I'm a big Star Wars fan. There's tons of anti imperialism and I love the visual aesthetic, but I always felt we should see the empire doing some actual imperialism, with actual atrocities and the effects of financial imperialism like america does today. I wanted to try my hand at world building so I began writing a story that I felt scratched that itch with a 21st century understanding of technology. So andor comes out and I'm three episodes in and it's exactly what I wanted from the franchise so far.

I hardly felt like my story was going anywhere in terms of publishing or anything. I'm not a great writer, my allegories aren't elegant, and I'm sure it's unintentionally full of liberalism. Plus, like I said, it's almost Star Wars fanfiction. But I'm enjoying writing it and I would like to try to publish it since it's kind of written for bazinga brained libs to try to get them to look this stuff in the face, but I fear it's just going to be called derivative or compared to Andor.

I don't know, I'm going to keep at it. Worst case scenario I'll post it online. This was mostly a vent about losing my inspiration in a way.

Edit: I should be clear, it is not set in the star wars cannon, I'm just worried about it being compared to star wars and losing my own ambition.

  • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Tons of cool stuff started as a fan project and transformed into its own thing. It's not impossible to switch out some names and references to take it out of Star Wars and into its own distinct setting and canon.

    EDIT: you could also think of what taking it out of the SW setting could allow you to do, as in the new opportunities for characters and story beats that wouldn't work or make sense if it was still SW.

    • KnilAdlez [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I should be clear, it's not actually set in the star wars cannon, just inspired by it. I'm just worried that it'll come off with people thinking I'm just trying to rip off star wars.

      • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        So is there some significant thematic or stylistic difference you could try to emphasize to set it apart? Some significant wrinkle in the lore or world-mechanics that you could focus on?

        • KnilAdlez [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Eeh, hopefully. Largely, I kind of reject the force in my story, making (my version of) it into an allegory for Christianity and missionaries role in imperialism. But it is still mystical religion for guiding the protagonist so I'm not sure.

          • vertexarray [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            IMO it's fine for a work to be directly in conversation with another work. The Rainbow Rowell book Carry On pretty explicitly turns Harry Potter on its head in a direct reaction to its insufficiencies.

          • YoungSophocles [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            It could work as a deconstruction of the trope perhaps? If it isn’t already.