EU Writing Rules #1

I am going to randomly work up a list of rules for people who are going to be writing for the Expanded Universe.

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I'm sure all the muckity-mucks are paying close attention and I'll be getting an excellent check from Sue Rostini soon.

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(Sigh - if I did, it would probably just be in Imperial Credits.)

At any rate, here it is, Rule Number 1 of Writing Star Wars.

Bigger is NOT Better - or in other words, Don't try to pull trump on George Lucas.

One of the major flaws of many Star Wars books is that instead of just providing new situations for characters to have exciting adventures in, they will try to bring out something bigger and badder. These fail. Horribly.

For example, consider the " Sun Crusher" - the worst superweapon plot device ever. So, George Lucas gives us the big, giant Death Star with the power to destroy a planet (shame it has a design flaw). In the Jedi Academy Triology, Kevin Anderson gives us the Sun Crusher, which is:

A. More powerful than the Death Star (it can make Stars go Nova)
B. Easier to use than the Death Star (only needs a single pilot)
C. Is impossible to destroy with no flaws (Quantum armor? Really? Really really?)

What this does is sort of just make the whole thing seem ridiculous. The concept of Star Wars already requires some suspension of disbelief -- when you violate the given rules of the universe beyond the established ideas, it just make things seem so much more ridiculous - sort of like an unintentional, mood shattering argument to absurdity.

Of course, this doesn't just happen with weapons - it can happen with the Villains, where you have villains that are just superized versions of their predecessors - so we'll have Lord Nyax who is supposed to be a super Vader... This just doesn't work. Really, it doesn't. Make a new villain. They are wicked and evil - go have wicked and evil fun with them.

And the worst place this happens is with the heroics of the heroes. See, this is the big problem - we see our heroes do neat things, and sadly, some authors seem to think, "Ah, they can do neat stuff, therefore they are heroes. I will make them better heroes by having them do even more teh aewsoemest stuff." Heroes in Star Wars aren't heroes because they have power, they are heroes because they use whatever talents or skills they have in helping and defending others. If you want to make them seem heroic, don't whip out a new power or feat, have them find creative ways to use their powers to help.

This is one of the reasons why I like the Timothy Zahn novels. He tries to fix the overpowering of Luke in his Hand of Thrawn Duology by forcing Luke to power down... of course, then we have just a few years later Troy Denning's Dark Nest Trilogy basically being a giant "I'm Luke Skywalker, and I can do ANYTHING" fest. And masses of bugs, to boot.

Sometimes we are slow to learn the rules -- I knew I should have written and posted these 9 years ago, but I figured we would all just learn from Zahn, the dean of Star Wars authors. Oh well.

So there it is - don't just try to build up something bigger, or meaner, or more cool and powerful. That's not the essence of Star Wars.

Oh, and as an addendum, since I'm re-reading Bantam books. Listen, Mara Jade IS the ideal romantic interest for Luke. What in the world were all these authors trying to do to make better ones? I mean, I read about them, and they are just. . . why, why would Luke settle for gals like... them when Mara is waiting for him. Thank you, thank Mr. Zahn for just putting the two together and being done with it.

Oh, what - they did WHAT to Mara? And they brought back how many old girlfriends? Really? Where did they dig up these old fossils, I mean. . . ugh.

Please, please authors - stop trying to violate Rule Number one. Don't try to top Lucas (and don't try to top Zahn either).