Discussion Listening to Fanfiction

This really does seem to be the common theme in this thread, doesn't it? A complete lack of compelling characters beyond the big three.

We all get that this is science fiction, but our willing suspension of disbelief only goes so far. Han, Luke, and Leia should be thinking about retirement, not running around the Galaxy in their golden years to put an end to yet another Big Bad that has the power to destroy everything in its path. At the very least, the saving of the Galaxy every other Tuesday probably should be delegated to someone else at this point. Nearly forty years since Return of the Jedi and there isn't at least one Jedi or military officer capable of putting on the hero costume?

 

I figured I'd better count my books - I stopped counting at 100 fiction books and I still had a shelf to go. I have about 20 source-type books, 20 trade paperbacks and about 70 comics. There is also a collection of coffee table books.

The problem I see is that Star Wars have been trying to be science fiction and forgot that Star Wars started out as a space opera.

Which leads me back to something Iverna said

A lot of the plot in the series has relied on producing unexpected plot twists, working against expectations. Jacen turns, Jaina kills her brother. Han and Leia are right there with their daughter. Luke is allowing his son to be captured. Who would ever have thunk?

People often read to escape, drama is good, angst is good, but knowing it will all work out in the end makes it worth the emotional rollercoaster. Allegiance was about the journey and the suspense. This is the reason people pick up a romance novel or a thriller, to get to the ending with a satisfying resolution. Recently I put down Star Wars novels and feel like I've slogged through an emotional bog.

I'd prefer to see the return to the conceit of the space opera genre and mythic archetypal characters.

 

Personally, I would say that space opera is a subgenre of science fiction/fantasy. I was using the term "science fiction" as a blanket genre. What I think you're describing is the shift from the Space Opera subgenre to the Military SciFi subgenre. io9 has a pretty good breakdown of the two here

The two of us are more or less are in agreement, though:

And this goes back to my initial list of complaints about the direction the EU has taken since Dark Nest. We are at the point where we no longer expect an emotional payoff or a satisfying resolution. It's angst for the sake of angst, death for the sake of death, and conflict for the sake of conflict. It doesn't lead anywhere, it doesn't build to anything.

The end of Legacy of the Force is the best example of all of this. The readers are subjected to the deaths of several of the EU's most beloved characters and another civil war, but when you put the book down the question many asked was "what was the point?" It just felt like we were subjected through nine books of angst and torment that ultimately didn't accomplish anything but thin the cast.

When the readers stop connecting with characters for fear that they will be the next one to be killed or derailed to push the plot, you've gone too far.

 

Perfect example. Didn't you think getting Allana back from the dead was enough of an emotional pay-off?

I know people complained about there not being enough emotional fall-out at the end but I think that came in part because there was no Yub-yub to close the book. Granted dancing Ewoks may have been too much for this heavy of a series, but it needed something. Allana's "death" and return to the living wasn't integral to the action yet it was supposed to be the reward for the reader.

And for the reasons you said...

...some readers had already stopped connecting to characters like Allana.

Bantam can be criticized for some its crazy plots but it was a story here and a story there. More importantly, they left a whole host of great characters for Del Rey to use. Del Rey had a full set of characters to start but never worked on refilling their team as they went, or building up the characters they had. For instance, if they knew Jacen would fall, why didn't Jaina get an equivalent arc establishing her as the light side?

This notion of building/creating characters for the future is quite obvious to many fanfic writers because we understand that while stories have an ending, the GFFA universe (and our fanciful imaginings within them) goes on. Some of the authors in the current EU treat the GFFA like a renter rather than taking ownership and protecting the long term value of their investment.

Comparatively, the Legacy comics have built so many strong characters they could go any number of ways. I think the character potential coupled with great storytelling has kept fans excited.

 

I have over a 100 books, the novels and the reference works, comics and I loved them up to the last of the Vong books. The Bugs and LOTF why did they spoil so many characters. There were minor and very interesting characters like Lon Shevu killed for no reason.

My favorites are the X-wing and Corran Horn stories and the JA and JQ series and of course the 'art of' books. They help me to draw and paint my characters for the fanfiction.

For me there should me more comics in the series of the Clone wars or novels about those adventures.
And I like the KotOR games and their story potential
More of Kyle Katarn (like in the three graphic novels) would be nice too.

