Later that year, Lucas hired science fiction author
Leigh Brackett to write
Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called
The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is very similar to the final film except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.
[28]
Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died from cancer.
[29] With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the "Episode" numbering for the films;
Empire Strikes Back was listed as
Episode II.
[30] As Michael Kaminski argues in
The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story.
[31] He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the year-long struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts,
[32] both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having
Han Solo become imprisoned in
carbonite and left in
limbo.