How NOT to Write Star Wars Fic
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| Title: | How NOT to Write Star Wars Fic |
| Creator: | Eluki bes Shahar |
| Date(s): | 1982 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Wars |
| Topic: | |
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| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How NOT to Write Star Wars Fic is a 1982 essay by Eluki bes Shahar.
It was printed in Warped Space #47.
Some Topics Discussed
- the line "He kissed her hungrily" -- don't the Rebels get enough to eat? Will they soon resort to cannibalism?
- cliched love scenes in general, her objections to "meet-cute romances of every ilk, and badly-done Mary Sues (or Mari Sus, as I believe the local version is called")
- "I am waiting to see the one where The Love of a Good Woman Reforms Darth Vader..."
- anachronisms and "Trek-tech"
Introduction
This is the harrowing story of one Neo's odyssey into Star Wars fandom (it's been one year this November, troop,) and what she found there. Mostly, it was fan fic (it's tough living five miles from the Edge of Nowhere), and after glutting her elfin grot on a three-years' backlog (a friend's collection, loaned through might-be charity... although sometimes I wonder...) she, which is to say I, stood and said 'Gorp!' and 'Greeble!' and other niftykeen things like that, and sat down and elukidated that which you are about to read. The only qualification I have for writing this article is that I have read a middle-mort of SW fanfic in a perilously short tune, I have a sweet and forgiving nature, and (oh yes) a talent for character assassination. You have been warned.
From the Essay
Unfortunately, Mary Sue has a twin sister named Mary Wonderful. See her over there on the pedestal? She's the one who's never wrong, never in doubt, never in error, and never defeated. She's perfect. Strangely enough, her cohorts do not team up to drown her, but instead go around insisting she's wonderful too. They may be in fear of her Jedi skill, her twin blasters, or her fearsome crew of armed pirates, but somehow I doubt it. I also doubt this person's likelihood. Try to give your character a few believable faults, much as it may make you cringe to see your doppelganger pulling a real klutzy move in front of the heroes. There is no reason she can't come up aces in the end. Look at Doc Savagery; The obligatory formula for the books was to have him and his aides bewitched, bothered, and bewildered for the first two thirds of the story, but finesse the heavy in the end. Doc was a bit close to a Mary Wonderful himself, but his aides could be be real goofs. Make your character fallible.
The ONE EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE is any of Darth Vader's Mari Sus, unless you are a.) going to kill her off real quick or b.) convince your readership that there is a plausible (logical is even better, but we must not expect miracles) reason for him to put up with her failures.
At this point you may decide it is safer to give up on Mary and her sisters—and brothers—forever, and stick to stories featuring only those faces and places seen up there that big silver screen.
When over or poorly-done, this is called the "Luke and Leia and Chewie and Han and Don't Forget the Droids or Darth or Ben or even Yoda Syndrome." The canonical characters are not Siamese Sextuplets (Nepalese Nonotuplets?), and as much as we may want to return to the thrilling days of SW4 (or SW1, or SW:ANH. Pick a numbering system, any numbering system!), the fact is that Luke is a Fighter Pilot and Leader of Men, Han is a Smuggler, Scoundrel, and Sometime Leader of Men, and Leia is basically Out-of-Work since they blew up her planet. She used to be a Politician and dangerous Radical Firebrand, though. As seen in TESB, it takes great ingenuity on the parts of Clotheo, Lachesis, Atropo, and Vader to get them all on the same planet for any length of time. They are more likely to be running off in separate directions. Like Alan Dean Foster (a pox on his tribbles) and Brian Daley, try not to be greedy when raiding the canons and only grab best two out of three. That way you avoid the embarrassing simulacrum of a galaxy the size of East Lansing, MI, in which you are forever tripping over every one you ever met. (How about some Leia and Chewie stories?)
Try reading up an the Sufi, the Samurai, the Ninja, the Taoists, and other eastern Mystical and Military orders, not to mention the Knights Templars, the Jesuits, or other alternate 'political' systems. And do try to use Obi-Wan sparingly, avoiding if possible the Jedi-ex-Machina Syndrome. It is even feasible that his shade is, post-TESB, no longer on speaking terms with Luke after that Bespin fiasco, and you will remember that before Dagobah, Luke was still not sure whether he was hearing Ben or just losing his mind. And altho Sir Alec's ghost is getting one percent of the residuals, overworking him is simply Not On.
Though George in his quaint way bandies about the term 'minute' in TESB and 'hour' in ANH, I can't like them, as they seem to me to be too tied to the anthropocentric usages of a single-planet civilization.... Other things I haven't seen in George's World, and that therefore strike me as being a tad anachronistic when I find them in SW fanfic are: projectile weapons (some people suggest they could be historical. I refer them to my arguments on Trek-tech...), buttons (on clothes) and doors-that-slam. Paper, though not absolutely frowned upon, tend to break the mood; paper credits are unlikely (too easy to forge) and calling them dollars will get you severely gigged at.
People keep fathering food synthesizers on Han's Falcon. This smacks too much of Trek-tech for my tastes. SW is a galaxy long ago and far away; technological progress is different than ours here, and my personal preference for Han's culinary delictation is a large crate of those teevee dinners Luke was noshing down on Dagobah. Heckuva improvement over WWII C&K rations!
SW-tech is not a smooth and logical extension from ours, as Trek's intended to be: George says they are Wholly-Other, and I believe him. The milieu he is striving to re-create is that of the '30's-'50's Sci-Fi (say that reverently) Space Opera. Go back and read E.E. 'Doc' Smith's LENSMAN series for some pointers on SW-tech. It is NOT just Trek-tech in Teflon armor.