Did They or Didn't They?

I think we've tip-toed around this topic but I'd like to dedicate an entire blog post to it, shall we?

If there's anything, as a Han and Leia fan, that I could sit around and discuss incessantly - it is about what happened on the way to Bespin.  Did they or didn't they?  How long was that darn trip?  And if they didn't, how the hell long did poor old Han have to wait?

I have been one big pendulum on this issue.  In the beginning, back when I thought the trip lasted all of the 30 minutes tops it looked like it could've in the film, I didn't think they did it on the way to Bespin. 

Then I discovered Fanfic and found out that it could've taken them anywhere from 3 weeks to a few months to get there.  Hmmmm, how very interesting, that little development was to me.  So, I jumped right in with the "Yes, they did it!" faction and the pendulum swung.  I had my arguments.  I mean, look at how much differently they interact on Bespin.  The HUGE smile she gives him when he takes her hand from Lando.  Face it folks, Princess Leia does VERY LITTLE smiling in the entire trilogy.  There is the little knowing exchange as they walk down the corridor and Lando is talking to them.  Then when Han returns to "their" apartment, he calms Leia down with a kiss to the forehead like he's totally got her number, you know what I mean?  Then, he juts his arm out and offers it to Leia on the way to dinner.  AND, they hold hands in the face of Vader.  Yadda.  Yadda.  Yadda.

Buuutttt, now, it's been a year (or more) since I have been contemplating this and I think my pendulum has once again swung in the other direction.  Yes, something happened to them (or with them) on the way to Bespin which does explain all those little things that I described above.  But then there's these things:  "Then you're as good as gone, aren't you?"  Leia's line in the apartment.  Does this sound like a woman who has given herself to someone?  IMO, probably not.  Sounds like they never really worked out what he was going to do when they got the hyperdrive fixed and she's still worried about him leaving her.  IDK if she would've had sex with him without that little piece of information discussed and decided on.  Even if he told her he had to leave and she agreed and they made plans to find each other again and then they had sex, okay, that might happen, but then she wouldn't have said that line like that, you know?  Then there is the all important, "I love you." line.  To me, like the kiss in the circuitry bay (which I firmly believe was their first), I firmly believe that this is the first time she said those words to that man.  Would she not have said she loved him if they had had sex?  I think so.

And the whole timing argument.  Well, in all honesty, by the time they say they are going to go to Bespin, Luke has already been training.  Maybe they were in the asteroid for a few days?  Maybe they rode around on the Super Star Destroyer for a while?  But when they finally say they are going to Bespin, bam next scene Luke is leaving to find them.  I just don't think it was all that long.  (I hear a little "I told you so" here from Zyra...)

Oh, but then I think:  these guys knew each other for over three years and clearly had hoards of UST going on during the Hoth stuff, so could they really be holed up for even a day or two without that going somewhere?  Especially since they had kissed and pretty much admitted to one another that something was going on?  I mean, Han was in his mid-thirties, she in her mid-twenties, c'mon!  They weren't timid teenagers!  But, she was a strong-willed Princess and if she waited that long, chances are she could wait a while longer, right?

I guess, truly we will never know and the next generation of fanfic authors will be arguing this same issue for years and years to come.  But for my final conclusion, I would like to offer some visual evidence (or arguments) for the "Yes they did it!" faction.

I ask all you Han and Leia fans out there (answer honestly):  If Leia walked into the Captain's quarters to use the 'fresher, say 15 minutes into their trip, and found this, could she have controlled herself????

Or if she waltzed into the galley for a cup of kaf and found this:

Could she just say, "Excuse me." and walk away?

Hmmmm....  If so, I must say, she is a better woman than me...

So What IS in Character?

I love this picture. For any of you who were fortunate enough to watch Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" on HBO, it is from an extremely short clip they showed of these two messing around behind the scenes. It looked like he was sort of over-dramatically checking to see if she'd hurt her hand or something. Perhaps rehearsing the scene after she gets blasted. Too cute. But anyway....

In the comments of the last post we started discussing some things about what we considered in character and what we considered out of character. So I thought I might expand on that subject. I think at times I may come off as thinking there is only one right way to write them and everything else is wrong. Well, no, I don't actually believe that's true. Based on the movies we can infer how we think they would react in certain situations, but there are a whole bunch of things that never really come up and we are left to our own devices to figure out based on what we know of them how we think they'd react when something new comes up.

I think I've said before that in my head I have my own, personal ideas on how I think things went down behind the scenes and what I see happening after the movies. Yes, I have a broader outline leaving out a lot of the details, but it is my preferable interpretation of how things played out. That said, I've read lots of different stories with very different ideas from my own but I still find them to be "in character" because the author has done a good job of making me believe that Han and/or Leia would say and do these things that I might not have necessarily believed to be true. I can buy them though because they are written well and it still "feels" like them in the situation.

Of course there are also those stories that have different ideas than my own but at the same time the characters just don't sound like the ones I know from the movies. An easy example of this I think is if sometime before The Empire Strikes Back Leia just takes it upon herself to jump Han's bones at the first available opportunity. The Leia we see at the beginning of the movie does not give us any indication that she would throw herself at him, so to me, it doesn't make sense. That said, there are always exceptions to this. Cindy Olsen has a story on Corellian Embassy called "Just Friends" in which Han and Leia decide to have sex just as friends, almost as though he's doing her a favor. If you haven't read it, then the premise doesn't really sound quite like it would work. And in the wrong hands it probably wouldn't have. But it is done in such a way that she makes me believe that it could've happened that way.

