Using Star Wars EU material in fanfics

[Tiana Calthye]

When you write, do you stick to the movies as your canon or do you extend into the EU? Where do you chose what to use and what not to use? There's a few rather off the wall things to be found in EU, and if you get into the comics, it gets even more trippy. So if you're writing Star Wars, where do you draw your resources from? What do you consider canon, and what do you consider useless?

 

If something would make a great story, will you write about it?

 

Have you ever written a story just to improve upon EU?

 

In my opinion, anything but the movies are basically just really, really big fanfics, that happen to be money-makers. But they contain a myraid of wonderful things that, even if they aren't in the movies, might make for great fics. The Vong, for example, were not part of the movies, but stories set in that period can make for interesting fanfics.

 

So tell me, how do you, when writing a fanfic, chose what material to use and what to leave out? Is fanfic your way of optimizing Star Wars to your tastes? A way of extending the movies without dealing with the weirdness?

 

Let's discuss the connection between the EU and fanfic.

[Silas]

When I used to write (haven't written in quite a while), I pulled a lot from the EU. I liked the idea of delving into character's backgrounds and exploring the possibilities of what stories could have taken place that would eventually lead them to the point that we see them in the movies. I never really got into anything other than the novel portion of the EU, so that's pretty much where I draw the canon line though I'm sure if I chose to dive more deeply into what's out there that I would have plot bunnies jumping around in my head.

[The Jedi Master]

The only real fanfics I ever wrote were some Aayla Secura short stories and that unfinished Kyle Katarn one. So, obviously, they relied heavily on non-film sources. However, I tried to keep to "higher" canon with the Katarn story, i.e. the NJO books and Jedi Knight video games, without mentioning things from lower canon, like kids books or comics.

 

I do remember trying my hand at a post-NJO novel-length trilogy fanfic regarding a lost order of Dark Jedi, which relied heavily on OT characters (Luke, Leia, and Han, obviously) and also pulled a lot from things that happened in established EU-canon, like the Thrawn trilogy and NJO books. However, it never really took off.

[Travis]

Personally, while I like to reference and use events from the EU, I do not like to actually use characters or make big changes from it. For instance, I wouldn't ever write a story involving a canon character or where a canon planet was destroyed, a major canon government overthrown, or whatnot. When I wrote stories, they were things that could have plausibly happened in the established EU canon because they didn't interfere with what was there or would in the future be written.

[Tiana Calthye]

I too tried my hand at a post-NJO fic once... the New Sith Order. I never really got to the Sith part because I got distracted by the time travel part. Since then I haven't really indulged in EU-based fics, because that, and WTEO (which was my own insanity based) were rather the end of my fanficcing. I always wanted to do something in the KotR timeline, like I think it was Skye who did a lot of Revan fics? I liked those.

[Lord Ar-Pharazon]

I haven't followed EU too extensively, but I like weaving in little tidbits here and there. I think there's fantastic material there, and largely, I'd be happy incorporating a lot of it into my stories. I've brought in a few things to my main fanfic, such as the Room of One Thousand Fountains, the Forms of Saber Combat, and some other stuff that's not really mentioned in the movies. I'm planning on mentioning Eastpost and the Hydian Way in my next part. Though, if I've got a really fun idea that I want to do, and some later, weirder novel made it somehow contradictory, I'd just do it anyway. I don't really care. I mean, look at the RP. We've ignored the Vong, because that would have screwed things up. We want Coruscant, not Yuuzhan'tar.

[Amidala Skywalker]

...and WTEO...

 

*cough*Which you promised to finish*cough*

 

I definitely draw from EU for my fics. In fact, I steer clear of writing movie characters because I feel like I can never do them justice. Or I will do an alternate universe type of thing, with regular EU characters or historical events in my own timeline/universe. That's actually my favorite type of fanfic to write.

[DarthBrendo]

A lot of the EU material is really good stuff. I'd have no problem using it.

 

The only SW fanfic I wrote was my Chronicles fic. Which I would love to be able to finish.

[Jidai Geki]

You should finish that. It was pretty good.

[Silas]

Agreed. I remember reading that back when I first joined. I think I remember you trying to do a rewrite but I don't believe that you ever finished it, which is a problem.

[DarthBrendo]

It reached a point where the style had to change and I had never written in that style so I kinda didn't know where to go with it. I don't remember the characters lol.

 

I really enjoyed writing it though. I was quite proud of it.

[Myth Hunter]

I gather a lot of resource form the EU when writing my fanfics. I try to steer clear of the OT (A New Rope being the obvious exception) as I love that story and those characters as they are.

 

But my main reasoning for writing fanfic (of any genre) is to improve it. Usually I would have read a book that just sucked (Planet of Twighlight as an example) and I would start to write something around that timeline that could replace the story. Because I like to read everything I can (well, everything in between ROTJ and NJO - I hate the NJO *sorry* ) I get an understanding of the flow of the overall events and sometimes I feel an author just does not adequately contribute to that flow.

 

And I don't mind using canon characters. I've watched the movies and read the books and I think I can, to the best of my abilities, recreate them in an original plot while maintaining the integrity of the personalities. The best compliments I have ever received were for my FanFic As Our Paths Cross and a couple of people said how well I had written Corran Horn. To me, that is the ultimate compliment in Fanfic. That the characters and storyline feel like they are straight out of the SW universe.