 

It does seem like it's turned into a kind of character slaughterfest. It's like they have to keep doing it now in order to somehow top the previous series or book or whatever... Which is a bit ridiculous because I've never judged books' quality according to their body count. And I doubt I'm the only one there.

I would really like to see a Tycho/Winter novel, actually. Their story is hardly explored beyond the X-Wing comics. I'd love to see a new X-Wing novel or something which develops that a bit more.

And I completely agree on the KotOR front as well. It'd be great to see the Revan and Exile story developed and resolved. Whether through a game or a book, I don't even care. Hell, they could write different versions - light side, dark side, female, male, whatever - and I'd buy all of them.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Del Rey is keen on branching out and creating a less insular Galaxy. From Erich Schoenweiss of Del Rey:

So, for anyone that may have been hoping for tales about non Force Sensitive beyond the planned 2012 Wraith Squadron novel, don't hold your breath.

 

Erich is the non-fiction editor so hopefully his mentality doesn't drive the fiction bus. I think plenty of people have disagreed with his [Obi/Vader battle in ANH means it's been about Jedi/Sith all along] position on Facebook. Even more fans have taken issue with Kemp's blog, because he really doesn't understand why readers are complaining about Jedi/Sith plots.

All we can do as fans is keep expressing our POV, explaining it when they obviously don't understand (as many have done in this case) and then hope it gets through.

 

Invincible felt like it ended abruptly. There was no real conclusion. There's a time when character death is necessary and works. For example, killing Chewbacca set a specific tone for NJO. It said that this series was going to be darker and it worked. In earlier books, there was never any real concern that the main group wouldn't make it out alive. The death added a bit of suspense and seriousness to the stories. It made the books less predictable. However, when it feels like they are just killing off main characters for "dramatic effect," it becomes a lame plot device. For example, forcing Jacen to face the consequences of his actions would have been far more interesting than killing him off. It's not we've seen much of an effect killing Jacen had on Jaina or anyone else. As Lane said, what was the point?

As for how many books I own? I stopped counting past 85. I have the old guide the characters in addition to novels.

 

I started out loving the original series, especially Han and Leia - finally, a love story that didn't veer around and actually had me liking BOTH characters equally! I have very little interest in reading the EU after them though, mainly because of the books I tried; most were out of character I felt and when I heard rumours of just how apocalyptic it all got afterwards... yeah, sorry, don't mind adventure stories, but how many apocalypses can there be?! A dead Chewie, massively depressed and self-destructive Han, the Solo-Organa children being moody, Sithly or dead... yeah, sorry. Some of that I can take, but all of it? Nope, I'll stick to fanfiction thank you. At least there the characters get to breathe occasionally without it turning into an angst-fest.

I have got more interest in the pre TPM and Clone Wars EU now especially as I'm enjoying the CGI Clone Wars cartoon (although again, it does leave some holes - all the better for fanfic to fill them in!) I love looking at where some of the big characters came from, especially Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. I'd love to know more about their era in the Temple and the EU in general. Why is there such a gap between KOTOR and TPM? Why has noone started to fill this in, except the fanfiction writers? Now THAT I would love to see being written (or drawn)! Equally, I'd love to see more character based EU for Obi-Wan and Anakin, since I really don't see that much in the films between them. In the CGI CW cartoon, yes, but I'd still love to see more! I know Karen Miller has received some bashing, but still, I do like that her and Karen Traviss are writing about the Clone Wars in particular.

As far as EU writers looking to fanfiction - I think that would be a bad idea. It's so diverse, and some of the ideas out there are just so... bizarre... that I think it could make the EU go even nuttier than it has if writers juts looked at it without really taking the time to delve deeply into it. Perhaps a better idea would be to ask boards like this to draw up a survey and ask the members to mark down what they would most want from an EU story. Boards like this one would be the best way to go, simply because if a newbie like me could find it however many years ago when I was still brand new even to fanfiction, even the newer fans will be able to find a board like this at some point so their POV will be taken into account as well as the longer-term fans.

So yeah - less angst in post ROTJ books, more pre-TPM writing, more CW writing would be ideal for me I love the main characters and want to know more about them! And a survey posted and taken from various big Star Wars boards would be the best way to get a balanced view of what Star Wars fans want from their books, rather than relying on a glimpse at the fanfiction.