So yes, deciding what is in character and what isn't definitely isn't always black and white. That's what makes it so much more challenging sometimes to get them right. I mean, depending on the story you're telling it's entirely possible that you could write them acting in a few entirely different ways in the same situation and any one of them seems plausible.

I know as a beta reader for a few people there have been a few times, not often, that I might point out I don't see one of them saying or doing something. I am often reluctant to point something like that out because I recognize that some of it can be only a matter of opinion rather than what I'd consider to be absolute "fact". Let's take the trip to Bespin, for example. I realize there is almost nobody left who is with me on this one, but I don't think they had sex there. One of the main reasons being if you watch the movie it just doesn't look like the trip takes very long! I also, personally feel as though Leia wouldn't want to have sex with him without knowing there was going to be some sort of commitment or having told him she loves him and hearing it back. Again, this is all merely my personal interpretation.

Of course I've read many stories that completely differ from my opinion here. Does it mean that I can't enjoy them or find them out of character? No. Some people will say that maybe Leia doesn't care about any of that and wants to just once live for the moment and have something to remember him by. And yes, perhaps I can see that, too. Maybe they've already professed their love for one another during the trip because it takes weeks. As long as the author presents it in a plausible way, I am not going to see it as out of character. Merely as a different interpretation of the same events. Although the specifics to the scenario have been changed.

That said, you could probably take the trip to Bespin scenario and write it in a totally implausible way in which they have sex. Example being maybe the very first night Leia decides she's bored and goes to Han and just says, let's do it, or something to that effect. I don't really care how good a writer you are, that particular scenario I definitely do not see happening. In Han or Leia's fantasy world, maybe, but to me that does seem out of character.

Does any of this make any sense to anyone? I'm starting to wonder if I'm making myself clear. The point is that while there are many different interpretations of how we can perceive these characters, you must be careful that they still sound and act like the Han and Leia (and whoever else) we see in the movies. To whomever might be writing them, this might mean slightly different things.

So like Push said in a comment earlier, it would be pretty boring if every story was the same and the characters were always interpreted exactly the same way. So if you're writing something and maybe it doesn't read like my Han and Leia or Push's Han and Leia or anyone else's Han and Leia, maybe that's okay. If that is how you've interpreted the characters, then go with it. I think this line can become especially difficult to find if you're writing a serious AU story. Sometimes the characters really only have the same names and obviously look like the ones in the movies, but really you might as well have written an original story with original characters.

Anyway, the point is, there is some room to play with here. You don't have to write them exactly like everyone else does but you should at least be prepared to back it up with a plausible scenario and set of actions. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I know that I played with writing them a bit differently than my normal stance in my "Forgotten Needs" story. Honestly, I don't really like it. It was my attempt at writing things as less than perfect but it was so far off my own ideas of how things turn out that the whole thing felt contrived and at times a bit out of character. I don't really think that Leia would be that clueless and later almost heartless and I don't think Han is the type to sit around feeling sorry for himself. But, well, I tried. So don't try to interpret them differently just for the sake of it because sometimes that doesn't work out so well either!

Anyway, write, explore, do some different stuff. Just make sure you go to the effort to make us believe that the Han and Leia you're writing about are the same ones we've seen in the movies.

PSA: The Possible Dangers of Internet Searching

I've been around fanfic for almost as long as I've been around the internet. That means that I've read a lot of stuff from a lot of web sites, and obviously a lot of the same stuff over the years. I'm sure we all have stories that we like to go back to from time to time. But it's also nice to dicover new stuff, and not just the new stories that pop up on ff.net, but stuff that may be on some web site somewhere hiding that you hadn't even realized was there but could've been reading for years. So, on occasion, I get my Google on and search around to see if I can find any new stuff. I usually never have a problem I can't Google my way out of.

Well, sometimes I have some luck and do find some story somewhere that I hadn't read before that I really liked. Often these are found on live journals because I just never think to look there and have no idea how to sift through that stuff. Almost seems a shame that they're so well hidden. I know there are some good stories at theforce.net but again, I just don't have the patience to sift through hundreds of pages of stories in the hopes that I might find a good Han and Leia one in there somewhere. I feel like if someone writes a really good one, it should exist somewhere else even though I know that is not always the case. I've definitely found a few gems over there that I'd never seen anywhere else.

Then, well, sometimes these searches don't go as well. Now, I don't want to personally insult anyone if you happen to be into, I'll say, different kinds of Star Wars stories. But if you're here on this site reading this blog then I feel as though chances are you're probably going to agree with me when I say that one thing I'm looking for in a Han and Leia story is for the characters to actually act like Han and Leia. And this goes for the other characters in the movies, too.

Recently I've stumbled across a few web sites that I'd never heard of before. To be fair, some of them actually have some quality stories that are posted elsewhere. But they also seem to have an overwhelming number of stories with some content I really wish I'd never read. Now, I'm sure all of us (who are of "legal" age - you young teenagers stop reading this stuff!) enjoy reading some Han and Leia sexy time on occasion, especially if it makes sense within the context of the story and is done tastefully and doesn't just seem to come off as pornographic. I honestly struggle with finding the right line there myself in my own writing which is why in the future I may just choose to leave the sex out all together, but anyway...

