I've said I'd write about this for a while and I've never quite found the time. I still don't have a lot of time, but I needed blog fodder and this is a long-standing question. Also, I think that even if you create your own world and intend to write a series, there are a lot of storytelling lessons to be learned from shared-world fiction.

As you probably know, Wizards of the Coast is known for its shared-world fiction--fiction in worlds shared by many authors. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron may be the most familiar WotC brand names, and outside of us, in adult and YA fantasy, there are novels in the Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, and many other universes. Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden are also shared-world fiction--and the models upon which a lot of shared world series build. (Notice how many shared worlds are media tie-ins. This is not always the case, but as I'll discuss below, movies and TV shows do lend themselves well to this kind of print fiction.) The challenges of writing within these already-established worlds are completely different from making up your own world from scratch--but at the same time, can be freeing in many ways, too.

Mirrorstone has several shared-world lines: Dragonlance: The New Adventures, Star Sisterz, and Knights of the Silver Dragon were our company's first forays into children's literature, and all of them were set in worlds shared by many different authors who had to coordinate between themselves and the editors to ensure consistency in style, worldbuilding, character growth, and plot. DLNA was set in the same world, Krynn, that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's original Dragonlance Chronicles were set, Star Sisterz got their world from a game by the same name, and Knights of the Silver Dragon used the world and monsters of the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Writing in a shared world is a great way for beginning writers to increase (and show off) their writing chops--and get their name out there. Rather than having to come up with the world--and sometimes even the characters--on their own, the writer can play with plot and characterization within an already-established world, complete with its own rules. Rather than having to make up the world, the writer can focus on story arc.

The challenge of doing so, of course, is that you can't just say, "I think Buffy should now have wings and be able to fly about the planet." Buffy's world has rules, and (warning: spoilers in link) unless she specifically has an affair with a particular kind of creature, she's probably not going to suddenly sprout into a giant. But this is important in creator-owned stories, too!

Then again, the challenge of doing so can also be to see just how you can explain certain things within a given set of rules, such as how a kender might be able to do magic.*

But don't let that fool you--because writing in another world can be just as challenging as making up your own, but in a different way. Shared-world series have changed a lot since Nancy Drew, but we might learn a lot from the old girl sleuth, too. (Which won't be covered in this post, as I went off on a tangent, but definitely see Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her for more information on the Stratemyer syndicate, who had a lot of shared-world mysteries for young readers in its day.)

I think the best way of looking at shared-world series is by using TV shows as a model. Multiple writers work on TV shows. Writers on a show may change from year to year, so the creative mix sometimes changes--but overall, the show must have a consistent voice, characters must remain consistent even as they grow (if the characters are meant to grow, of course). A lot of quality TV shows are made in this collaborative environment, and I think shared-world book series can have that same high quality of storytelling.

I often use favorite teen and fantasy shows as examples of storytelling for my shared-world authors (and for series in general), too--because shows like Veronica Mars (especially the first and second seasons) (also, created by a YA author), Firefly, Heroes, and Buffy use storytelling skills that can be easily transferred to writing book series. For example, look specifically at plot arcs. What kinds of plot arcs does a TV series like Veronica Mars deal with? First season, we had the season-long plot arc of the mystery of Veronica's best friend's killer. Then we had plot arcs that might last a few episodes, usually dealing with her relationship between her friends or boyfriend. Then there was the plot of the episode, whatever mystery Veronica was solving that night.

How can we apply these plot arc ideas to novels? For one thing, a series has to have an overall arc, whether you're talking about a trilogy or longer. If you're a fan of the Wheel of Time series, you have probably been following my friend Brandon Sanderson's discussions of how he's working on wrapping up the tail end of the series. While that's not a shared world in the strictest sense--after all, Jordan always intended to finish his own series, but his health got in the way--this is similar in that Brandon must deal with writing in someone else's voice, finishing up story threads that he didn't lay, and working with characters and plots that he didn't create. Jordan planned the arc of the series years ago (and created the notes and outlines that Brandon is now using as his guide). And so it is with any series, including shared-world, though with something as open-ended as shared-world sometimes all you can do is plan an arc and hope the next arc fits in.

