Resource Fanfic Writer's Desk: Your Place for Writing Discussion, Questions, and Advice

EDIT: wrong thread, that'll teach me to have too many tabs open at once.

 

@Darth Osnil if you plan to use those planets and need help develop them, you can ask for help in this thread http://boards.theforce.net/threads/star-wars-planets.50039682/

 

So, I have 2 OCs, both Force Sensitive. I would like one to get a read on the other's mental state so that she can comprehend his motivations better( which would lead to one of the reasons why she decides to show him mercy later - she saw how much alike they actually are). However, he is a more powerful Force User than her, therefore she can't hope to see through him unless he lets his guard down? Any ways I can get that character to slip? Or any other ways the OC can get a clue on what he's up to?

 

Body language and facial tics. There are visual clues that police look for during interviews, for instance.

 

I think you misunderstood just a little. What I meant is not just "This guy is fishy, I should watch out for thim. " info, but "Now I understand how you feel and why are you doing this" kind of info.

 

I think you misunderstood just a little.

I literally wrote for instance at the end. The police thing was an example, cos a fictional detective superintendent that I follow, keeps going on about such stuff.

If your target has mental shields, and I think that may have more to do with strength of mind, rather than level of Force power....I was going to make a statement about Kylo Ren, but if you recall when Kylo tried to read Rey's mind, and she reads his; you could set up a scene where your guy feels the need to read her mind / do a mind meld / make mental contact to draw some pain away from her (because she tried to skateboard down some railings, or something) cos his shields are down for him to do that, she reads his mind enough to get what she needs.

You can do it as a Chekov's Gun. The above gets done, then three chapters later, she (in her own mind) refers back to the earlier activity, and that she picked up such-and-such.


Or your girl can phone his mum, and ask her.

Or, hire a private investigator.

If you are desperate enough to do a crossover, get the Criminal Minds BAU team to write up a profile for you. Does SW Wiki have an equivalent of FBI profilers anywhere?

If your man is unconscious, are his mind shields intact, or can his mind be read?

 

I meant, this fellow isn't big on his expressions slipping, he is a former Jedi.

The mind meld for the sake of healing thing seems to work. I am kinda worried some readers may interpret this moment as "shippy" though, I don't want anything about these particular characters interpreted as romantic, and I know there are "geniuses" who interpret the interrogation scene of TFA as romantic *shudders*. I guess these are just my problems, though.

As for his mom, no luck here, because whoever she was, she has been dead for centuries.

And no crossovers. I position my fanfics as a serious AU that is a TFA fic for people who hated TFA. And most readers don't take any crossovers seriously.

Yes, he is unconscious at one point. But thst is before he decided to do what he decided to do. And even then, I left the droid to take care of him, because I didn't want my OC to spend hours staring at a bacta tank awkwardly, trying to figure out where he came from, and would rather have her plan her next move against the enemy. Or train Rey. Or talk to Luke. Or whatever is more interesting to the readers than watching someone else in a bacta tank.

 

Sorry for doublepost, I just have a few things concering the Knights of Ren I need to clear up to write my new villainess( since Kylo's dead in my fics, someone has to replace him) :

First, how prevalent are crossguard lightsabers among the Knights of Ren? Are they something incredibly common, what almost everyone has, or is there a relaxed attitude towards weaponry, and everyone wields whatver lightsaber they want?

Second, just how possible, and how practical is it to dual wield two crossguard lightsabers? I would like my villain OC to be a dual wielder, but I am not sure how much of a good idea it is to wield two crossguards. It is possible to dual wield crossguards in SWTOR, but since SWTOR is Legends now... Also, I am not sure if dual wielding crossguards just plain looks Sueish or not. While I am trying to make this gal a smarter, more calculated and badass Dark Sider( in contrast to the whiny Kylo), I am still afraid with going overboard. Is it possible for her to wield two crossguard lightsabers, or should I swap them for ordinary lighsabers( or, if a crossguard is mandatory, a single crossguard).

Also, do all the Knights of Ren change their names once they become one? I originally thought that this OC kept her first name and added "Ren" as a last name( she didn't have one because she was a street orphan), but I am not sure how correct is this. Is changing one's entire name required? If so, are there any naming conventions? I have considered the idea of making all the Knights of Ren share the "Ren" surname, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. What about the first names? Do they have to pick new ones? If so, are there some common things about their names( like, all of them starting with K, or having to syllabes, or something like that)?

 

To my knowledge: we don't know

I would say that dual wield is easier with 'sabres that don't have the guards. It is possible that the crossguard is something tht you can turn on and of so you could have your character have the cross guards deactivated when she is dual wielding her 'sabres

To my knowledge: we don't know

 

Hi FireKeeper

Don't worry about dp

The reason why crossguard sabers came into being in disney canon is that the builder don't know what they are doing. They are defective sabers. They are red because again, the builders don't know what they are doing. Those rules are true in Disney canon only. In Legend EU, there were no crossguards (or if there were, just intended design preference). The blades are red because the sabers are made with artificial crystals instead of special ones from Jedi caves made naturally (much lab made pearls vs pearls from mollusks).
You may already known those rules.

My thinking toward KOR sabers. If they are forced to build their own, most of them would be wielding red cross guards. Their "master", who theoretically is the most "powerful" one of the bunch, has a red cross guard. In my opinion duel wielding is not a problem as long as she can manage it and doesn't cut her own arms off with the blade tips sticking out.

In my opinion, because Rey's flashback only the leader has a lightsaber in the scene, it means the rest of the KOR didn't have sabers. So there are some possibilities. 1) They just can't build sabers. 2)They can only build cross guards later 3)They take the Jedi weapons from academy corpses, in which case the KOR saber would be regular yellow, green, blue in color 4) The corpses don't have sabers either, the KOR raids Luke's storage, saber styles, colours, see 3).