Okay, that makes sense to me. But it seems that there are quite a few people who feel differently on the subject. They'd rather take these characters, pretty much in name only because the ones they're writing about don't seem to have any other resemblance to those we see on screen, and write them in some scenarios I personally just don't want to be reading about. Just ask Push how often I e-mail her and tell her about some horrible story I just found after having gotten all excited to have found a new fanfic site. Luke and Leia stories, Luke and Han stories, even Leia and Chewie stories! I don't understand the appeal and yet somehow I always seem to wind up in the middle of some story that starts out innocently enough and suddenly out of nowhere clothes start coming off and my curiosity makes me at least scroll down and catch a few important words here and there that let me know that yes, they're actually doing what I think they're doing and I just have to get out of there as fast as I can. This sort of thing can also occur with an innocent Google image search except those get you when you're least expecting it and certain images are forever trapped in my mind.

So, please, be careful in your internet searches that you don't wind up reading something you probably don't want to be reading. Or maybe you are interested in that sort of thing and I guess that's your business, but for a lot of us we just don't want to read about the explicit tortures Leia endured while a slave at Jabba's.

As a side note, will someone explain to me what the fascination is people have with slash? Let me just say that it is not the same-sex nature of the relationship that bothers me. There are homosexual couples out there and I get that. That's fine. What I don't get is taking heterosexual characters from the movies and placing them in same-sex relationships. Again, to me this just goes along with my desire to have the characters in my stories as much like the characters in the movies that I see. And at no point in time do I see Han and Luke eyeing each other and waiting to sneak off for a secret tryst. And come on, let's face it, even if they were gay Han could do a whole lot better ;)

Anyway, beware your internet searches! If you come across a site that you've never seen before or have never been referred to, there's probably a reason for that. That said, these stories can certainly sneak up on you almost anywhere, but they are more prominent on some sites than others. I mean, on some it makes up almost the entire content. Be careful out there, kids.

Have We Inspired You Yet?

Okay, had to bring back the Han and Leia pics. I don't have a whole lot to say today, but I realized it had been a week since we'd updated and we can't have that! Need to keep the material fresh if people are going to stay interested.

I have noticed something since we started writing this blog. It seems that the number of Han and Leia stories popping up over on ff.net have drastically increased. About a year and a half ago I started checking there almost every day for new stories. It would routinely be days between updates, sometimes over a week. Lately it's rare that something new doesn't pop up at least every twenty-four hours. When I would finish a story a year ago it would've stayed probably in the top five for a couple of weeks and would take months to fall off the first page. Now it only takes a couple of weeks!

Maybe this is purely coincidence, but I do feel as though as soon as we started asking for new stories, we started to get them. I used to read each new thing the minute it popped up and now it takes me a while because I am having a hard time keeping up. It's a nice change and it's great to see so many new writers out there. And please, don't be afraid to comment here and say hello!

I think that the publishing of more stories can inpsire others as well. If you stumble upon a fandom that hasn't had a new story in like a year then I bet you'd be more reluctant to want to post something there. Who would even know to look for it? An active community certainly leads to more participation. So thank you all for keeping things going. I love that there are still things to talk about with this couple that has been around even longer than I have.

*Edit to add*

Oh, finally! This is totally unrelated to this post, but I recently I mentioned a story in which it had Han being the virgin and Leia offering to, well, help him with that. Don't get too excited because we don't get to read about the fun stuff, but I at least found it: http://tarrantnostra.com/pat/nussman/inrights.htm

Should We Be Ashamed of Ourselves?

Wow, another "just Han" pic.  We need to be careful, we may be making some sort of statement here.

So, anyway, Zyra and I were talking the other day about what great lengths we go through NOT to be discovered as Han and Leia fanatics.  We both came to the conclusion that it is fairly silly that we are so worried about being discovered.  It's not as if we are committing a crime.  We aren't stalking young kids and trying to give them candy with razor blades in it.  We aren't stealing anything or cheating on our significant others.  It's all rather funny when you think about.  (Which I did.)

So, all that got me thinking about when and where everyone else writes their fanfic stories.  If most of us are so deathly afraid of getting found out, where do you write?  When do you write?  And where do you keep your stories?

First of all, I don't even like to write in front of my husband, even though he knows what a nerd I am and knows that I write Star Wars stories.  I find it a little disconcerting to write with anyone in the same room with me, especially if I'm writing a 'special' scene.  Man, when I'm writing those scenes it feels like the walls have eyes.  But I have been known to sit on the sofa with both of my kids and write while 'watching' Hannah Montana or other such quality television.  (You all have discovered my secret, everyone switch to Disney Channel right now!)

Second of all, I can write just about anywhere.  I don't need to be sitting at a desk.  (And let's just clarify when I say 'write' I don't mean a pen and paper - we are talking about typing on a laptop.)  I have written in my bed, lying back with my computer on my bent knees, on the sofa, at the dining room table and I even write at a desk sometimes while I'm at lunch at work (I always close my door.)  Where I am doesn't seem to matter as much to me as who is around me.

Third, I keep all my secret Star Wars stuff on a thumb drive that I backup to my personal laptop at home.  (No, I don't have Star Wars stories on my work computer!)  I carry this little purple thumb drive around with me like it's made of solid gold.  I have nightmares sometimes about losing it.  Not really about losing my writing, because I back it up, but of somebody else plugging it into their computers and finding all of my stuff!