So then we go back to the TV show idea--the Lost writers, for example, say they've known generally where they want to end the series since they began it, but they couldn't know whether the first season would be the only one or not. So it is in shared-world fiction a lot of the times, so you have to break down your arcs a little bit so that readers can still be satisfied with the smaller resolutions, while still left wanting more. At the end of an episode (one volume), that episode's arc should be wrapped up. But questions might remain. Veronica may only have found one clue to who killed her best friend--and that clue itself might lead her in the wrong direction next time. But the high schooler who just paid her $500 to find out who planted fake test scores in his locker should find out by the end of the episode who done it.

The Hallowmere series is technically a shared-world series because Tiffany Trent, its creator, is not the only writer playing in this world. The books are being released at the rate of about three or four a year, and I fear what I might do to Tiffany if I tried to make her write three books a year all by herself! So we brought in a few coauthors who are taking on the points of view of the main character Corrine's friends. Books 1-3 have an arc all their own--Corrine goes to Falston, discovers the world of the Fey, and from there they head off to adventure in mysterious places as Corrine and her friends try to track down the Unhallowed.

But at the end of Corrine's arc in volume three, the story isn't nearly over. No, actually, the story only grows from there. In volume four, Maiden of the Wolf, Canadian author Angelika Ranger (dragonegg), joins Tiffany Trent to write from the point of view of Ilona, the stubborn tomboy Hungarian. Each coauthor must coordinate with me and especially with Tiffany to make sure that her or his details match up with Tiffany's vision of the series and with where the series is going for each of the rest of the authors, to ultimately wrap up with Tiffany's solo conclusion in book 10, Ouroborous Undone. Each book has its own arc, revealing all sorts of mysteries, but supports the greater arc of the entire ten-book series.

Oh, there's so much on shared worlds I could pontificate on, and I'm afraid this post is already long and convoluted, and I have work to do. So let's stop here and see where we go. What kinds of questions might you have on shared-world fiction? Does this help answer some of them?


*Kender are a hobbit-like race in the Dragonlance world which are considered, basically, so ADD that they can't learn magic, but also some people believe it's a racial trait for them not to be able to do so. Personally, I like that Dragonlance: The New Adventures turned a lot of those stereotypes on their heads.



Topic for a future post: Working with an editor in shared-world fiction, working as an editor in shared-world (coordination between authors, series bibles, etc.)

I was going to write about the difference between writing series in a shared world and standalones, but that's a little too high-maintenance a post for 11 at night. So instead I'm going to write about the new TV show, The Return of Jezebel James. If you read the PW Children's Bookshelf, you'll see how the HarperCollins editors were consulted on it and how they take it with a grain of salt. Obviously it's TV, so it's not going to be true to life, but it's fun to see the little details.

I thought the show just aired for the first time last week, but apparently there are 3 episodes online at Fox.com, so I am currently watching the pilot episode.

First off, I was NOT expecting a laugh track. Dang, I thought it would be a longer drama, not a sitcom. Instant turnoff, I'm afraid. I like comedies, but not comedies that have to tell me when to laugh.

Oh, how nice it would be to have an assistant who makes all my appointments for me. Wow, that's a really nice big office. 

But overall, it's kind of fun to have children's book references all over the place. "Sorry, Dad, gotta go, Beatrix Potter's on the other line." I love the work scenes--"B&N hates the cover," etc.

She's kind of a scatterbrained, endearing kind of character. I can't handle the fake crying. But I don't think I'll be watching this beyond the pilot. Endearing or not, the sitcom thing... I don't know.

Then again, the end of the episode wasn't as painful as most sitcoms. About halfway into most Friends episodes, I have to stop watching because it's embarrassing to watch the sheer stupidity of some of the characters and the lengths they go to to be supposedly funny. This show? Not so bad. Perhaps I'll give it a couple more shows to decide. It was made by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who did Gilmore Girls.