 

I appreciate that, thank you. As Lane and other have pointed out, the GFFA is so insular it could keep a house warm in the middle of a New England nor'easter. There's room for almost an infinite amount of stories for almost any demographic. Using characters already created. Instead, a metric ton of them have been killed/devalued/shoved into a rather crowded EU limbo.

I did not get into SW through the OT and the Big Three. In the vast majority of media I follow, I actually like the non-major characters. The vast majority in the 'current' timeframe for SW are fundamentally useless. And that's just poor storytelling and writing. And poor planning for the future, too.

 

I'm halfway through the Legacy of the Force series (waiting for Sacrifice, ordered it online) and as much as I'm enjoying it, I'm finding it terribly redundant, plot-wise at least. I will comment that I'm very happy with Ben Skywalker's characterisation thus far, and I'm looking forwards to seeing it (hopefully) continue to develop over the rest of the books in LotF and in Fate of the Jedi.

From what I can see, the biggest theme in this topic is that we're all keen for more character development for characters other than Luke, Leia and Han - all in all, just more focus on other, minor characters so that they won't be minor characters anymore. One of my favourite SW books is Joe Schreiber's Death Troopes - it's only a small book but incredibly thrilling and the characters (almost all of them we've never seen before) are fantastic... and totally Force-sensitive free! Don't get me wrong, I love the Jedi vs. Sith stories, but I also like the stories that shift the focus to the ordinary people of the galaxy. Diversity is important, and if Del Ray can strike that balance between Jedi/Sith, non-Force-sensitives, and emphasis on characterisation (and maybe new plots instead of recycling? LotF's Jacen Solo is reading just like Anakin Skywalker...), then that would be brilliant.
So, fingers crossed.

 

Let's see, 114 novels - all in paperback, not including source materials or comic books.


I have to agree with the general concensus of solid, consistant characterization. It doesn't matter how good the story is if the main characters don't grab you. "Whose gonna' die next?" series, again garabage. Chewie's death evolved the story of Star Wars, and even Anakin Solo's death was a punch to the gut, but anything after, I think: eh... It loses it's orginallity. And that's the thing I always liked about published Star Wars stories; whether it be Dark Horse or Marvel, Bantam or Del Rey; through all the novels, I've rarely read a book I couldn't say something positive about, even if I was ultimately dissapointed and the only thing I could say was that "at least the premise was original".

That's the biggest thing that can be drawn from fanfiction. Originality. Yes we have our share of AUs, and crossovers but even including them there is so much originality to be found. Never cared about Jacen Solo. Ever. Save for Traitor, but anything before and after Jacen Solo was not a character I could be conned into appreciating. Loved Jaina, loved Anakin; but Jacen never evolved in a way that made me give a damn. But I read on, because NJO & even DN seemed original enough for me to overlook characterizations I couldn't be bothered with. But LotF, I started to be turned onto Jacen the first half of Betrayal, then he went from TPM to RotS in half a book proclaiming that he would not emulate his grandfather, yet almost duplicated him to the "T". Is it the character's fault? Or is it a lack of originality? I felt like I was really reading Battlestar Galactica where "it has all happened before, and it will all happen again". Now we kill off beloved characters within the series to keep the readers interested...

How about try something new and original?

We can go on and on about fixing characters, creating new engaging ones, letting the old guard fade out more, etc. And I couldn't agree more with that stuff, but a lot of readers, and I see this in the Lit. forums as well just want something different and new. If you're going to draw from us fanficcers, check out our diversity and learn from it. And yes, our old favorites are just that, old, so if you're going to kill off characters make it mean something, not just a way to sell books. The Rogue/Wraith squadrons were genuis in having the death of someone we barely knew mean something, as oppossed to Mara's death which was little more than a marketing tool.

 

Oh, gosh, tell me about it! I can't bring myself to care for or identify in any way with Jacen Solo - especially now that he's just following Anakin Skywalker's path! I really like his name, but I gotta tell you... that's about it. I haven't read NJO (jumped straight into LotF) but Anakin Solo sounds really interesting. I love Ben Skywalker, but I confess I'm pretty impartial to Jaina... I don't know whether it's the character herself, or whether she just hasn't received enough characterisation for me to actually like her.

