I do like rich, gamey food with strong sauces, so I guess there's a parallel there...

YK: You can eat when we're done here! Again, on your prose, you're probably better than all the canon Star Wars authors I can think of, including Luceno. So clearly, you must have influences outside of SW literature for your writing. What authors and books have had the biggest impact on you, and influenced your own writing, SW and non-SW alike?

TMcE: blush Um... shush?! shock blush worried confused

For the record, I rate Jim Luceno, Greg Keyes, Matt Stover, Tim Zahn, Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston and Karen Traviss very highly... and they also have the knack of doing this for real, and making it pay... tongue

I do read widely, though, and I also watch a lot of pretentious movies, and occasionally stick my nose round the doors of art galleries and old churches and castles. Along with eating and drinking, it's one of the things I enjoy most. More seriously, I guess it's fair to say that culture is important to me, but I always feel that I don't do nearly enough...

Obviously, the influences on my writing aren't limited to prose - to take two extreme examples, Whenever, Wherever! is very much a homage to Dennis Potter's movies (and to earlier homages to his movies); and T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land has had an unhealthy influence on me, though I justify that on the grounds that it's a telling of the monomyth shaped by World War I, which is peculiarly appropriate in terms of post-NJO fanfic...

Sticking with contemporary prose fiction, though, I suppose my primary reading interests are pitched between Scottish authors, fairly 'serious' novellists writing in a broadly European tradition, and well-researched historical storytellers - writers like Alastair Gray, Umberto Eco, and the late Patrick O'Brien (though they don't simply embody one category each). Some authors I've read in the past moth or two include...

Boris Akunin: a Russian novelist who sells insanely well in his homeland (something like ten million copies for his first four novels) but who's either elevated the pulp novel to the level of serious literature, or written the most popular 'serious' novels since the start of the TV age. His Erast Fandorin stories have been described as 'James Bond stories set in the Russia of War and Peace, told in the style of a Sherlock Holmes whodunnit', and you can read them as old-fashioned adventures, postmodernist farces, or serious meditations on the modern world, modern Russia, and the universal human condition.

Alan Mallinson: a retired British cavalry general whose Matthew Hervey is a hero in the style of Sharpe, Jack Aubrey or Hornblower, and whose writing is really finding its stride now. An old soldier writing about a young one, the authenticity of the way he describes the life - both physical and spiritual - of a nineteenth-century cavalry officer is, I'd say, a must for anyone who likes the character of Jag Fel.

Iain M. Banks: Iain M. Banks is a serious Scottish sci-fi writer who moonlights as mainstream literary novelist Iain Banks to make ends meet. Some people say they find him unreadable, but he's been a huge influence, in style, storytelling and ideas. I've been reading his stuff for upwards of ten years, and some of the underlying games he's been as a writer playing for twenty or thirty are only starting to come together (in my mind, and in the novels) now... but maybe I'm just slow? wink frustrated


Other things I'm working my way through include a history of the Royal Navy in the age of sail, the classic seventeenth-century (Scottish!) translation of the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais, and the first (non-fiction) book by my ex-flatmate...

YK: Now that you've finished listing a bunch of writers I've never heard of, let's talk about interspecies relationships. You've become something of the board spokesman for "Rishathra Rights." In Once a Warrior, you even made Anakin and Tahiri a interspecies 'ship (which is pretty impressive, considering they're both humans!). What's your interest in writing these sort of pairings and why is it important to you?

TMcE: Hmm... well it's a little-known fact that genetically, men are no more closely related to women than they are to chimpanzees. tongue Really, though, I suppose it's a non-issue for me - less a desire to push an agenda-driven point than the thought that characters like Jaina and Lowie or Jacen and Alema, or Gavin and Asyr could work well as a couple, a partnership...

Morally, I suppose my view is that mature sentients can make mature decisions; if they can find innocent, harmless pleasure in being with each other, then why not?

On the specific issue of Anakin and Tahiri, I think that Tahiri, being at once human, Yuuzhan Vong, and Tusken - and a Jedi Knight! - is a fascinating character from whom to approach the idea of 'interspecies relationships', and indeed identity in general...

YK: You mentioned an "ex-flat mate" publishing a novel. Do you have any aspirations of writing professionally? Do you write non-Star Wars material?

TMcE: In spite of what my local bookshop thought, my ex-flatmate's book is actually non-fiction (though I'd heartily recommend it - PM me for a detailed plug! tongue ). I'd like to write professionally, certainly. In real life, I'm a postgraduate historian, which does entail a lot of writing of one sort or another, some of which will hopefully see print some day (though right now, what should be my first specialist-journal articles are trapped in 'development hell'); I also have the obligatory half-written novel sitting on my hard-drive, which I really should do more work on....

So far, though, the only thing of mine to have seen print in the 'real world' is a very short piece I wrote when I was fifteen or sixteen...

YK: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? And could you still take Jacen in a fight?