If someone requests to borrow my computer, I freeze up.  It's not just a matter of deleting my history.  I have a toolbar full of shortcuts to Han and Leia pages, my background is Star Wars, my screensaver is Star Wars.  It's just all too much to hide!  But, honestly I don't try TOO hard to hide my love of Star Wars in general, I save all that work for hiding the fact that I write all these stories.  I think that would push it over the edge for my friends.  But maybe not.  I'll probably never know.

Sometimes when I'm driving I'll get a story idea (or in the middle of the night) and I'll record it on my voice recorder on my iPhone.  Those things I CANNOT wait to type up and delete.  Somebody accidentally listening to that would be mortifying.  "And then Han says to Leia..."  Oh yes, my friends would jump all over that!

So, where do you guys write?  Does anyone else know that you do?  Do you also go to great lengths to hide your dirty little secret?  And finally, what do you think?  Should we be ashamed of ourselves???

Whatever happened to...

Am I allowed to do a picture of just Han? I suppose I'm the one who makes the rules, so I say it's ok.

Have I sufficiently scared most of you away with promises of tearing your stories apart and criticizing them? I hope not. Again, I was reluctant to even post that because I certainly don't want to discourage people. I just want you to want to be good.

I'm going to assume that most of us started this whole thing as readers rather than writers. While I'm sure there are people out there who decided once upon a time to sit down and start writing their own little stories just for fun only to later discover that other people had been doing the same thing. However, with the prominence of the internet now in our everyday lives I think it's safe to say that we all read fanfic before we started writing it. Or at least those of us here now reading this blog, because the "old school" writers who were doing this before I could read or write...or even walk or talk, seem to have all moved on, whether that be to other fandoms, moving on with life, waning interest, lack of time or maybe finally growing up.

Now, I discovered fanfic in either 1998 or 1999, so over the years I've come across a lot of stories and a lot of different web sites. There have been huge changes in internet use since I started reading. When I first went to college, I only occasionally used my roommate's computer to type papers and stuff and rarely went on the internet just to "play" but rather to do research. I mean, we were all assigned school e-mail addresses but I didn't even set mine up until the next year because it just hadn't become the main means of communication. I even wrote actual letters to friends! The following year I had a computer and found that fanfic I hadn't even realized was there, and by the time I graduated I couldn't imagine what life would be like if I didn't have access to e-mail and instant messaging (remember AOL and leaving away messages? I do) or of course, fanfic or other fun, entertaining sites to share similar interests with people.

Because there was a big change in how the internet was used over the years, there are a lot of web sites out there that I used to go to for my fanfic that simply no longer exist. Sometimes this isn't a big deal because the stories can be found elsewhere on a current site, or you can still access it through a wonderful tool called the Wayback Machine. The only problem there is that you have to know the exact url to get to the page. This works to in order to get to a main page and then it can link you to further stories.

Back in "the day" there were several web sites out there devoted to Han and Leia fans. In fact, if I remember correctly, there was even a Han and Leia webring... back when they had those. Unfortunately, slowly but surely, most of these web sites disappeared along with most of their content. Even more unfortunately, a lot of them were hosted on things like geocities which is now defunct and even utilizing the Wayback Machine can't revive them. This is upsetting. Even more upsetting is I don't specifically recall a lot of the stories that were on there and don't really remember the good stuff I've been missing out on.

Also, some of you may not even be aware of this, but way, way back, in the time when people used typewriters instead of computers, the only way for people to share their fanfic was through fanzines. These were fan-published works usually based on a specific movie or TV show (Star Wars, Star Trek, whatever) and honestly I don't even know how they got the word out for submissions and to get people to buy them. I guess conventions and old fashioned US mail, but I'm sure there were tons of people who would've been interested had they just known this stuff existed. There's some interesting info about the early days of Star Wars fanzines but it's too much to get into here and if anyone really wants to know I could put it in another post, but that would be getting off track.

I actually did order a few fanzines even when I could get stuff on the internet. A lot of times stuff wasn't available online and you could usually be assured that you were going to get nothing but quality stories if they went to the trouble of submitting, editors, printing and such. But after three fanzine purchases I went on a bit of a lull in my Han and Leia obsessiveness and it just didn't occur to me to buy one again. It would be pretty cool to get a hold of some old fanzines though and get to read some of these stories I've heard about but are not available online. I know we all love trip to Bespin stories, and the first such of these is the source of quite a controversy when it first came out... you know, before ROTJ and definitely before I could read or probably had even seen a Star Wars movie yet.

If you've only been reading fanfic as of recently, you probably have no idea what I'm taking about. But I'd be curious to hear if anyone remembers any sites similar to what I'm talking about. The first Star Wars fanfic site I found was fanfix.com. It still amazes me that this site is no longer up and running just due to the vast amount of stories archived there. However, the fact that it is no longer running is not so upsetting due to the fact that you can still access the content through the wayback machine. It is not Han and Leia specific, so you have so sift through a lot, and many of the stories can be found elsewhere, but still not a bad place to look. Although I do remember the first time I went there I think I just went alphabetically, clicked on the first story I saw and it was a Luke/Leia story. And I don't mean in a brotherly/sisterly sort of way. Ask Push about my luck with clicking on things I wish I could get out of my head. It's amazing.