ETA: Now watching 2nd episode. And somehow her house changed from pilot to 2nd episode. Wow, that's a pretty big apartment for New York City. I think it's even bigger than the house I share with four girls here in Seattle. But what a CUTE little library she has? And I must admit the writing is quite snappy! And the acting is much better. Less fake.
  
ETA: Also, no editor would ever refer to an author as a "client."

I've been on a Supernatural kick for the last few weeks. I think Dean Winchester is my high school sweetheart. My first boyfriend drove a green Impala (granted, Dean's probably has better brakes), and listened to "the greatest hits of mullet rock" to use Sam's phrase from the first episode. He did not have a mullet or hair band hair himself, mind you. I still listen to most of the 70s bands that Dean's collection contains. Not so much on the metal--Metallica is more my brother's domain. But give me some good Kansas and Bad Company any day.

It's Tim, but with a brother and a shotgun, killing demons and banishing evil spirits. :) 

Really, the reason why I keep watching? It's not just Jensen Ackles (Dean), who I loved in Dark Angel, nor is it just Jared Padaleki (Sam), who is cute too, and plays a smart, sweet, good guy. What really gets me is the relationship between the brothers. They go through this huge adversity--beginning with the death of their mother when Sam, the younger brother, is six months old--and live through it, and as they hunt for the demon that did this to their family, you can see their bond as brothers grow. Through some really horrible things, a lot of people's lives are touched, they save so many people, and their family bond becomes tighter too. I think there's some really great metaphor in that. 

And just in general the writing is great. Character development, dialogue, little SFF references (Dean knows pretty much every scifi/fantasy pop culture reference to be known)--they move the plot forward and these things matter in the course of the overall story. They have the monster-of-the-week stories, sure. It's actually a very Buffy kind of model--monster of the week balanced against overall season arch with an overall series arch in mind. I'm not sure if that's planned, but in watching two seasons over the course of a couple months, that's the sense I'm getting.

Anyone else a fan?

I just got done watching the funniest Psych episode EVER--and that's saying something, because it's a dang funny show.  Shawn and Gus start out helping to solve a murder on the set of a Spanish telenovela and Shawn ends up actually acting on it. Even the opening credits are in Spanish. I love how everyone is secretly in love with the show. It's hilarious. It makes me think of Ugly Betty (if you're not watching that, either, you should).

Just thought I'd share. :)

What I'm working on right now: I'm proofreading the galleys of Between Golden Jaws, Hallowmere book 3. 

What I'm watching right now: Well, not right at this moment, but at home, in my off hours, I mean--I've been watching Seasons 1 and 2 of the new Dr. Who. And totally falling in love with the Doctor. Both of them.

The result: I have started casting the Hallowmere movie in my mind. Not that there will be one, who knows? But if it were a movie, I'd cast David Tennant as Father Joe. Wouldn't he be AWESOME? Imagine those glasses being wire framed spectacles from 1865 or so...

With thanks to A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy.

Especially resonant because the same week that I went to see Ocean's 13, my roommate and I were starting (again) on Angel season 1. As my roommate said as we were giggling over it, "yet again, there's a perfect example of people who have too much time on their hands." And we thank them. :D

My enviable dilemma for the evening is to either watch another episode of my new favorite show, The Dresden Files on SciFi (via Itunes), or read more of Austenland, by Shannon Hale (I managed to grab an ARC at ALA Midwinter). I must say, this show is awesome. Harry Dresden is a wizard. A wizard who lives in modern-day Chicago.

It's like Law and Order, only with wizards. 

Seriously. Only better.

And that's coming from a L&O fan.

He gets into situations where he has to deal with cops--crimes involving supernatural things, like werewolves and hellions and crows that are really weird magical beings. But he can't tell anyone who doesn't already know about the supernatural anything about what's going on, so it puts him in some interesting situations, having to solve problems on his own or get into situations where he might get arrested for what he's doing.

Very good. It's apparently based on books by the same name, but I've never read them myself. Anyone else read them?

