‘Dark Disciple’ Interview with Christie Golden

July 6, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in Books, Interview, Random House, Star Wars, Star Wars Books | 1 Comment

At Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, we were able to interview Star Wars: Dark Disciple author Christie Golden. Below you’ll find our transcript of the interview which covers her familiarity with The Clone Wars, how much of the scripts were utilized, and working with the story group with the new canon.

---

You’re next book is Dark Disciple, which will be out in July and will be starring Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. Up until this point, you’ve written all post-Return of the Jedi books, and this one will be during The Clone Wars. Did you have to do a lot of research in catching up with The Clone Wars episodes and the comics?

Christie Golden: Yes, I wasn’t familiar with them at all, and I had heard really good things about them, but it just hadn’t been something I’d invested the time in watching at that point. The nice thing about it is that it’s all really self-contained. There’s a finite number of episodes. I started watching it and I absolutely fell in love with it. What a great show. I’ve seen every episode and some of them more than once.

Now you’ve mentioned that the book will be based off of eight Clone Wars scripts. That seems like a lot of material to go off of. How much of those scripts wound up in the book?

CG: Most of them, honestly. Most of the events of the scripts did end up in the book. What a good novelization should do in my opinion is be true to the source material and be as complete as is reasonably possible, and then be able to expand on it. You can get into someone’s point of view, you can have extra scenes, you can bring extra resonances. A few things were changed because they would work more effectively in this medium in a different way, but it was great to have the source material because it was very very solid.

Did some of the dialog make it in as well?

CG: Almost all of it.

How was writing Dark Disciple different from a book like Ascension?

CG: Well Ascension, that whole experience, was pretty amazing, but very challenging to write–three books in a nine book series with two other authors and be the middle book each time–so you always had a ton at either end. So Dark Disciple was much more self-contained. It had a clear story arc, it was just the one project, and the only people that I had to work with were myself, Lucasfilm and Del Rey. It was not trying to coordinate with another creative party who was also doing his thing. So it was a little easier in that respect.

Was it different working with the story group with this one compared to the other ones?

CG: Yeah, the chain of command is very narrow, it’s very precise, so it did have to get cleared through more people now. But the nice thing about it is that when it’s okayed it’s okayed. There’s no going back and saying “Well, you know maybe someone else was this thing.” It’s like “there it is.” It’s very clear cut. That actually really does help keeping things on track.

While there is a divide by canon now, is there a similarity to Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos’ pairing to that of like Vestara Khai and Ben Skywalker?

CG: The difference I would say is…it seems similar on the surface, you think “Oh, it’s just going to be like this” but it’s not because there all such strong individual characters. Ben isn’t Quinlan, Vestara isn’t Ventress, although it sounds similar doesn’t it? But they are defintely their own people with their own experiences. So while I think there may be that touchstone of familiarity, I don’t think you’re going to see it play out in exactly the same way.

This being your fourth Star Wars novel, do you find yourself more comfortable at this point writing in the galaxy far, far away?

CG: I do. It was really kind of trial by fire because I had not kept up with the EU and there was so much to catch up on. This time because of the new direction, there is less material that I have to know solidly. Most of what I had to worry about was contained within The Clone Wars series, and once I had that, I had everything that I needed to do. So yes, I did find it easier.

---

To listen to the whole interview, you can click here.

To find out more about Star Wars: Dark Disciple, including excerpts and retailer links, click here to visit the official product page.

Posted By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.