Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Idea that won't leave me alone

This is topic Idea that won't leave me alone in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :

I wonder if I am the only one who has ideas that won't leave them alone? Well this was my idea:

I was looking at the Writing Competition and thinking about the quality of writers found on this forum and the different writing styles and the interesting aspect this adds to these sorts of endevours. And I was walking to my car which I had parked in the middle of no where to escape paying for parking when an idea came to me. Wouldn't it be fun to do a share world novel. I am a fan of the Wild Cards series, though young enough that I only got into it in reprint and unfortunately this means I have only got copies of the first five before the company reprinting went out of business, but I really liked the feel of the share world novels. We are a group of aspiring authors, and there is apparently not much of a market for medieval fantasy short stories, so why not? I might be alone in feeling this way, which is cool, but then again their might be other people who might really enjoy this idea so I thought I would put it out there and if it gets shot down, so be it. But if others would be interested in this idea, if it worked, it could be a nice way to get our names out there to help us sell those pesky novels.

Well there is the idea, I hope it stops haunting me now,

Grant John

Posted by Patrick James (Member # 7847) on :

You mean something specfic by "Share World novels" don't you?
You don't just mean: let's buddy up and write novels together. Or novels in the same universe like Pournelle and Niven, or Zahn and whoever else writes Star Wars.
There is a universe called share world open to the public domain?

Obviously you have got my attention but I must admit that I know nothing of Wildcard, or Share World...

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

Are talking about developing an anthology of some sort? Where authors write short stories on the same theme or subject? Or do you mean something like a bunch of writers trying to write the same novel/plot together?
I am confused.

Posted by Wordmerchant (Member # 7778) on :

I think he is talking about something similar to the "Thieves World" stuff that Aspirin did a number of years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves'_World

Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :

Ok, my bad. A share world is a world which is created solely for the purpose of a group of writers creating stories (which link in some degree, though it varies) that are set in this world. Theives World was apparently the first, though I have never had the chance to read any of it, and Wild Cards was the longest running. So the idea would be a group of writers set out the history, geography, magic structure, (and possibly an overarching theme), etc of the world and then each write a story. Depending on how closely the writers wish to link their stories characters from one story might make guest appearances in other stories, say if one author wrote about the King of a city, and the next writer wrote about a knight, the knight might cross pathes with the King, therefore creating a whole greater than its parts.

George R. R. Martin was editor of Wild Cards and they went so far as to create what he called 'mosaic novels' about every third book, in which a story is told with six POVs all written by a different author, and let me tell you they are fantastic but apparently very difficult to do (as anyone who has struggled negotiating character timelines with themselves can imagine.)

I hope this clears things up, maybe some dot points to summarise:

1. Group create new world for them to play in as a group
2. Group create stories in the same world (level of interaction up to group, and may vary depending on ideas.)
3. Some poor sod (possibly me unless anyone else really likes editting) makes sure consistancy works
4. Group hopefully finds interested publisher.

And writing a part of novel is easier than writing a whole novel so the time commitment would be less, depending on how much you like negotiating.

Posted by JustInProse (Member # 7872) on :

This does sound very fun John. I wouldn't even be pulled into it for the publishing as much as I would the fun of writing it.

Contrary to what you said about it being less work because others are helping write it, I think that keeping the stories together would even the playing field

Anyway, I'm in, if you really do want to do something like this. I would hope that during world creation we could find a way for those involved to voice chat, because I don't want to chain email the construction of a world.

I wouldn't mind doing some editing work either.

Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :

A like minded person! Yay!

Well I am open to suggestions about... well anything. While being young I am far from techno savy, I do have a webcam and a microphone which I know how to use through Windows Live Messenger, and voice chat does sound good, though text chat does have the added benefit of being just as instant and saveable... Don't know, this project should be about compromise and democracy because if I just wanted people who did what I wanted I would just co-write with myself like J.D Robb/Nora Roberts did.

Any other bites?

Posted by Patrick James (Member # 7847) on :

I'm In!

I don't know anything about web cams or even voice chat. But frankly even if my input is limited because being forced to type my suggestions it wouldnt shake me much---I would be comfortable writing in any world of our (sci-fi) genre. Fantasy, sci-fi, superheroes, doesnt matter.

About editing... I don't think I could help you there, I am the one who would NEED the editing.

Just let me know whenever you guys wanna get the ball rolling. Right now I am in two writing groups and with work... My feedback will be less than I would prefer, but it would not be zeroe.

Posted by JasonVaughn (Member # 4358) on :

Sounds interesting. I'd like to take part. Any ideas on what kind of world/genre it'll be yet?

One thing I'm unclear about: Would it be a collection of short stories or one story written by many?

[This message has been edited by JasonVaughn (edited April 06, 2008).]

Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :

Most likely a collection of short stories, as that is the easiest way of doing it. The more challenging (and possibly more effective) style of doing it, is the 'Mosaic Novel' in which each author takes a character and writes that character, but George R.R. Martin (the only man who I have ever found who had editted a mosaic novel) says this is the hardest thing in the world to edit and make work. But part of this, for me at least, is challenging myself so we would probably negotiate where on the spectrum we wanted our work to fall.

I think I will start us a thread under Hatrack Groups so we can start discussing what sort of world we want to create and work out what time zones we need to navigate for our first good brainstorm session.

New interested parties still very welcome.

[This message has been edited by Grant John (edited April 06, 2008).]

Posted by JustInProse (Member # 7872) on :

Yeah, msn would be good too, but conversation can be expedited greatly with voice chat. I guess I would like the voice chat more for the brainstorming sessions and such.

Thats just me, I could always talk while very types :P

I like to take notes, but I'm also open for whatever fits everyone else.

As far as the mosaic style goes, that sounds extremely cool. If you wanted to attempt it, I would greatly enjoy the task of editing/weaving them together correctly. I don't know if others would be adverse to that type of work, but it gets me excited.

Get the group thread started on "Hatrack Groups" when you can. We can start the early discussion of the world in the forum.

Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :

Hatrack Group Thread is up, delay was due to me going into long long explanations.

Posted by ozwonderdog (Member # 7837) on :

I sort of did a mosaic work once. Easier to do it yourself. Had a series of books, and the next part of the story, in my opinion, needed to be told in 5 separate stories. The start of all 5 stories was the same, with shared scenes. Excellent to cut and paste conversations.

I liked it, because one or two scenes, seen from different points of view, have different flavours.

If you wanted to do that, like, common scenes or characters, in different stories, I would think IRC or some other text based chat would work, where you could all write in character, and discuss, live, what you were writing, have each author voice their own character and such. Kind of like role playing a character, yeah?

THere was something similar down with Witchworld, a long time ago. THat was cool...

Posted by Patrick James (Member # 7847) on :

Thanks for the advice Ozwonderdog. It should be helpful.