I actually would've had fanfic published long before 2009 if one of these sites in particular hadn't gone under. I had submitted two stories for consideration at maybe hansoloandtheprincess.com, I don't remember which one exactly. But between my getting a beta read done and editing, poof, the site was gone. Probably a good thing, as I had LOTS of extra time to edit them and fix them and make them at least slightly better... though not by much considering it was probably six years worth of time I could've edited them to be absolutely amazing rather than amazingly mediocre.

Anyway, there was hanandleia.com, hansoloandtheprincess.com and others that I can't quite remember right now. There are also vague remembrances of stories that I can no longer find anywhere but really want to be able to. Has anyone ever heard of the story written by "Pebbles" called "Exile"? It is a pretty epic story in which Han and Leia have their usual first three kids, but then they have a fourth on Endor and, well, some crazy stuff happens and there's some evil forces and what not. We can find all but two chapters of that story. So if anyone has a complete version, that would be helpful.

There are actually a few threads over on NHP asking for missing fanfics and some are found and some, sadly, are not. Although almost as tragic as the lost fanfics are the tragically unfinished fanfics. I'm not talking about the ones where someone pops up on ff.net and posts two or three (rather incoherent) chapters and then disappears soon after. I'm talking about epic stories that we as readers have invested ourselves in only to finish reading the last posted chapter and suddenly get that sick feeling in your stomach when you realize, wait, it's not finished? Even worse when you realize that the last chapter was added in, say, 2004 and it's not looking good for it to be finished anytime soon.

Leela Starsky has one of these on her site. Limelight has "The Not Quite Love Letters." I think KnightedRogue has one on ff.n. And I'm willing to bet that most of us have come across probably what I feel is the most tragically unfinished, being "While You Were Gone." It's something like 80,000 words and a very compelling story in which Han was in carbonite for seven years before he's found and of course Leia has moved on with her life and is about to get married, but she has a son. Honestly, it's good enough that knowing what I know now I'd still read it even if I knew it would never get finished, but it ends at a terrible place and I can't stand that it's been sitting there for as long as Han was supposedly trapped in carbonite in it.

I hate unfinished stories. One piece of advice I would offer you as a writer is don't start what you can't finish. Don't write a chapter of your story and then immediately post it and certainly don't start soliciting advice on what people want to see next. This is not choose your own adventure, you're supposed to be writing the story. You can ask for help from a few specific, trusted individuals, but don't leave it up to the masses. Although I suppose since there are only like five of us, the "masses" maybe wouldn't ruin your story, but still. There are exceptions to this though, I think. Over on NHP it is considered more of a workshoppy environment in which people do sometimes ask for that sort of advice, but I wouldn't throw it out anywhere else, really.

My usual method of posting a story is to write at least several chapters before I start posting so I'm not waiting to post the last one because I simply haven't written it yet. This always seems to work out to the posting catching up to the writing and inevitably I end up in that place I didn't want to be anyway, but it's at least a good starting point. Ideally, I think it would be nice to complete the story before starting to post at all. But I have always found that posting chapters and getting feedback is more motivating to the writing than just holding it all back for a big reveal at the end. Plus, I think people can absorb these stories better if they get them in pieces rather than suddenly being whacked in the face with a 50,000 word story that pops up out of nowhere and you then have to decide whether or not you want to invest the time necessary to read it. Rather than seeing a new story is posted, reading the first chapter and thinking, hmmm... when more of this is posted, I'm going to read it when I have that spare fifteen minutes.

I got a little offtrack there and this was supposed to be about not finishing stories! Anyway, always go with the intent of finishing. Have a plan in mind before you start posting. Yes, it's ok sometimes to not have an ending in mind especially as these things can sometimes take on a life of their own, but at least have a general idea of where you're going. If I ever started a story I couldn't finish I think I'd either take it down or even pass it along to someone else who was interested in finishing it. Anything else is just torture to the rest of us who are trying to read complete stories! I really wish that Stoned Rose would just tell someone how that story was supposed to end and let them write it if she's not willing to.

All right, once again I've veered off track and gone on too long. So I'll ask you all, is there any story out there that you remember and can't find or any story left unfinished that really, really needs to be finished? Oh, and one last piece of advice I've only recently taken to: if you find a story you really enjoy, save it to your computer in some sort of document so if the web site suddenly disappears you still have a copy. I wish I had started way back saving stories and putting a little description at the top as to why I decided it was worth saving. Sometimes I'll have a story on my favorites but I can't remember what happens in it. So a simple note like, "The AU story where Han and Leia are forced to get married on the female-dominant planet" or "Leia gets kidnapped and Han has to trade himself for her" will suffice. One of those is real by the way, the other I made up. Although the one I made up certainly might be real anyway, I don't claim to have read everything.

I swear I'm done now!

Learning to Accept Constructive Criticism

I think one of the hardest things to learn from when you start writing is how to accept constructive criticism. I think no matter what we write, whether an assignment from school or a personal account of something that happened to you or a fictional story about two movie characters, writing still feels like a very personal thing. It's like putting yourself out there and if it doesn't get the reaction you were hoping for, it can feel like it is an attack on you as a person. I think it's very easy to get a single negative comment that makes you question what you've put out there and can quite possibly make you never want to share anything you've written ever again. In fairness, some people don't know how to pose a criticism constructively and I can sometimes see why it would make someone want to forget about writing entirely. But, sometimes, what they really want to do is help you be better by pointing something out that is detracting from what is otherwise a good story.