TMcE: Neti, I reckon - and if so, then yeah, probably... :p

But unlike Jacen, when I say I believe in nonviolent solutions, I mean it... wink

YK: I knew you'd say something like that wink

TMcE: I know you knew. I'm worried I'm playing to my cliché here. frustrated


YK: Well, we're getting to the end here, I guess. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers here on the boards?

TMcE: Yeah. Don't take yourselves too seriously. wink

Apart from that, I'd say three things: read, and write, and enjoy yourselves; though then again, someone once said that the moment you become a professional writer is the moment you have to start putting your name to things you don't really like...

Writing fiction - telling stories on the page - is basically about two things; having a story to tell, and managing to transmit that into your chosen medium. You don't have to be 'like' anyone, but nor do you have to be 'different'. A lot of the process is picking up on the problems in your writing, and putting them right.

YK: Good answer Do you have any advice for those of us whose dream is to one day win a Golden Ewok™? Also, can you give us some hints about what you have in store for Dark Paths?

TMcE: Hmm... to get a Golden Ewok™, speak your mind. Or ask nicely. In truth, I don't give them out as much as I used to - have an Improbable Noghri™ instead!

And, hints about DP...

Anakin lay in his own bunk aboard the Millennium Falcon, his back against the cold plating of the bulkhead, his bare legs interwoven with Tahiri's, one arm wrapped gently round her middle - under her own arm, below her breasts. Her hand was over his, holding tight.

He was smiling sleepily at the bronzed nape of her neck, and the wayward whispers of golden hair that drifted in the soft breeze of his breath.

He was, momentarily at least, home. Waking up in his own bed, with his girlfriend wrapped up in the safety of his arms, for the first time in five long and muddled years. In the Force, he could tell that she was dreaming happy dreams.

Even the ache that came with every breath seemed to have been transqualified into a shimmer of bright and sparkling happiness, a pure, vibrant pulse of life itself.

He could feel the tender memory of his Mom and Dad, but so long as he didn't touch, even that was somehow in perfect accord with the moment.

Then, he caught a movement in the corridor, a quiet swish of brown homespun as his brother stepped into the open hatchway, and looked into the bunkroom.

Jacen still wore his Jedi cloak, his tan tunic and breeches, his stormtrooper boots. His expression was quiet, level-eyed, outwardly serene.

He looked across the cabin at them in total silence, standing very still. He didn't seem to be so much as breathing, and Anakin felt a wince of pain in his own chest.

He traced the twinned curve of their shoulders above the sheets, stared at their two heads resting on the pillow, dark and fair, side by side, and finally, dropped to look at the interlaced fingers nudging out from underneath the blanket at the edge of the mattress, gripped tight like a love-knot.

Anakin looked away, unwilling to meet his brother's ember-bright eyes.

I'm sorry, he whispered, clenching his brow. So very, very sorry...

Then - slowly, sorrowfully, eventually, he looked back up at his brother.

But by then, Jacen was gone.

And still, Tahiri did not wake.

Instinctively, he leaned forward, and laid a gentle kiss on the back of Tahiri's neck, bringing a sleepy smile to her lips.

"Anakin," she murmured.

"Anakin?"

It was another voice.

Anakin blinked, and shook his head, and woke from the dream. He was crashed out on the couch in the main cabin of the [i/]Ghost[i]. Khovrekhar was standing in the hatchway opposite him.

"Lord Vader," the Noghri said, his voice a granite whisper. "We are coming up on Denon"


How's that? wink cool

YK: Wow, I didn't actually expect anything! shock Thanks! Okay, now lastly, would you please end the interview by acting as if I stepped over the line, yelling "this interview is over," and storming out?

TMcE: Okay, YK. I've had it up to here with you!

*draws 'saber-sharp line across throat*

This party's over!

*storms out, using the Force to slam the hatch shut behind him*

:p

 

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_Jedi_of_Destiny_  1437 posts
Registered: May '03
39846_Anakin
Date Posted: 4/17/05 8:06pm Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
thinking Hmmn. That was some interview. heh heh. Who made the decision to have Yoda interview Thrawn?

grin tongue

Guess we should contain all the craziness into one interview, ay? grin

 

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"I know what I am--a fighter, the sister and daugher of heroes." Jaina Solo
FADA Custodian? worried
Many Paths to Tread: http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=20457154&replies=0
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Thrawn McEwok  13641 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '00
43231_Chiss Ewok
Date Posted: 4/18/05 3:35am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
Hey, _JoD_! tongue

blush I don't know whose idea it was - probably Tahi's? mischief

That said, I thought Yoda did a good job on the interviewing side...

I just hope my answers made sense! shock tongue cry wink

- The Imperial Ewok

 

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A/T = OTP cool
:===8[#]8===:
Kyp/Jaina fans: stand up and be counted!
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Jaya Solo  6465 posts
Registered: Jul '99
46242_TFN Turns "10"
Date Posted: 4/18/05 11:06am Subject: RE: Anakin 'n' Tahiri's Place: 4/11 The First of the Great A/T Reader Interviews - TahiriSoloFan
Okay, I'm confused, who do I send PM to about my story? Thanks. happy

 

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