As many people have seen first hand, the Star Wars fan community is one of the most active and dedicated communities out there. From waiting days in line for premieres to dressing up and flying around the world to go to conventions, you’d be hard pressed to walk around during any Halloween and not see somebody dressed up as some Star Wars character whether it’s a classic like Chewbacca and Darth Vader or a newer character like Kylo Ren and Rey.
Even though there are so many great sci-fi reads out there to explore, fanfiction allows exploration in depths that normally would not be possible. In fanfiction, writers and fans can fill in the gaps that movies may have left out or re-write areas that they would have preferred to happen.
Rich characters and history to explore
You’ve probably had a moment, whether it’s watching Star Wars or some other film, where you wondered, “I wonder what would happen if….” or “I hate that they let this happen, they should have done it this way”. If you have, then you understand the appeal.
As the user kelseydeyulia, author of The Wrath’s Knight series on the fanfiction site Commaful, put it, “I like writing fanfiction for Star Wars because the universe is so big, so full of potential, that I just want to explore it. Most of the characters we see, especially those from the prequels, also tend not to receive a happy ending and if I can do something to fix that, I try to do it.”
In this particular story, the writer dives in and explores the Old Republic and the history of Obi-Wan. “I want to know what happened to Obi-Wan during the 19 years he was on Tatooine. Writing fanfiction helps me explore that and I get to read what I want to see,” the author stated.
Different Types of Star Wars Fanfiction
One great thing about fanfiction is that it can appeal to a wide audience given its different styles.
There is certainly a wide variety outside of the ones I’m mentioning, including webcomics, thrillers, action comedy, and others, but here are a few that I found particularly interesting while diving in.
Parody/Satire
In a world where half of our attention is spent looking at memes and funny videos, this style of fanfic has a wide mass appeal.
One example of this is the wacky visual fanfic made by Pluto called Kylo Meets Vader. This short 1 minute read is as close to a meme as you’ll get when it comes to fanfic and features cute chibi art and a funny, ridiculous interaction.
Epic Poetry
Yes, there is such thing as Star Wars epic fan poetry. The writer leocharlesm, created “The Rogue”, an epic poem about the Star Wars Universe. “The post is a poem inspired by a story I wrote for a novella set 50 years after the events of the Original Trilogy. In the book, this is one of many ancient Jedi and Sith legends that help her tell her story. It’s the first tragic love poem I’ve ever written in the Star Wars Universe,” he explains.
Shipping multiple characters in a romance
When people think of fanfiction, they often think of this as the de facto style of fanfiction (the type of fanfiction that led to 50 Shades of Grey). In these stories, writers write romantic interactions featuring characters that they “ship” or want to see together. These stories can be really cut and clean or can get as graphic as you can imagine. In this article, I won’t go into any of the graphic stuff. One of the most popular and vocal such “ships” relating to the most recent trilogy is known as Reylo. The pairing has been controversial in the Star Wars fan communities.
As you may be able to guess, the “Reylo” ship features stories featuring a romance between Kylo Ren and Rey, the two main stars of the recent movies. Stories about Reylo tend to feature cute interactions between the two and often develop believable scenarios for them to fall in love. For example, in Poison in Paradise by Emalina, she follows Rey through her inner struggles and development, slowly building her feelings for Kylo.
The writer nikkirao takes a slightly different approach to a similar result. In her series, “Between Two Points”, she follows Kylo’s journey and development more closely to build the attraction and interactions.
Getting involved in the fandom
There are easy ways to get plugged into the fanbase from Facebook groups to fanfiction websites. If you have a brilliant idea for Star Wars, you can bring it to life on any of a number of fanfiction websites including Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own. In this article, we covered mostly fanfiction from Commaful, a more visual and modern take on fanfiction. You can dive into their Star Wars section here.