So, this thread has pretty much summed it up in these two simple points for Del Ray:

1. Lack of originality.

2. Lack of characterisation for characters other than the Big Three.

It seriously feels like a case of wash, rinse, and repeat. It's grating. How many ends to the galaxy can there be? How many times to they have to involve the Skywalker family? Surely, surely there are other Jedi out there who have had their own forbidden love stories during the Clone Wars. Relatives of the main characters, even - what happened to Obi-Wan's family? His homeplanet now has a name - Stewjon (it's G-Canon!) - and he apparently had a brother. What happened to this brother? What was Stewjon like? Karen Miller's Wild Space introduced the obscure group called the Friends of the Republic. This is interesting! I want to know more about the Friends. I have my own fanfic about a group called Echo Rescue Unit (my own creation) who are on a deadly mission for the Friends of the Republic. This is the perfect opportunity to explore new characters and new relationships!

I think that's one of the most frustrating things here as well - there are just so many missed opportunities...

 

I couldn't agree more! I stopped reading all Star Wars profic after Sacrifice but I did read the spoilers (which made me even more frustrated as they went on). There seemed to be less impact on the characters with Mara's death. Yes, Luke and Ben had their
last moments with her in the Force, which was heartbreaking. But they seemed to stretch out the "mystery" of her murder for far too long, and when it was all said and done...well, it was done. On to the next series! Chewie and Anakin S. had tributes to them at the end of the NJO. Mara just...disappeared (literally). And I have always said that DR was holding it over our heads by threatening, Someone major is going to die! As if we couldn't figure it out looking at the Sacrifice cover.

Very many missed opportunities! It was almost like DR was acting like Luke in ROTJ, but instead of choosing the lighter side, they always chose the dark side of the story. But for all of those choices DR made, I don't hold them totally responsible for where the EU has ended up. It is merely the times that change. When ANH came out in the 70's, the movies needed a movie like Star Wars to escape. It wasn't totally original. Lucas mixed parts of the Arthur legend and Flash Gordon and created a whole new world around it. We needed that escape then. Now days, we have the means of escape at home through the internet. I compare this with the James Bond series of movies. They started in the 50's and they are still going now. The villains and plots change with the times but they never address the fact that the original Bond is 70+ years old. They just introduce a new version. The writers of the Star Wars EU have trapped themselves into a corner of sticking wholly with canon so much that they can't back out of it. Or they're just not willing to. I really don't believe the DR execs would ever listen to us fan-fiction writers because of their inability to adapt.

And btw, I did get rid of most of my SW books, save for Zahn's books (one copy of VOtF he signed for me in Atlanta).

 

On to the next series! Chewie and Anakin S. had tributes to them at the end of the NJO. Mara just...disappeared (literally).


Mara is remembered a lot in FotJ, though. One of the reasons I'm reading that series is for the Luke/Ben interactions. Their introduction in Omen was a beautiful tribute to Mara's memory, and probably my favorite piece of prose from the series so far. Brava, Christie Golden, for that.



I agree with most everything said in this thread, but I do have to say that there are many times when I do not want profic to be like fanfic. The wonderful thing about fanfic is that you can do anything, and then in your next story you can start with a clean slate. Do you want to kill Luke? Go ahead! Mara? Have at it! Han and Leia? Two-for-one deal! The bad guys can win, the Sith can take over the galaxy, brothers can kill sisters and sons can kill fathers. I love reading fanfics that are dark and evil...but I do not want to read profic that is consistently dark. I do not mind Empire Strikes Back moments in profic, as long as Return of the Jedi moments follow. The perfect example would be the NJO. Say what you will about the overall plot, but at the end of the story, the surviving SkySolos were sitting around a campfire on Kashyyyk, honoring those who had lost their lives in the war, and laughing as they celebrated life. The end of that book was so bittersweet and heartwarming. Yes, many people died, yes, the galaxy had been through shambles, but it ended hopefully.

That is what I want from my profic.

 

I think I'd like the profic to just give up on continuity. It was hopeless years ago, so why not just go AU all the way?

I still probably wouldn't read it, but that would still probably be an improvement.

 

*snort* I'd still bet they wouldn't be able to do it half as brilliantly as the fanfic writers.

 

ITA, anakinfan. So many missed opportunities -- this is seriously grating! The obscure sect of Jedi who marry, the Friends of the Republic... I'm desperate to read one of those series. That would be cool, you know? EU has so much potential, and Del Ray just isn't harvesting it.

