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

Schutta is a Twi'lek insult reffering to women, roughly equivalent to "slut." Its name derives from a weasel-like creature native to Ryloth, the Twi'lek home planet.

This comes from and about entertainment site, so it might not be valid.

 

Hutts are no longer hermaphrodites? I'm in trouble!

Foxtrot_97 Do you want a canon planet or a Legends planet?

 

Chyntuck I would prefer a canon planet, but I suppose it doesn't matter

 

No, you are not. Your Hutt can be a more graspable transgender individual and that's just AWESOME.

 

Here are a few canon suggestions (you can switch to the "Legends" tab on the Wook for more stuff about each one)
Abafar http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Abafar/Canon
Florrum http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Florrum/Canon
Garel http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Garel
Saleucami http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Saleucami/Canon
Taris http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Taris/Canon

 

Awesome! Thank you! I will be checking these out.

 

Are there any somewhat significant conflicts which pre-date the Clone Wars by say 10-15 years?

 

Somewhat small and regional, but the Stark Hyperspace War.

EDIT: Eh, it's actually 22 years. Sorry about that.

Yinchorri Uprising could work, as well. 11 years after Hyperspace War and 11 years before Clone Wars.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yinchorri_Uprising

 

How large is "significant" and do it need to be violent?

 

At least significant enough to be known in the larger public conciousness, violent would be preferable as well.

 

How about the Battle of Naboo, which was 10 years before the Clone Wars?

 

My question for today (I think Briannakin had a similar one not so long ago but I can't find it right now) -- I'm writing a character that has a French accent. How much of that should be transcribed to his dialogue?

Example: "she thinks that he is tall" could become

• she thinks that 'e is tall
• she thinks zat 'e is tall
• she sinks zat 'e is tall.

I'm leaning towards option 2, because option 3 would overload the dialogue with strange spellings, but I wonder if I shouldn't just go for option 1 and skip only the Hs.

 

I suggest 2 or 3, if you just skip the H:s so would I think cockney not french

 

I'm personally not a fan of typing out accents phonetically (unless it's a Gungan talking), so I'd go with #1.

 

With whiskers on this.

http://www.springhole.net/writing/offensivemistakes.htm

 

Thanks guys

( Ewok Poet We need to talk about that website sometime. I'm not convinced at all by the "standards" it claims to set.)

 

No problem. Some of the concepts there are odd, some helpful...

 

I don't want to cause any controversy, but I personally would just write ' "She thinks that he is tall," he said in a thick French accent ' . Just because it is clearer and people know what a French accent sounds like. On the other hand, people might not know what a Klotear (or whatever original Basic-speaking alien) sounds like.

 

I'm not a fan of "thick" phonetic dialogue, but when used sparingly can work really well, and wouldn't be put off by either option 1 or 2.

If it's important to the character sometimes it's the best way to convey their dialect.

 

It can also help if Basic is not the character's first language. It can show that said character is experiencing strong emotional or physical stress without having to elaborate via exposition. It's kind of like an authorial shortcut.

 

I also vote for option 2. I agree that too much would become a distraction, but too little will make it difficult for the reader to identify the intended dialect/accent.

 

Chyntuck if phonetic accent was good enough for Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman and Gail Carriger so is it good enough for you. I say: use it.

That article have some good points but I don't fully agree with it and feel it lack research and/or examples, as it is presented now so do we only have the writers word that things are as s/he describe them.

For example so do the author write that using food to describe skin colour is only used for dark complexions when food have been used to describe the colour of people with a more peach or dough like complexions

I would say that Avatar's Jack Sully is not an good example of an mighty whitey since he is at best just good at being a na'vi and the only thing that he dose is remarkably is that he is crazy enough to bound with a toruk. Yes the na'vi do better against the marines under his leadership but that's thanks to his own experience as a marine and that he know what works against them, and not because of anything he learned on Pandora. And the marines were still winning until divine intervention happened.

Also, I did not know that 'Japanese plant-lover' was a stereotype, I thought it was the English who was stereotype as gardeners and garden obsessed.

When it comes to cultural appropriation the author makes a mistake (in my eyes at least) that I see all to often in articles discussing cultural appropriation. That is that s/he clump together all European and north American cultures in a big whole and call it the dominate culture.
Also, something I have been thinking about when dose a culture count as a 'oppressed/minority culture'? The author gives items from Japan as example but I have to say that I have hard to see Japan as more of an 'oppressed/minority culture' then most European cultures.

 

There is no writing rule that can't be broken, if the end result is done well.

I'm not a fan of food-related skin tones, though, for any race. I've found it much easier to stick with "pale skin" "dark skin" "tan skin" etc. Particularly in SW fic where a GFFA food equivalent may need to be used to make everything nice and confusing

 

On the matter of skin tones, I always find it difficult to describe the skin tones of people from Asia, more specifically south east Asia, China, Japan, Thailand etc. in the GFFA without using rather derogatory words. Anybody got any ideas on that?

 

From the research I did for a recent fic "tan skin" seemed to be an appropriate description, or maybe "light tan"? It's kind of a tricky one because this may cover a wide range of skin tones - the same way "olive skin" does (and I suppose all broad descriptions all skin colour).

If it helps, I also discovered that "almond-shaped eyes" appears to be a no no.