The thing is, I don't think anyone bothers to point out the small things unless they actually think it will make the story better. I've come across quite a few stories where I can tell the writer has real potential but they are making certain mistakes that are just too distracting that they take away almost any possible enjoyment of the story.

By that, I mean things that take you out of what you're reading. Sometimes it's incredibly simple stuff, like a spelling error. If you're writing about how, "Leai went over and took Han's hand in hers," you're going to lose me for a little bit because I'm going to be annoyed that Leia was spelled wrong. Or if you say someone "should of" done something, I'm going to probably not absorb the next few words because I'm going to be thinking that it was supposed to be should have. These little mistakes tell me that the writer didn't bother to re-read and edit their story, and why do I want to spend my time reading something from someone who is unwilling to take the time to make sure these little mistakes were corrected? And I'm not talking about one or two mistakes in a story, because we all have those. I'm talking about the stories that have all sorts of little mistakes throughout which completely take me out of what I'm reading and have me wanting to go grab my red marker. (or type in red font)

So, if you are going to take the time to post something, don't just write it and post it! Edit! Re-read it! Let someone else take a look at it! And definitely don't put an author's note in the beginning telling everyone, "Oh, I just threw this together and it's not very good." How is that supposed to entice us to read it? If you're already telling me you didn't waste much time writing it how do you expect anyone else to waste time reading it? Let us formulate our own opinions. I know this is probably a not-so-subtle way for people to look for validation, but it is not the best way to go about it. Let the writing speak for itself. I can understand that sometimes something spews out of your head, through your fingers and onto the computer screen so fast you just want to get it out there and don't want to be bothered taking the time to edit or anything, but patience is usually rewarded. And why would you not want your writing to be as good as it can possibly be?

I think one important thing to do is to think of it all as a learning process, especially when you're first getting started. A lot of us maybe haven't written much since we were in school and even then we just weren't taught a lot of these sorts of concepts. I know that I was taught a fair amount of creative writing in school, but I'm wondering if that's really the norm anymore or if you're all just stuck writing annoying research papers and essays on books you were forced to read which is obviously a very different kind of writing. You you have to want to learn and not be afraid to find out that something you wrote isn't quite correct. Again, this does not mean you're stupid or wrong or not smart. It just maybe means you haven't learned that yet, or weren't taught it in such a way that you truly understood it and learned how to use it correctly from then on. I mean, I swear I think it was barely more than a year ago that I found out that it's not, "All of the sudden" but rather "All of a sudden." Does that make me an idiot? Maybe, but mostly it just means that I had believed it to be one way all these years and nobody ever bothered to correct me.

I can tell someone that a paragraph break is in the wrong place or they are using punctuation wrong around those quotation marks, but it does them a lot more good if I explain why that is the case so they are more likely to learn it, understand it, and do it correctly later. I mentioned in an earlier post that Digs' first several pages of her story were absolutely littered with corrections, and on a lot of them I went to great lengths to explain why things were wrong because she seemed to do them a lot. Again, it wasn't so much the writing but the technical details like paragraph breaks and punctuation. It didn't take long before she wasn't making those mistakes anymore and by the last few pages of her story, I hardly had to correct anything! Well, I suppose it depended on how late into the night she was writing ;)

Once again, there are a lot of people out there writing who frustrate me because I can tell that they have potential to write great stories, they're just doing some little things that detract me too much from really enjoying what they've written. So, please take the extra time to make your story as good as it can be. Learn how to write well. You know, if that's what you actually want to do. Learn to listen to people when they are trying to help you and don't take constructive criticism personally. Anyone taking the time to comment isn't trying to attack you as a person, they just think that maybe next time you might want to use your/you're correctly. Some of you may think I sound petty for getting annoyed by such things, but I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who finds those types of errors distracting when reading. And it does take away from what might otherwise be a totally enjoyable story.

Another issue is point of view. I think that most of us write in third person, but usually even in this situation you want to write as though you are seeing it through the eyes of only one of the characters in the scene. You can switch back and forth between maybe two, but it should be clear when you do that. Maybe not necessarily putting a line or a chapter break, but at least having a new paragraph. And it gets very confusing if you start writing things from several people's points of view. As in, if you had Luke, Leia and Han in a scene and you have what Han is thinking at one point, then how Leia is annoyed with Han and then Luke thinking about how those two just need to kiss already. It's one of those things you might not even notice until someone points it out (I know I didn't) but once you do notice, it does become distracting if someone is writing from the perspective of too many characters at once.

At the same time, it is very important when helping someone correct mistakes to point out the good things so that they aren't so focused on what's wrong with it. Usually the good outweighs the bad, or else it probably wouldn't even be worth pointing out the bad stuff, and it's nice for someone to hear that a certain line or paragraph was really well written and enjoyed, or a certain reaction from one of the characters. I think we're all a lot more apt to accept criticism when we do see that there are things that are perceived as having been well done within our stories.

