Chuck Wendig is the author of Star Wars: Aftermath, the first novel in a series of books and comics that together will take readers on an epic journey leading up to the release of "Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens" (available now!):
The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Emperor killed, and Darth Vader struck down. Devastating blows against the Empire, and major victories for the Rebel Alliance. But the battle for freedom is far from over.
As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but he’s taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.
Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical-genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.
I recently caught up with Chuck for a conversation bout his writing career and the thrill of telling a story in the Star Wars universe. Enjoy our spoiler-free chat below! You’re a writer’s writer. Your website has become a real resource online for people hoping to get into the business. How did that all start? It started many, many years ago with ‘me yelling at me’ into the void about my own writing. My writing advice is always ‘me talking to me’ about things that are on my mind. Ultimately, that became a spectator sport for people to watch and hopefully help them as well. Is there a degree of getting to know yourself that is important for any writer? Yes, it’s absolutely important. We spend so long trying to find ourselves and find our own voice, when ultimately, at the end of the day, we are our own voice and we are ourselves that we’ve worked so hard to not be. It’s a long process to get back to us and it involves writing a whole lot of stuff and doing it poorly and failing. Failing is something that we think is a zero-sum, bad news kind of thing, but really failure is its own kind of instruction manual: We need to do that, and that’s how we get there. You’ve written a lot of original fiction. What is it like playing in a giant sandbox like Star Wars? It’s awesome, because I’ve been mentally playing in that sandbox for more than 30 years. It’s cool to be able to take all of the stuff that’s been in my head for decades, and put it on paper, officially—like officially in a canon way, that’s crazy! Tell me about your early Star Wars experiences. Do you recall the moment when you became a fan? I first saw "Empire Strikes Back" when I was four years-old at a drive-in theater. My sister was going on a date, and the date brought his little brother and she brought her little brother, who was me. They, of course, probably made out, and I watched the movie. Now my son is four, and that’s kind of a nice full-circle moment for me because he’s getting into Star Wars right now. Last question: Do you have any advice for new writers? Finish what you started, because finishing is important on a practical level. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, and if you can’t figure out how to get to the end then you can’t be a writer.
