New EU Novel Series: How Would You Write It?

[Cassus Fett]

Ok, imagine GL comes to you and asks you to put the basic's down for a new 8-part EU Series. How would you do it? Would you go away from the main events within the galaxy focusing on those minor events and the character people see but dont know nothing about? or do you focus on the main events, perhaps exploring it from the oposite side? you decide, so how would you?

[csr74]

It depends a lot on the time when the story is supposed to take place. I mean, what if you´re let freedom to choose the time and decide to set it , let´s say 500 years after the events of the OT?

[Cassus Fett]

Well what would you do then? the story could take place when ever you like.

[Darth Massacrus]

great idea for a thread!

hmm, if I were given this task, I would set it in the era of the Great Hyperspace War or the Sith War.

[Konig15]

I would wirte it in the Clone Wars Era and have be about officers and enlisted men. Some would go home in the new Empire and see their kids rise in rebellion against their generation's hero (Palpatine) and have a few navy guys see the transformation of the Fleet from an instrument of protection, to one of terror, and then watch the reactions of them as either they change or the New Order changes them.

[Kapit]

I don't have a detailed outline or anything, but I know what I'd want it to be about:

The recruitment of actual, normal people to become Stormtroopers. Finally detail the process of why it had to be done. Was it money? Did all the clones die in battle? Did they die of accelerated growth? Was Palpy just tired of clones with no personality? Was Kamino completely destroyed? Who knows...

[DarthSolo]

Ok, imagine GL comes to you and asks you to put the basic's down for a new 8-part EU Series. How would you do it? Would you go away from the main events within the galaxy focusing on those minor events and the character people see but dont know nothing about? or do you focus on the main events, perhaps exploring it from the oposite side? you decide, so how would you?
If it's an 8 part thing, it seems it sort of needs to be about some sort of main event. Now, this doesn't mean recycling the same character, which I probably would not do, but to get a story with enough momentum to carry eight books, you've got to make it pretty galaxy spanning.

That being said, a good plot-smith should be able to explore the type of things that are being mentioned, and make it really powerful, even if it's small.

An idea popping into my head as to how to do this: follow a family as one thread of the story.

In book 1, it seems for most of the time that they are fairly unconnected to the main conflict. The characters should be lovable characters that the reader identifies with, even if they aren't right in the thick of things. But at the end of book one, somehow the main conflict interferes with something within the family, seriously screwing up some plan of theirs.

Book two, the thick of the conflict actually comes to them about halfway through.

Book three, they are trying to survive the conflict all around them, and by the end of the book perhaps the two siblings decide to go off and join one of the main forces.

Book four, follow the siblings in their new role away from home, writing letters back to their parents and friends or something, one of them really enjoying getting out into the galaxy and the other getting pretty disturbed by the conflict. Major split between the previously close siblings by the end of the book.

Book five, they continue along their separate paths, one or both becoming minor heroes in their own right. At the end of the book, the one not taking it so well visits home for the first time to see how much the conflict has affected their family, causing the to resolve to mend the relationship between the two and to convince the other to come back home where the family really needs help.

Book six follows that conflict through, really getting inside both character's heads, but there is little progress in mending the relationship.

Book seven has some major event happen to the less affected one to where he/she decides that maybe they should make an effort to get home more often. This comes at the end of the book, and the two are pretty well reunited, promising that they will get home soon.

Book eight, they are caught too deeply in the conflict to make good on their promise right away, though it is in mind throughout the story. But in the final battle to win the conflict, the one who had earlier actually gotten home dies, leaving the other to bring the body back to a family he/she hasn't seen in years. Even though they were probably on the winning side and heroes to an extent, it is not a happy ending, and really shows the effect of a conflict like this on the every day people and their families.

That really would show a different side of the galaxy as well as, if done correctly, make for a very compelling and powerful story. It'd be interesting if these characters were the only ones in consistently every book, though they are rarely at the heart of the conflict. That way, the ones that are actually in the heart would be rotated every few books and we would get a large group of characters from all different walks of the galaxy stepping into the role of main hero.

[Cassus Fett]

really like your idea for it, as i do with everyones. I'd perhaps set it on the other side of the GCW, showing the Imperial side of the story, as after all there are heroes on both sides.

[Darill Cyllem]

One of the things that really interests me about star wars is the mysticism of the Force, so I'd write something about the journey of a few characters becoming Jedi - three of them, maybe, all from different walks of life. It'd be less action stuff and more character centered - more about each person's relationship with and understanding of the Force. Maybe that's not enough for 8 books, though.
I'd also be interested in having some interaction between PT era and OT and post OT era characters... through some kind of combination of Force visions, flashbacks, memories, etc.
I don't think this would involve any of the main characters from the movies. Maybe Obi-Wan would have a small part. And i probably wouldn't be able to resist having Wedge and possibly Boba Fett in there somehow, peripherally perhaps....