Discussion Staying Within the Lines: Writing Fanfic within the Boundaries of Continuity

I think I'd have to agree with the original poster on this one. I hadn't heard or read anything about this, but since my main focus has always been KOTOR-era and such, I don't think what I write is affected.

I really, vigorously fact-check my work, using Wookiepedia constantly, it's almost always a tab open on my page. In a current story I'm writing about a Mandalorian ex-warrior (well that's ironic considering the controversy), I've been looking up eye color, hair color, clothing, ships, planets, places, people from the KOTOR timeline so I can fit my character in as though they were there. I only have to flub a little bit but I don't do anything crazy.

I'm not sure if it's because I really believe in the whole concept of EU being perfect, because it isn't. The video games, which people hilariously try to ret-con, have destroyed whatever continuity there even was when it came to the OT, stuff like X-Wing and TIE Fighter and Rebel Assault and such things. I take those for granted and sort of just say, oh well, it was a time when fact checking was more difficult and people wanted some leeway with things. People have ideas and sometimes go with them, embellishing outside the lines. Does anyone really give a damn that 'Rookie One', the pilot from a videogame, essentially replaces Luke in the trench run and destroys the Death Star instead? No, because it was just freedom to play around in the world Lucas created, and who DIDN'T want to be Luke Skywalker?

Returning to the KOTOR era, Bioware, and Obsidian to a lesser degree, really tried to keep things put together and have them make sense in their timeline, fitting them in with the Mandalorian Wars coming right after the Great Sith War. I think it's sad that I know so much about this pretty useless stuff, but it makes me personally feel better that I'm not crossing lines or coloring outside the box on most Star Wars issues. Revan isn't a pawn of the Jedi (oops sorry to spoil that one), Bastila and Revan make millions of love babies, Malak wins, etc, I don't do that because I don't feel comfortable messing around with someone elses thoughts and hard work on the issue.

Just my two cents.

 

I think that is one of the things that makes Fanfic in the Star Wars universe so easy to get into. The fact that despite huge continuity gaps that may occur in some of our writing or if we change something smal, people here gnerally are accepting of it. Lots of times the product turns out to be just as good as some of the canon work. Some of the stories written in AU just blow me away with detail and some the stuff coming from younger writers is light years beyond what I have ever thought about attempting. It does offer a stark contrast to some of the more rigid fans who discuss ret-coning everything throughout the JC Forum. So in the end i don't think any of it is bad, it just offers more plot bunnies.

 

QFT.

And that's how I am myself, because as close to canon as I can make it. Little details that we wouldn't know off the top of our heads, I have never minded nor become interested in when Retcon debates start; but when indications that changes are major, especially when we have had constant retconning since '99 so all the novels could square up with what we thought about pre-ANH, kinda' bothers me.

When WE in the fanfic community change stuff, Thorny is right, it just makes for great stories! It technically doesn't change the "history" of Star Wars, it just entertains our friends. For instance, if I write something AU, I write something that "could have" happened. In other words, I might fill in a particular timeline gap that hasn't been referenced for a character. It's not official, it's more than likely AU, but nowhere else does it say it didn't happen, or something else happened all together.

I have nothing against those who change facts to fit their Fanfic stories, or just plain write an AU; because like I said we don't own it, and it's all in good fun - and they are often better than the original story anyway.
However, my own particular mentality when writing, I try to stay canon as much as I knowledgeably can. Maybe I'm just being retentive because I demand it from the pros who get paid for writing decent enough stories, that do often serve as little more than plot bunnies for us folk.

 

Is that a warning about content or about the fact that you're liable to lose several hours browsing that place?

 

You know that site is bad when you start troping some of your OC's. (It. just. starts... )

 

I think xkcd summed it up best.

And your stories, and your original fic, and then YOURSELF. It's a never ending cycle. You just keep clicking.

 

Wow, interesting continuity link! And I had no idea that there were Jedi Prince books out there lurking in the EU. Geeeeeeeeez, they just went completely by me. Those make no sense now either, but they were licensed and published.

So, with things like that in the EU's past then I can see why they would just ignore things in the books when they're doing the Clone Wars cartoons.

 

I like to play within continuity as much as possible. If I want to write about Pellaeon I have to do so before his death, so on.