I haven't read Shatterpoint or Dark Rendezvous yet because I'm still working my way through LotF (yay, books out of order!) but they're on my reading list, for sure. ^_~

Ahh, see, I skipped right over NJO in favour of LotF. (Actually, I was going to go straight into FotJ but realised before I started the series that I probably wouldn't have any idea as to what was going on...) I still think this was a good call of judgement on my part -- I fully second you here: A moon falling on Chewbacca?!? WHUT?? Good thing is, I sort of know what's going on. and who's who and all of that.

I'll finish LotF and go on to FotJ (because that was the series I originally wanted to read), and then after that I'll probably just stick with fanfiction. There are so many fantastic stories out there - Yesac on FFNet (and here too now! ~ talesofyesac, if I'm not mistaken) writes amazing AUs about Obi-Wan and Anakin, Wyncatastrophe on LJ (DestructiveGlory on FFNet) also writes amazing stories with OCs people can really care for... there are great writers in our fan base, and so many of them as well. There is a fic out there for everyone's taste, and this is a variety we won't ever get from Del Ray any time soon.

(Seriously, Del Ray, pick up your slack...)

Fan fiction, may you live forever.

 

Something that still bugs me here as I'm reading this discussion, so I'll just post it. The following is from the article "Chewie Lives!", Star Wars Insider Issue #47, by Scott Chernoff, who had an interview with Shelly Shapiro of DelRey back when NJO was coming out.

Chernoff: "WHY WAS THE DECISION MADE TO KILL OFF CHEWBACCA IN VECTOR PRIME?"
Shelly Shapiro: "The reason is exactly what Han says at the end of the book: "The galaxy will never be the same again." To continue such a long story that's already been going on for so long, how much drama is there anymore? Luke is practically omnipotent, everyone's been kidnapped 500 times, and there's no danger for them-you don't ever really worry about them. We needed a way to make it clear to the readers that the stakes have changed-that they have a reason to care what's going to happen, that they should wonder when any of their favorite characters are actually in danger in the books. They should actually fear for them, and not with the confidence that they will always get out of it."

There's more there, but it was the top of the Q&A that ticked me off. And I can name a handful of times where being 'practically omnipotent' did not help Luke in the slightest. Children of the Jedi, for instance...

 

Well they took that notion of putting people's lives in peril and ran with it, huh?

Not only lives but the characters' souls. Chewie and Anakin die heroes. Then it starts with everyone acting out of darker emotions and dying - Alema, Mara, Jacen, Kenth.

I am not in favor of splitting continuities at all. They sold us these books insisting there was one continuity.

 

One continuity is impossible for the EU since the prequel movies contradict what had been written before then. They completely negated all the Boba Fett background when AOTC came out. And then they did it again with the Clone Wars cartoon did it's own version of the back story for Mandalore. And I haven't read them, but I've heard that there are two different stories for Han and Leia's wedding; what's that all about?

It isn't really anyone's fault. I don't think that Lucas knew what the whole back story for the prequels was until he did the prequels. But between the OT and the PT, they just licensed books because people wanted more SW. The authors were properly paid for their work and no guarantees of continuity were made. And if the Clone Wars cartoon wants to contradict more EU in upcoming episodes and if Lucas likes the idea, they'll do it.

 

Add to the fact that George doesn't consider anything that hasn't come from his mouth G-canon. I can't remember where it was, but I remember reading something about him saying that the EU books are all on a "parallel" universe to the Saga. According to him, only the Saga and right now TCW CGI series are absolute G-canon. Everything else is practically worth nothing to him. Apparently he didn't even know that Luke has a son called Ben...

I actually find this sort of...annoying. I mean, yeah, I get that George is the creator of SW and it's his intellectual property, etc. etc., but it's the fans who have been keeping the fandom alive, and those fans have been following the EU for decades and calling it canon. It mightn't have had proper continuity, but the fans could sort out their own because none of it was canon. (There's a difference between 'canon' and 'official' - the EU books are all official, but until George gives it his seal of approval none of it is 'G-canon'.)

The parallel universes thing I can get - more than that, I'm happy to embrace it, but Del Ray and George seem to be trapped in between AU and wanting to stick to canon. We get small AUs that probably can't even be counted as AU, which means they're instead considered as inconsistencies. If Del Ray and George want to go AU, they need to grow a pair and actually GO AU. But like I said in a post above - Fanfiction has been doing it for years, and doing it very well. Frankly, I don't think Del Ray can compare.