Shared Worlds

[Black Dragon]

Have you ever used a shared world for your stories? If so, did you find it to be limiting?

Also, how many writers (including yourself) were involved in the creation of this world? How did you approach building it as a team?

If you haven't written in a shared world, why not?

 

[Kaellpae]

Shared world is just a world you made with somebody else so they can use that universe as well?

I've been wanting to do that, but I don't have the first clue as to where to start. Nobody I talk to is a writer, so that kind of explains why I haven't tried it either.

 

[Map the Dragon]

I wonder if there aren't many benefits to the shared world process...

*The world can live and breath more freely, growing naturally with multiple minds and multiple creations.
*This can incorporate the creative abilities of more than one author.
*Story/idea generation might be facilitated.
*And more.

BUT, there have to be rules and guidelines. The possibilities for redundancies, or worse - contradictions is possible.

I can't think of any unsuccessful examples without doing some research, but a great example is the world of Krynn:

Krynn is the world setting for the Dragonlance series, a series for which I extol its virtues often. A pair of authors created the world together (with some outside help as well). Once the world and rules were established, new authors came on-board to create a world of over 120 best-selling novels.

 

[myrddin173]

Personally I have never done it. This reminded me of a thread from March which was proposing that this community create such a shared world. It kind of died, but maybe we could resurrect it, we would definitely need to come up with rules though (which I could do, coming up with rules is fun! but I would have to submit them to the community for ratification).

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/world-building/152-worldbuilding-propositon.html

 

[Ophiucha]

I've done it with a few friends, two writer girlfriends of mine, but we all found it to be very limiting. We all wanted to write very different stories, and we all wanted to change little things to better fit the stories we wanted to tell. I wanted to write a political fantasy, but the world we created was very old, and the politics were generally just "king and a few corrupt priests", though the specifics varied from country to country (there were a couple that were atheistic). It didn't lend itself to the sorts of intrigue I was interested in. I also wanted to write about music, but we created a culture that only had string instruments, though I only know about the piano and similar keys and chimes. Wasn't really my area of expertise, but I couldn't add to it. My other two friends faced their own problems - one wanted to incorporate a science fiction element, which there was no room for in a world that was ancient; the other wanted to write a gay romance, but we had already decided that these were very traditional "all sex is for reproduction" cultures, and she hated writing about angsty "oh if only I were straight" sorts of stories.

Still, the actual creating of the world was fun. You have people with different interests who can focus on different aspects, and you have at least one person who is moderating as well, who can say "oi, John said that they are vegetarians and nature lovers, why would they have instruments and clothes made of leather and livers?" Probably the best way to create a roleplaying world, too. But, eh, I find stories that take place in the same world never completely work. I've read a bunch of D&D books and a few Star Wars books, and everyone changes something. They add a religion, they add a planet, they remove some element of the magic/Force, they change something so that they can tell the best story. Even in long works all by the same author.

 

[Eliazar]

Especially role-playing worlds are a pretty good example of great things arising from the shared world concept. As mentioned above, D&D is a good example, or my personal favourite, Aventuria from the German The Dark Eye RPG. I think the key is to leave enough room for everyone involved (and people who want to join in), and of course on the events you want to focus on. If you'r doing some stories on scheming cults in a city, or some petty war of small kingdoms, quests into the wildernes, etc., it's pretty easy to incorporate different things, however, if everyone wants to write about things that affect the whole world, it's a little more difficult and important to not lose consistency of the information given. Especially the decade old RPG worlds have the problems of some contradiction information being released, etc. Still, I think it adds a lot, and if the world is created with enough space for development in the first place, should evolve quite naturally and excitingly. The wolrd of Aventuria mentioned above is nowadays pretty complex already and if you want to set your adventures in it, it requires careful studies of the recent history (it's been developed to evolve at the same speed as our years pass, so it's year 25 or so already) and developments done in magical studies etc. Eventually, it got a little crowded, so they discovered a new and large continent with a lot of new and fantastic races etc, ranging from tiger-men to some steampunkish elements, I believe, in order to give players a whole new, large and unexplored world to let their imagination run wild. I'm not too sure if the new continent still "feels" like the old world, or how popular it is.

However, if you really want to get lost in a world of thoughts, sharing is perfect. And as most creators will have different special interests, the result might be a world where more aspects of life are considered than just the parts you are interested in or that are useful for your story.

Personally, I haven't written one as I don't really know any writers and my humble attempts at world creation are still in the beginning. Though I think that I might consider making it a project open for others once I got a rough outline of where I want to go.

 

[Caged Maiden]

If you could do a basic set of rules, I think it would be a fantastic challenge and wonderful fun. I would so totally do this, but I'd have to have a pretty good relationship with the person I was undertaking it with. I feel very personally attached to the things I write (not that I don't edit, because I scrap things all the time) and I tend to like my characters to develop a certain way.
In Thieves' World, the evolution that takes place, and the forewords to the novels are great. I would really enjoy a collaborative project, even if it were writing in someone else's previously established world, or allowing someone into mine. it sounds enriching to me, but again, some people might be hard to work with in such a capacity.

 

[TWErvin2]

Anihow,

I remember the Thieves World novels, having read and enjoyed a few of them. Might even have one or two somewhere in my bookshelves.

One thing to consider. Just as with collaborative novels, it might be a wise idea to have an agreement/contract for all participants, especially if works arising from the shared world would possibly be published some day? Very well might save a lot of grief and bad feelings later on down the road.

 

[JCFarnham]

If you could do a basic set of rules, I think it would be a fantastic challenge and wonderful fun. I would so totally do this, but I'd have to have a pretty good relationship with the person I was undertaking it with. I feel very personally attached to the things I write (not that I don't edit, because I scrap things all the time) and I tend to like my characters to develop a certain way.
In Thieves' World, the evolution that takes place, and the forewords to the novels are great. I would really enjoy a collaborative project, even if it were writing in someone else's previously established world, or allowing someone into mine. it sounds enriching to me, but again, some people might be hard to work with in such a capacity.

If you follow the link that Myrddin173 posted, we're attempting to resurrect a collaborative thing at the moment. Donny Bruso was very kind in drawing us up a map of a group of equitorial islands. So if you would like to participate in something like this then it would be awesome to have you join us in the "Mythic Archipelago".

 

[desertrunner]

yes please join our project. There are still islands available to develop and have interact with the others.