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

Understood. Since it’s been a long time since anyone posted here, I’m doing some worldbuilding by creating Mandalorian martial art that’s similar to both MMA (sport version) and Army Combatives (the battlefield art). Would there be any experts on Mandalorians on this board willing to lend a hand?

 

Deleted for saying something stupid that in retrospect I fully believe I was completely wrong about. Should have thought things through a little more.

 

I'm sorry, are you, in this Year Of Our Lord 2023, nearly 2024, honestly saying that the SW target audience is young males? And you're doing this in a fan fiction forum, when fan fiction has historically been written by a majority female base? Would you perhaps like to rethink this statement?

I first watched ANH as a 7yo girl and desperately wanted to fly an X-wing against the Death Star. But go off.

(Also, loving X-wings does not make me want to write action scenes. These two things are not the same.)

Where you're off base is "it's the tactics that make it interesting." No. It's the characters that make it interesting. The battles only exist because of the narrative arcs of the characters. If ANH had focused solely on tactics, it would now be a forgotten footnote in cinematic history. It is instead a cultural juggernaut 50 years later because of the characters. And that's a movie, that both relies on and can indulge in visual effects. Writing a fiction story that won't be filmed is something else altogether. Any story that presents tactics as more important than characters is going to be in trouble.

Now, if someone enjoys writing tactics, great, more power to them. But good tactics will never save a story with poorly drawn characters.

Oh? And who, exactly, has the experience and qualifications to deem the strategic tactics of zero-g space battles "poor"? As Harrison Ford famously said, it's made up and in space. Real life tactics in air, on sea, or on land do not translate exactly to zero-g conditions with technology that doesn't exist. Additionally, as I've said, tactics don't make or break a fictional story. SW stories, whether pro or fan-written, are not combat textbooks. They're entertainment. Combat tactics, whether for fighters or capital ships, take a backseat to compelling characters and an entertaining story.

 

You're completely right. I apologize, I should have thought things through better. - I was repeating something said elsewhere in a more general sci-fi concept, without having thought it through.

 

You're right. I was repeating something said elsewhere in a more general sci-fi concept.

I was referring to the official published works when I said that. I will say that the end of Wrath Squadron violates generally accepted SW principles heavily, and I haven't re-read it as a result. The "form a trench" thing at the end of Solo Command also made no sense, as did forgetting that a SSD is a lot more powerful then 2-3 star cruisers. I just noticed my criticisms are mostly of the Wrath Squadron trilogy...

 

Quick question for lore purposes; which would be an ideal repeating rifle a character could carry on the battlefield to protect his Rebel buddies?

 

T-21 is one rifle, it's kinda the equivalent of a Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). However most blaster rifles in Star Wars universe, like the E11 Blaster Carbine do have a rapid fire option.

 

Some of the common Rebel rifles (in Legends/sourcebooks) are the A280, the SoroSuub Heavy Tracker 16, and the Merr-Sonn Model G8. I'm not sure if any of those have a repeating fire option, though. The Wook has some repeating blaster rifles listed here, like the KX-80 which might fit what you're looking for.

 

I decided upon the T-21 after reading the list and taking consideration of my options, the gun seems to be good with a backpack mounted generator to give it some more oomph on the battlefield. Also, it can prove to be some nice deterrent for any Death Troopers that may try to crash a few people making a escape, the heavy power could punch a few holes in their stealth armor.

 

When you are writing an AU involving main saga characters, are you more likely to pepper the supporting cast with existing Expanded Universe characters from the relevant eras, or would you more likely create OCs to round out the cast (example, New Jedi Order characters)

 

I would think that would rather depend on how much divergence is involved. In an AU that only diverges slightly from the canon plot, circumstances will be still be such that the characters in question will encounter many of the same people and form roughly the same relationships. For example, if I did an AU in which Thrawn does not die at Bilbringi (and AU that is practically suggested in Legends canon), it would probably involve all the characters who'd been important in the Thrawn trilogy and there would be little need for any OCs because all the characters necessary to carry that plot forward already exist.

By contrast, if you produced an AU in which the divergence is immense, or in which a character does something completely orthogonal to the ongoing 'main plot,' then you'll be obligated to produce a large number of OCs simply because canon characters won't exist to fill those roles. The most obvious case is taking a main saga character and having them go galivanting across the galaxy for some reason. This happens even in canon works: the novel Millennium Falcon, whose plot is basically a series of adventure vignettes, has tons of characters that were created solely for that story. Also, if you diverge far enough - ex. a story set in 25 ABY in which Palpatine wins at Endor - pretty much all canon characters would either be dead/retired at that point so OCs become an absolute necessity.

 

EU characters demand fleshing out, IMHO. Ferus of the Watsonverse frex and Bant, Ali Anann and so forth.

 

I’ve been trying more recently to find characters in extant lore who can contribute to the stories so I can explore their function beyond what we already have. But I also like OCs, so I recommend seeing what feels best to you.

 

Recently I had a problem in that if I wanted to tell that story, there was no other way to do it.

But then you run the risk of a character being a Mary Sue.

 

Re-reading the Jedi Prince series I'm thinking that the more simplistic storylines can be explained away as Leia telling the story of the Trioculous Empire to her children in a way a young Jacen, Jaina and Anakin can understand.

 

Oh that's really good!

 

There is at least theme music for certain funerary sequences in various media, such as the final episode of TCW (the clone memorial on the ice moon) and the end of Mando season 3 (commemorating Paz Vizsla), and doubtless others. Those themes have names - the one from TCW is called 'Burying the Dead' - so you could use that (bonus points if you translate the title into Mando'a).

 

Would it be within the Imperial's nature to pressgang prisoners and criminals into being temporary soldiers? I contemplating on how to implement an old concept piece from the Solo films early drafts.

 

Yeah, I could see that easily as well; Imperial policy as we've seen it in both canons is streamlined to let the upper ranks strongarm pretty much anyone into their service to further the Empire's ends as convenient. For example the way that they go about collecting Force-sensitives in Rebels; they just take people who have the abilities they want and there's no evidence of hoops to jump through in any of it from the Imperial side. That's with kids too, and mostly ones that presumably are regular Imperial citizens. Seems likely it would be more so with prisoners, who I'm pretty sure wouldn't have much in the way of rights under that set of laws. Whether those people would then be officially added into the military system like your average stormtrooper (as to not waste training) or dumped back into the prison (because criminals) once they served their initial purpose, that I don't know -- could see it going either way.