When setting a story in a universe such as Star Wars, Mass Effect etc, are there any boundaries or rules I should follow? Some of my ideas, for instance, would add civilisations, characters and events. Is this allowed or frowned upon? Thanks. SGT
I don't think there are many rules for fanfiction, but it depends on what sort of fanfiction you are writing. I'm sure adding new civilisations, characters and events is fine, as none of it is official canon anyway (not even any stories you write featuring the known characters).
Depends on what your fan-fiction is going to be. Are you telling completely different stories in the same universe? Are you retelling the existing stories so that they turn out differently? It's not so much that there are rules in fan fiction, but once you decide where you want to take your fan-fiction, remain consistant. If these are utterly new stories it might be best that references to the existing canon remain canon. If you are going to retell an existing story, canon won't matter since the whole point is to go away from it.
That is why starwars is so huge, because people write their own content and it gets added to the starwars universe. It's my dream that one of my world's achieves sucha status. Evebn if I'm not getting rich off it.
Thanks for the replies. My Star Wars piece is set at a time when the Empire has split and follows a Stormtrooper from Andorra, a world that models itself on some Imperial ideals but not all of them. It explores his political and moral compass, rather than continue the saga. My problem was managing to convince the reader, especially a hard core fan of how Andorra was created. After all the "Empire" did take and retake the galaxy a few times after the films, which in theory would disrupt the birth of a new civilisation. Now that I don't feel as restricted, I could create new systems and characters who made it all possible. However, my Mass Effect idea does "retell" the third game. I can't decide whether to keep with my Commander Shepard or create a new character but basically a new human faction accidentally stumbles into our galaxy. The best way to describe them would be Krogens with Turian discipline - a very militarized people who come across as racist, "speciest" and arrogant, yet at the time respectful, loyal and very humble. With the war coming to a climax, the main effort is seeing how the two different forces interact. Will the main character manage to forge the most important alliance of all time? Or has be potentially discovered a new enemy? At the moment I'm trying to post small parts of my different ideas to see which one is considered the better idea, so I can finely concentrate on one at a time. I posted a piece in the humour section but have had nothing back. SGT. SGT.
