Shared Universes, even themed anthologies – even going back in one’s own series really badly need one thing. Well, maybe two. Okay three. It’s rather like the Spanish Inquisition in that way. No one seems to expect it.
The problem is really continuity. That has the other problems within it: that of details… and of other participants taking both and either heading in the wrong direction or screw up linear continuity horrendously. The cure prescribed tends to be a ‘bible’ (bell and candle optional) with the technical and setting details in it. They tend to be boring and badly written. I’m wondering if AI can be used to tell the writer that’s not canon.
While this is valuable, it doesn’t actually cure the overall continuity issue. 10 writers taking different threads in separate directions may not matter in this book – if it is a big universe, but if it spawns – as so often happens (BLACK TIDE RISING, 1632) book after book set in the universe – it starts becoming a skein of threads that HAVE to tangle. As a writer in both, I’ve tried to ‘offshoot’ so far from the main threads that it doesn’t impact. Perhaps the only other way I see clear is for the lead author/editor to be very specific about the threads and the direction – a plot bible? Anyone else see any other answers?
On the personal side: Thank all you for the good wishes. I ain’t dead yet. I still keep losing weight, which is a good thing when you intend it to happen, except I don’t, and I’m not that large anyway. They don’t know why. The scan produced nothing of substance — but at least it’s none of the usual suspects. More tests in the New Year. Anyway. We press on.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
Mad Genius Club 
14 responses to “It’s everybody’s game”
“Shared Universe” is a fuzzy-edged concept. Back in the day before IP owners became litigation happy, authors would borrow heavily from each other. How many SF stories were set in Luna City or Marsport? Are they the same place–not exactly, but similar enough.
Elements in Science Fiction or Fantasy that are shared by multiple authors are called Tropes today, but in the beginning one author came up with an idea and other authors filched it and ran with it.
William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Walter Jon William’s Hard Wired, Stephen Barnes’ Street Lethal, and countless others are consider the Cyberpunk Genre rather than a Shared Universe, but they could be read as all taking place in the same near future (which is now an alternative history past.)
The Urban Fantasy Genre is similar. Much Military SF could be considered a Shared Universe, with only the names of institutions changed.
The original Shared Universes stemmed from a discussion about what fun it would be for characters to collide.
The problem is, as any look at King Arthur or even Robin Hood could tell you, that continuity is always a problem.
Well Shit cobber, I hope they figure that out soon, you have more books to write, and for me to buy, and I hope to one day take you up on the hunting and diving offer.
Take care of yourself, and Merry Christmas.
I’d enjoy that 🙂
My doctor says I’ve got 50 pounds that needs to be re-homed…… 😎
Well, I’ve lost over 11% in 6 months so I may need it 😦
Hope the doctors find a cause and it turns out to be nothing serious, Dave, and Merry Christmas!
On the AI front, based on my own dabbling and what I’ve seen other writers do, it should fairlybe possible to have AI check for tone/style consistency, maybe even issue the contributors a markdown file and say, “here, if you’re comfortable sharing snippets of your story with Grok or another chatbot, give it this file first educating it on the tine of the source material so it has something to compare your story to.” Continuity issues would be trickier. You would have to feed the AI a pretty thorough story Bible (and thoroughly checked by humans, if the story Bible is AI-generated) and then feed it the specific spinoff you’re concerned with, and ask it to quote any bits it thought were a problem from a continuity pov.
And for a story of any great length, you would want to run this through the api version of the ai, rather than the chatbot version, because you don’t have session limits there.
Prayers inbound. I would bet less stress from your government overlords would help bunches.
Amen.
Character bible is also important. Who is who, backstory, motivations, recent events.
For me it’s all down to who was there being more important than what happened. The plot resulted from their choices, the way I write. I don’t have any idea what’s coming, usually.
Stuff happens and they deal with it, sometimes better than others depending on their temper. So it’s important to remember who gets cranky when they haven’t had their coffee. ~:D
If you’re working (let’s say) in Star Trek, to avoid inevitable plot entanglements and breaking characters it would be good to use a ship not in the cannon, on a mission only tangentially related to cannon, with new characters. Then all you need to worry about is Star Fleet protocols, technology etc. James T. Kirk can be some wildman none of them have met but they’ve all heard about.
The losing weight thing is troubling. One idea I have is to look around your tools, shop, work area etc. for toxic substances, metals, poisons, things like that.
I knew a machinist one time who managed to get very sick indeed from a particular metal in his shop. He was being poisoned just from having a chunk of it around. Cleaned the shop out, got better. Woodworkers sometimes become alergic to woods they have in the shop as well.
Might not apply to your situation, but could be worth a look. Maybe check if your symptoms resemble metal or chemical exposure, wood alergy etc. Sometimes these things are sneaky.
If you need a fat donor, I’ll be happy to have samples taken to see if we are a match. 😉
I’ve seen it done where the boss author says, “You can play here, over here, and here. You may not use these characters, these locations, and that artifact/space station/whatever. In the future of the main series, [plot thread] will be resolved, so leave it alone.” If the world is rich enough, with sufficient geographic space and lore/culture/history, it can work.
Sorry to hear about your health problems. Get better! The world still needs you.
As far as shared universes, keeping a coherent continuity is probably possible if the universe is shared between a small group of curated authors. If it’s being thrown open to the anyone who wants to write, I’m not sure that it’s possible or even desirable. I think the right model might be something like the Darkover anthologies, back when that was a thing: you read them because you wanted stories set on Darkover, and you got that for the most part, but it was understood that none of the stories, with the possible exception of those written by Marion Zimmer Bradley or one her relatives, was considered canon. Two stories might contradict each other, and Bradley might later write something in one of the novels that contradicted both of them, and everyone just accepted this.
Merry Christmas, and best wishes for your continued health.