Frankly speaking though there is so much continuity that its gets muddled even by the Pro Authors. Millennium Falcon clearly laid out that Daala was working with the Mandalorians and that Seff was a Dark'ish Jedi. Then FOTJ erases the Mandalorian plot and changes Seff into a doppleganger seeing kind of crazy dude??????

It leaves me trying to write as close to canon as I can without allowing myself to get overly perplexed by the canon changes. Changes which messed up and turned an entire story of mine AU from canon compliant over night.

But then in my opinion Star Wars has always had flexible canon. If the prequels didn't destroy the EU, The CLone Wars Animted program won't either. It will just slightly change a few things.

 

It occurs to me that this has sort of already happened to me. Nothing so drastic as what must be happening with this Clone Wars business, but still. My short story "The Other Side" is set on Corellia in a post-NJO timeframe demanded by the fact that it stars the daughter of OT era characters of mine. I haven't read the applicable EU, but I get the feeling from reading wookiepedia articles for research into unrelated things that Corellia is involved in some kind of messy galactic brouhaha at the time. In the story, however, I treat it like just another part of the New Republic (or whatever it is). I don't think there's anything in the fic that outright contradicts, and heck, maybe it being set during wartime is a benefit. But apparently my gameplan is Just Ignore It? I had no idea.

 

I'm going to sidestep off of something Face brought up. Hopefully that's okay. It deals with writing within continuity, I promise! At least it does in my head.

I write in Saga, all OCs. I don't write about canon characters or get too involved with specific canon events (except mentioning them); however, I try very, very hard to make sure my setting is as "canon" as possible. The setting I put my characters in and what they do in that setting--where they are, what they use, whom they encounter, how they react-- can be the only thing connecting my stories to Star Wars at times. I do a lot of research to make sure it all canonically fits in that universe and in that timeframe to the best of my ability. I want things to mesh. I did make one big mistake early on that I've had to "retcon", but that was because I didn't know any better. I think the particular retcon works, though.

Two days ago the new Essential Atlas threw me for a major loop by adding previously-nonexistent information about my main character's homeworld. This new information makes it so that my main character's background could never have happened like I said it did, which in turn eliminates his primary motivation I've been writing about all this time. It's not something I can retcon or fix without a major reboot, and changing his homeworld isn't an option I want to pursue. On the flip side, though, it bothers me to ignore the new information from a detailed sourcebook I ironically bought specifically for story research. I guess that's what I'm going to have to do though: ignore it.

This all leads me to some questions: how much do people want to see changed in a story (in terms of events, timeline, characterization, setting, etc.) before they consider it to be AU due to EU continuity reasons? If I label something "AU", do you expect nothing less than a sharp ninety-degree turn from a major event that is fairly well-known in fandom? Do more minor details cause something to be AU if they contradict something that's published, or are they simply regarded as artistic license and not a reason to make something "AU"? Are fanfics that are labelled as "canon-compliant" expected to have some amount of discrepancies because the EU continuity itself is discrepant?

Sorry, I know this probably sounds silly, but it's been on my mind a lot this week.

 

Personally for me, anything that contradicts published works IS AU. Whether or not we're talking about the TTT, or novelizations of the films; if it's in print, it's canon. However, and this may sound contradictory of what I started the thread for, but I feel nothing in the EU novels should take liberties and contradict the films without making clear that is the intention (ie, Infinities). But also including fanfiction, I don't take lightly changing of events of a story that isn't considered AU by the author.

Now, in your case, info about settings is usually ever expanding, and since a good number of fics here are WIPs, I would just chalk it up in my head that you'd already written what you had before the facts became published. I won't give the same pass to any EU works.

Again, I would give a pass to fanficcers that I wouldn't give to the pros. We don't have access to both the known and "unreleased" data; so minor canon inconsistancies I can absolutely ignore. We're not paid, and you get what you pay for.

 

First, How was the Atlas Thumper? I started flipping through it but had to set it down because they would have made me pay for it since all the drool that was collecting at the corners of my mouth. Ever since stumbling on to the JC boards and the fanfic site late last year I have been going nuts trying to find a good representation of the Star Wars galaxy so that I could have a more solid foundation for not only my own writing but so I knew where some of the pro-fic was going. That thing looked like the grail to me. It is on my list of must haves.