It's tough for all of us to accept criticism, even when we know it's good for us. Ask Push about when I sent her the first sex scene for my last story. I felt like she had stabbed me in the heart (ok, maybe not that bad... actually, later she said she felt like she had just run over my dog or something) I think those scenes can feel a lot more personal, so when you get feedback on them that is anything less than glowing, we tend to shut down and just want to forget the whole thing. I know better, and I know I shouldn't have taken it personally, but I did. But we worked through it and got what I have up there now. Of course by reacting like that initially it also makes your editor afraid to point out things from then on for fear you'll go jump off a cliff or something (or something less dramatic). But you don't want that, either. I don't want her to be afraid to point things out because if it's worth pointing out, it's probably something other people would notice and something that should be changed and the piece is only going to be better for it.

In fact, I actually agonized over writing this post, believe it or not. More than anything, I just want to see more good writers coming into the Han and Leia fandom. And I want more interaction between all of us. So I want people to take the time to learn to be good writers. I do not pretend to know everything and I hope that I am not coming across as some know-it-all who thinks she is the queen of fanfic. (that would be a fun job, though) I'm just pointing out some things that I've learned along the way and hope that others can learn from as well. And I'll be the first to admit that I'm much better at pointing out these sorts of things in other people's stories than I am with writing my own stuff. Honestly, some of the people I've been editing for have turned into such great writers I wonder why I should bother with my own stuff anymore!

So, just like the main theme of this post, please take this in the spirit in which it is intended: to make you learn to be a better writer. Just some thing to think about. None of us are perfect and we can always strive for improvement. I've been grateful for all of the things I've learned along the way and hopefully you will be the same. Blind praise may make us feel good, but it doesn't help us get better. And who doesn't want to be better?

May the Fourth Be With You!

See? Leia is excited about Star Wars Day. And Lando just wants to drink his coffee out of that stylish 70's mug.

In case you were not aware, today is Star Wars Day! May the fourth, May the Force, get it? Somehow, I was not made aware of this day until last year and feel I've missed out on years of connecting with my fellow geeks. Although I suppose in the past I hadn't been on facebook or anything so I wouldn't have known who to commiserate with anyway. It does tend to bring out the other geeks you weren't aware of. If you're on facebook, you might be surprised which friends of yours will acknowledge it. I may have to continue to lie low, though, as I don't want anyone to be on to me ;)

This year's May the Fourth has even larger significance though because it means we were finally told what special features to expect on the upcoming September release of all six Star Wars films on Blu-Ray! Like any good nerd, I was on my computer and watching the countdown clock tick down to zero at 9am... at which point nothing happened. There seemed to be a bit of a glitch on the web site and I had to switch browsers but eventually I did get to see what I had been waiting for. The full details can be found on starwars.com but highlights are some new documentaries, addition of commentary that is taken from archival interviews and such from the actors way back when (presumably talking about certain scenes as we are watching them) and deleted and alternate scenes with never-before-seen footage.

I'd be far more excited about this if I knew exactly what kind of deleted scenes we're talking about here. In the meantime, without knowing the full details, I suppose we can spend some time fantasizing about what kind of deleted scenes there might be that we have never seen before. If you haven't seen it yet, a few months ago they already released a clip that had never before been seen that was of Luke building his new lightsaber in the beginning of ROTJ. I'm not so blinded by my Han and Leia love that I was not able to enjoy and appreciate some new Luke footage, but at the same time, I want some extra Han and Leia stuff! I am maintaining some sense of optimism that maybe, just maybe, there exists footage of alternate takes of their first kiss on the Falcon that we have some pictures of in the Making of The Empire Strikes Back book that if you don't have already, you must buy as soon as possible. I'm not kidding. I can also hold out hope that maybe somewhere there was once a deleted sex scene between them... but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. And when I relayed my ideas to Push, she told me that the best I could probably hope for was an extra kiss between Luke and Leia. There is footage that suggests that that indeed was filmed. And let me be the first to say that I sincerely hope that those scenes are not included on the Blu-Ray.

There were also rumors circulating that they actually shot a Han and Leia wedding for the end of ROTJ, but as much as I'd like to believe that's true, I just sincerely doubt that that ever actually happened. Although wouldn't that throw a huge wrench in the EU? Although they could always pretend that Ewok law does not extend throughout the galaxy and it didn't really count. I almost can't believe I'm even contemplating this right now...

No matter what, I'm so excited for the Blu-Rays that I think I'm even going to watch the prequels. Yes, I'm not kidding. I actually think the third one is decent. Except I can't really remember because I haven't watched it in its entirety for probably at least five years. I don't recall at all really what the second one is about, just that Obi-Wan has a stupid beard, Anakin and Padme's "romance" makes me want to throw up, Padme's shirt rips in a way that very conveniently perfectly exposes her midriff, and for some reason, even though Artoo can fly in these movies and acts like a superhero and space ships seem to actually have more advanced technology than they had twenty years later, apparently prosthetics were not particularly far along because Anakin's fake hand is something out of the dark ages when later on his son gets one that might as well be a real hand. Did anyone wonder why I haven't watched these in a while? Rest assured, I'm definitely watching the original trilogy first. I may have to carve out that entire week for only all things Star Wars.