In my opinion, the KOR do change their name. They all have the same last name Ren. First name I usually use their last name. Except one of my OCs, who uses her first name instead. First or last name, but for me, original last name as first name preferred.

Don't worry about your OC being Mary Sue. Unless she's insanely beautiful with red gold hair, a master swordswoman not only in her own mind but literally and whoops everyone's butt, saves Luke after being turned to the Light, etc....

Personally though, I don't get the auto Mary Sue label just because some OC has red hair, but their are readers out there who prefer your OC not to have red gold hair.

It would be great if your OC has a regular color blade looted from a regular Jedi student in one hand, and a regular weapon such as a whip or vibroblade in the other. Need to ask other people on the boards though. Would one hand lightsaber, one hand regular weapon Mary Sue?

 

Also, what about the founder of the Knights of Ren? Anything on this subject? I hope it wasn't Crylo... I don't want to give him too much credit...
Also, any info on whether the KOR are Luke's defected students, or could they be someone from elsewhere? Because this OC didn't study at Luke's...

 

As far as my headcanon go, they were indeed Luke's students, and again in my headcanon, Crylo did start their "organization". It was with the help of Snoke, but in my headcanon he did start it. At least the original members. I haven't thought about their recruitment procedures. Tentatively the members would coerce/kidnap their force sensitive friends/relatives to join.

Keep in mind though, the above and my posts about the KOR are just my headcanon this moment. I'm pretty sure the origin of the KOR and how they recruit would be made clear in the following films.

Edit: FYI, Even after Episodes 8 and 9 comes out, and who exactly the KOR are, I'm not going to follow them(the films) for my "The Bounty" series of fanfics.

 

Really, all we know (unless something was in the novels leading up to Ep 7) is that 1. Lor San Tekka says, "I know where you come from. Before you called yourself Kylo Ren." and 2. Snoke says, "Even you, master of the Knights of Ren, have never faced such a test."

It's hard to draw too much info from those two statements about:
- who exactly comprises the Knights of Ren (former Luke students? Some Force-sensitive scoundrels? Other students of Snoke?),
- how long they've been around,
- who was the master before Kylo (if there was one),
- whether or not "Kylo" is also a title or just a new name,
- how involved Snoke is, etc.

We DO know:
- that "Kylo Ren" used to be Ben Solo,
- "Ren" is apparently a title and not just a surname,
- Snoke is Kylo's master of the dark side,
- Kylo is "master" of the Knights of Ren,
- Kylo has a small group of co-conspirators (presumably the Knights of Ren).

Much else, from what I can tell, is just headcanon. Which is fine, but any headcanon you use risks being made obsolete/incorrect by Ep 8 and 9.

 

Thing is, since I am already hopeless about Episode 8( I have no faith in it after TFA, as well as what Mark Hamill said they did to Luke's character). I already hate this canon, so I am writing a series of alternate continuity fics. That's why I'm asking how much am I allowed to fill with headcanons.

 

The wonderful thing about fanfic is the answer to this question is... as much as you want!
Alternate Universe stories especially, allow you to keep what you like and change everything else, or heck, just change everything!

 

I hear you. I'm set out to do the same thing with Ep 1-3. Just replacing what I feel is bad/unnecessary because fanfic.

 

@Findkeeper - Youtube can be a useful resource.

Because there can be Star Wars fans even more into lightsabres than us writers, via either creating fan films of lightsabre fights, or filming themselves messing about in their garage; you might be able to see practical advantages and disadvantages to crossguards, the holding lightsabres backwards thing promoted by Starkiller, and so on.

Back when I was researching, there were some good duels matching one style against another.

Eg.

 

FireKeeper DARTH_MU About crossguard lightsabers: apparently the reason Kylo's needed a crossguard is that the crystal inside it was cracked. The crossguard blades were actually vents for the spare energy it generated (see this Wook article). About lighsaber colours, the novel Ahsoka has a bit about how a darksider forcing a Kyber crystal to bend to his/her will makes the crystal bleed, hence the red colour (or some such). At the end of the novel, Ahsoka builds new lightsabers from the crystals she obtained by killing an Inquisitor, and for her the blade is white (see here).

 

What species do we know of that have webbed-fingers?

 

Calamari.

Inleshat

Possibly the Walrus Men species.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Iskalonians with them too.

Why not wiki all the water planets, and see if they have any non-human sentient residents, then see what it says about their digits.

Since you have not specified sentient, do mynocks have webbed digits?

 

Sorry, I meant sentient species. I would probobly have used animals if I meant non-sentient species

 

Gamiel do all digits have to be webbed? Toydarians have webbed feet. Anguilla have webbed hands. For all digits, there's also Karkarodon (clone wars species) and the Multopos.

 

Don't know about mynocks; might need to rewatch ESB and see if you can make any out. They look sort of like space mantas to me; I didn't notice limbs but then I wasn't looking.

I shouldn't be doing this... Anyone have thoughts on what the Imperial ISB equivalent of a Chief Inspector is? ...stupid *^&(*!! bunnies...

 

ISB is not really a police organisation, so wouldn't have a senior detective, direct equivalent, I wouldn't have thought.

It was created to rival Imperial Intelligence, an intelligence agency, so I don't think ISB is the right organisation to use, if you want a Chief Inspector role.

 

IDK... I need investigation of a Senatorial murder. For political reasons, I can't believe they'd leave it to the locals. Definitely doesn't fall under Intell. I think it could work under ISB with the aegis of "who is trying to destabilize/suborn His Majesty's government by doing this?"