At this point can I ask, isn't almost all of fanfic in most ways AU? I mean sure there are those who rewrite the movies, smoothing out the dialogue, adding a special twist to a set scene and such but for the most part everyone is playing with in the "sandbox" if you will. I look at it like a choose your own adventure type of thing. We have a huge foundation or framework that GL and the wonderful people at Lucasfilm, arts and Westend games have laid out and we can develop stories with in that framework. I think anyone who gets messed up by continuity is looking for something that isn't advertized within the confines of Star Wars fanfic. Having a story about Wedge making the kill shot on the first Death Star doesn't get invalidated because it is AU it just shows a different point of view. The same goes with having Biggs lead the assault on the second Death Star knowing that canon says he buys the farm. Changing that doesn't make the story less Star Wars. Those that get hung up on stuff like that are going to get hung up no matter what so in my view major continuity gaps don't mean that much. they just make for more interestlng tales.

 

I like my stories to be canon, but I won't slave to keep them so.
Though it IS AU if you cahnge a known fact, it soemtimes really doesn't matter. Who will notice?
Usually - nobody. I had Hethrir alive a few years after his death because I needed it to fit the personla canon of one of my OCs. Nobody realised. Since then, I tend to think: so, so what?

Just because there is a small thing changed, I don't think you have to slap the AU label onto your story. If it might be known by some, a note about it can be enough.
The more likely the stuff I change is to be known, the more likely I am to call my story an AU.

I am also lenient when it calls to reading stories. If it's something obvious, like Luke going dark, or Vader alive after RotS, I think an AU sign is adequate. I don't care if the changed fact is mentioned anywhere at all if it's minro. Either I see it, or I don't. If the story is good, I won't care.

Also, I tend to expect drastic changes to canon if I read 'AU' in the title.

 

I'm not too big on anything AU, especially anything seriously AU like crossing SW with another movie. Mainly I prefer to read and write cannon. But that's just me. I think if you start phasing out AU possibilities in your works then you narrow your artistic field, you definitely lose creative avenues.

I remember the first NJO book I read. It didn't seem like SW cannon, well not with what I was use to reading. But then in time it grew on me and now its meshed in there. Maybe the new CW season will mesh over time too.

I love the SW continuity. It makes for a never ending story. You start off on a moisture farm a day or a few hours BBY, then you can go up to the LoTF or all the way down to the Jedi Sith Wars and it all ties together. Thats what makes SW so awesome to me. Anything that effects that will be a huge disappointment in my view.

 

Thorn: In all honesty, I haven't read much of the Atlas yet: I needed to set it aside for a bit to think things through. It's a sweet book with tons of info and maps, including maps of the various military campaigns throughout the years in the GFFA. There are written descriptions of the different regions of the galaxy and the major trade routes. The amount of information is a bit overwhelming, but in a good way.

I did see some noticeable differences for one planet in particular between what they had in the Atlas with what some of the old West End Games information said about it. (Not the same planet I mentioned in my previous post.) I know it's not uncommon for the new sourcebooks/guides and old RPG sourcebooks to conflict on details, but it also makes it harder for me to know what facts to pick. I haven't yet compared the Atlas's entries of more well-known planets with previously known information to see how it measures up consistency-wise. I just haven't had a good chance to.

PM me if you want more specific info about anything in it.

Thanks for the replies to the AU/canon stuff. I'm glad to see and understand the various viewpoints on it.

 

Just because there is a small thing changed, I don't think you have to slap the AU label onto your story. If it might be known by some, a note about it can be enough.

I agree, there's plenty of things I've read where I probably just didn't know the difference. The things Traviss "retconned haphazardly", I had no real knowledge of to begin with, and for my enjoyment didn't really matter to the overall story I was enjoying.

And this is where argument ensues. Where do I draw the line between what Traviss has done to previously established works, and what she claims has been done to hers (or anyone else's EU work for that matter)? When one changes major established continuity, it's AU; and in Traviss' case, the RC/IC novels are a major storyline.

Small changes can be overlooked, or chalked up to ignorance. But when you knowingly change the progression of someone else's story, you must be big enought to consider it an AU.