by Andrew R. Cameron
Why do we write Star Wars fanfiction? In the first of our fanfiction guides, editor and writer Andrew R. Cameron explores why Star Wars is so appealing to writers of fan fiction and what opportunities it affords its practitioners.
Most fans can remember exactly how they felt when they watched Star Wars for the first time. The sense of awe. The dizzying depth of imagination. The desire to dig deeper, to discover the untold stories behind each scene, each character, each planet. The genre of science fiction is known for its sense of wonder, but few stories have manifested this feeling as successfully and as consistently as Star Wars.
Generations of kids have grown up playing with Star Wars action figures, creating their own adventures with Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi or Rey and Finn. Others have spent hours dogfighting in the cockpit of their favourite starfighter in games like TIE Fighter or Squadrons. Every fan who has picked up a toy lightsaber has felt a thrill of excitement, that desire to wield the Force like a Jedi or Sith. The experience of playing with Star Wars – touching and interacting and building – has been a crucial part of many people’s fandom. For these fans, passive consumption of movies and television is not enough; they feel the desire to actively participate in the creation of new stories.
At its heart, Star Wars is not a media franchise or a film series, but a sandbox. It encourages us to play, to create, to experiment. It invites us to tell our own stories in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
It is this opportunity for storytelling which makes Star Wars such fertile ground for writers of fanfiction. The vast scope of established source material gives writers almost unlimited freedom to generate stories. This is a sandbox full of Jedi, Sith, smugglers, bounty hunters, scoundrels, soldiers, rebels, aliens, droids, and peacekeepers. Between the movies, television shows, books, and comics, there are thousands of existing characters and planets, as well as thousands of years of history to play with. And if none of the existing material interests the writer, they can always invent new characters or new planets to populate the Galaxy, or re-write history with “What If?”-style narratives. There are no rules as to how Star Wars can be interpreted. The animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions serves as a particularly good example of how stories inspired by the series can take existing material in completely new directions, ignoring the confines of established canon.
For those writers at the beginning of their career, Star Wars fanfiction can serve as a great way to practice storytelling and learn the mechanics of writing. Teachers of creative writing will often discourage students from engaging with fanfiction because it is perceived as derivative or repetitive, lacking in originality. And although it is important for students to develop their own original ideas, this advice ignores the constructive way fanfiction can provide boundaries and rules. Emerging writers approaching the genres of science fiction and fantasy for the first time are often overwhelmed with the challenge of balancing characterisation with coherent worldbuilding – their stories are often too expositional, too clunky, bogged down with unnecessary details that distract from their characters. Such stories are prone to infodumping, large chunks of expository text which attempt to establish background and backstory. A skilled writer can weave this information organically through the story, revealing it when and if it is needed. Fanfiction can alleviate the pressure of worldbuilding by relying on established and familiar material, allowing the writer to focus their efforts on characterisation.
Similarly, for those writers looking to practice their worldbuilding before they create their own original stories, series like Star Wars provide a well-established framework with which to experiment. Genres like science fiction and fantasy encourage their writers to create fictional worlds which are governed by self-coherent rules. The rules don’t have to be anything like our real world, but consistency is important. We know, for example, that it would be cheating if George Lucas had Obi-Wan Kenobi simply snap his fingers and teleport himself to Alderaan. The rules Lucas had established meant it wasn’t possible. Rules like this exist not to restrict your characters, but to enhance your storytelling by creating a sustainable and understandable framework in which your characters can interact with each other and their world. The fact that Obi-Wan couldn’t teleport himself to Alderaan means he had to hire Han Solo to smuggle him there, allowing the story to progress. Fanfiction teaches the importance of self-coherence in works of science fiction and fantasy by providing established rules that emerging writers can follow.
Fanfiction is often denigrated or dismissed due to a perceived lack of quality or originality. But here is an important fact: There are many stories in the world that lack in quality or originality. These criticisms are not exclusive to fanfiction. As with all literature, the quality and originality of fanfiction depends on the author. Some tales are incredible, others not so much.
But focusing on concerns of quality seems to be missing the point. Fanfiction is meant to be fun. It is a chance to play in the sandbox. It is an opportunity to contribute towards a fandom and to tell your own tale. It is common for many writers to start with fanfiction before going on to develop their own original material. But one of the great attractions of fanfiction is that it is not just a gateway to other writing – it is its own reward, and many established writers come back to fanfiction from time to time because of its comfort, familiarity, and the joy of telling stories within a beloved universe.
Finally, one of the reasons Star Wars resonates with its audiences is because it draws inspiration from mythology. It is connected to our oldest beliefs and traditions; its stories repeat the same themes and structures which underpin all narratives. We can find echoes of ourselves in such stories. Our identities are indelibly shaped by the stories we hear as children, by the cultural beliefs and practices which surround us. As with all types of fiction, writing fanfiction allows us to connect with ourselves, to discover who we are. These are not just stories about Jedi and smugglers, but tales of love, hope, rebellion, betrayal, family, tolerance, and friendship. Writing these stories is a way of reinterpreting and rediscovering the narratives which are important to us.
At Coruscant Writers Club, not only do we want to inspire you to write fanfiction, but we want to empower you to do it at the same time. We love to encourage fans to actively participate in Star Wars, to take ownership of their sandbox in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. We want your stories to be reflections of who you are and what Star Wars means to you. This is what all fanfiction should hope to achieve.
Coruscant Writers Club 