So, in honor of Star Wars day, I was just curious how long all of you had been obsessed with the movies? My level of obsession has varied over the years, but I'd say it's been a part of my life for literally almost my entire life. I know when I was a kid we had ESB on tape that we recorded off HBO and I watched that one the most and wrote my little illustrated version (I can still picture some of the illustrations in my head, like Leia flailing her arms when Han was flying into the asteroid field... man I wish I still had that!) In the beginning though, I don't think I gave a second thought to the romance side of things. In fact, I'm almost afraid to admit this, but when we used to play Star Wars when I was really little, when we used to use wiffle ball bats as lightsabers, I always wanted to be... Luke. Please, don't judge me. I was like six and I didn't know any better. The important thing is that eventually I did come to my senses, probably sometime around when I started to notice boys and thought, wow, Han really is super hot, isn't he? So eventually I did start being Leia when we played, and my brother was Luke because... well, he's my brother.

I'm sure in my early adolescence there was a large dip in my obsession because there wasn't much Star Wars goodness to go around. The EU books had started to come out, but I was not aware of their existence and still had not discovered that books that were not assigned by teachers were sometimes actually fun to read. We didn't have internet so I wasn't looking at web sites or anything. Then, in 1995, my chance finding of that paperback Courtship of Princess Leia on a trip to some random store with my mom. At the time, I thought it was the greatest discovery ever. Give me a break, I was a teenager and it was the first thing I got to see outside of the movies and maybe this Star Wars card game that my brother used to play with my cousins, sort of like that "Magic" card game, but Star Wars. And, thankfully, one of my cousins had most of the other books that had already been published so I could get through them all pretty quick. Enter the internet, my discovery of fanfic, and I have never been the same. I actually sometimes wonder if my life would be different if it weren't for George Lucas... or Harrison Ford. Because honestly, I sincerely doubt I'd be this obsessed with Han and Leia if Christopher Walken had gotten that part. Let's not try and think about it.

So, Happy Star Wars Day! Enjoy the geek camaraderie, bask in your obsessiveness. Read some fanfic and get excited for September! May the Fourth Be With You!

Side note: my spell check does not recognize the word internet. Seriously? It doesn't recognize Ewok or lightsaber either, but come on!

Do You Want to Talk About It?

I love writing. You probably don't need to have me tell you that to know it. Otherwise why would I spend so much of my time doing it for free? I usually write every day in some capacity, even if it isn't fanfic. It's been a part of my life ever since I learned how to do it, probably. By the time I was eight I had written a few illustrated books, including my own version of The Empire Strikes Back which I'm incredibly sad to say is likely lost forever :(

Now, some of the stuff I write is just for me, but my fan fiction I like to put out there and get feedback on. I don't do it for accolades and awards (I don't think there are awards) but pretty much the only satisfaction we get as writers is feedback from readers. And let me just tell you that there is nothing more demoralizing than receiving dead silence when you post something. I've been there, and I'm sure some of you have, too. I'm sure there are many people who have no idea that their silence tends to crush our souls as writers. To most of us, silence seems to scream, "This isn't even worth the time and energy required to tell you it sucks."

Now, there's a good chance that's not at all what you are saying with your silence, but that is how it's often misconstrued. Maybe you just don't feel you have anything to contribute or your opinion is meaningless. It's not. I promise. You have no idea how good it feels to have someone tell you they enjoyed what they read. I know sometimes people will list my story as one of their favorites without ever reviewing a chapter or saying a word to me. While that is also appreciated, I'd like to know why it's considered one of your favorites. Because I swear, when some of you have literally five hundred stories listed as favorites I often wonder if you're just adding it to the list to keep track of what you've clicked on.

So here's the thing: once upon a time we used to go on forums and talk about Han and Leia and our stories. People used to review stuff and we had forged our own little community of writers and readers. Instead of closeted pen names and anonymous clicks, everyone was getting in on the conversations. Maybe I'm totally crazy, but I feel like maybe there are a lot of Han and Leia fans out there who would love to have this sort of interaction become the norm once again. The thing is, we've been silent for so long that everyone just assumes that nobody out there is interested anymore so they're not talking. So maybe if we all started talking a bit more, then more people would be encouraged to speak up and join in. Again, this is only a theory, and the silence very well could be that there is just literally nobody but me, Push, our ff.net reviewers and our nine followers who actually care in the slightest anymore.

I was thinking about this because of the comments that have been left on the "My One and Only" post. It seems that people are leaving the Han and Leia fandom to escape to other places where people are actually giving feedback. That's a real shame, I think. Part of it might just be sheer numbers, because I'm sure there could quite possibly be a thousand times more people reading Harry Potter than there are reading Han and Leia and the same percentage of those people are commenting, but there's just a way larger pool of people to pull from. But we're going to lose a lot of good writers and potential for great stories if nobody ever speaks up and lets us know that we're not just talking to ourselves.

So I'd encourage you "lurkers" to speak up and say something. Do you actually want to talk with other Han and Leia fans or are you content with just being a casual observer? It's always great to hear from people whether it's about our stories or just about Han and Leia in general. I still check in on Nerfherder's Playground in the hopes that someone might bring some of those old conversations back to light. Several years ago we used to have some fun conversations. Maybe it's that everyone else decided to grow up and move on and I'm still holding on. But unfortunately the older I get, the more apparent it seems that I will never grow up, so I'm just going to have to keep trying!

So lurkers, come on out! Comment on this post! Review a story! Start or contribute to a thread on Nerfherder's Playground! We won't bite, I promise! And it's always good to "talk" to people about our similar obsessions. Makes us feel less alone in the world :)