By the way, this show is a great answer to a recent comment by Scott Westerfeld in an interview in Locus. Oh, it must have been six months or more now. He said that whenever he travels to a new country the first thing he does is turn on the TV, but then he's utterly bored or disappointed, I can't remember his words, if the show is just a cop show or a drama without anything supernatural. I remember him saying that he looks at a L&O kind of show and hopes that the lawyer is going to sprout wings or throw a fireball or something. Well, here's the show for him. :)

And Cindy, if you're reading this, yes, Shannon Hale + Jane Austen. You're on the list of people to borrow it after my coworker, who I stole it back from tonight to read.

ETA: BTW, Dresden Files is set in Chicago! I love Chicago.

I've decided that today is my running commentary blog day. 

I just have to say out loud that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition always makes me cry. They do good things for people who need it. I've had my concerns in the past about the supersizing of small homes--tax burdens on poor families, utility burdens, that kind of thing--but the direction they've been taking, making sure to build more "greener" when they can, looking for people who don't just have small or worn-down houses but who have something very special about them who can't do for themselves what needs to be done. I've seen them help two families whose houses burned down--tonight's is making me bawl because not only did their house burn down, but then the oldest son died in a car accident not much later--I've seen them help families with foster children with special needs (AIDS and such), and so on and on. If you watch the show you know what I'm talking about.

Sigh. So sad and so lovely all at once.

I must say, I still have my reservations because problems aren't solved by making your material dreams come true, whatever they are (though I'd love them to come in and pay off my student loans, don't get me wrong!)--but when you're at a point in your life where you don't even have a place to live, or that place to live is slowly killing you (in the case of the moldy house with the special needs foster kids), when you can't make those ends meet, it's really hard to work out your other problems, and a little joy like this for these people brings hope they might not have otherwise had. So, kudos for them, and kudos for them to spread the trend by encouraging people to get involved in their own communities. As I've watched the show, there have been so many times the community has gotten together to pay off a mortgage or set aside a fund for utilities or get the funds together for whatever special need the family has, and that's really nice.

I have a friend who has been raving about this show for a while. I'd watched part of it once, but it was in the middle of the show, in the middle of the season, and it just didn't make any sense to me at the time. So I gave up on it for more interesting things on other channels--at the time, I had about 100 or more.

But then to cut down on unnecessary things in my budget, I turned off the DirecTV and suddenly found myself with a borrowed set of bunny ears and five or six stations to choose from, right during the time I was having the most free time. I've filled my time well with other things, of course--traveling home, visiting friends, actually reading a book for my own pleasure, knitting--but tonight I was flipping through the stations and the only thing remotely interesting on was an episode of Ugly Betty--which I happened to catch from the beginning of the episode.

I think I hit the right episode, because it really hooked me. I liked her a lot, and I liked her boss, and I just rooted for her to triumph over all the snobs in the office. (Probably helps that I watched The Devil Wears Prada over my vacation, too.)

So now I'm doing an Ugly Betty marathon online (I love that the networks have been posting the whole season of several shows!)--catching up from the beginning--and I have to say, I really like it. The first couple episodes have plot points ripped out of The Devil Wears Prada, of course, but it has a lot of other stuff going for it, and Betty remains herself in a way that the main character of Devil (whose name escapes me) doesn't till the very end. The story of the show becomes much more about a talented young woman succeeding because of her strengths, rather than her looks.

Though I must say--take off the braces, give her a nice outfit that fits her shape, and she's far from ugly. Even with the braces, she just needs an outfit that fits her body type and has a good color. It's not *that* hard, and you'd think she'd absorb a little sense of style, even without an interest in fashion. Perhaps I see that because I'm a bit of an Ugly Betty myself, and even I have learned over time how to dress for my shape (usually, *if* I can actually find a good color for me in my size--it can be quite a challenge sometimes, one that I usually forego). Though she's worn a couple nice normal business outfits (nothing high couture--who cares about that?) that are a good cut in the first couple episodes that give me hope. 

And heh, it's midnight, and I just want to watch more. Though I'm picking up a friend from the airport in the morning, so I suppose I should get *some* sleep. :)

I just got back from watching the new Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction with a friend. What a GREAT show! I like Will Ferrell about half the time--he's a good comedian, but I don't go for over-the-top humor. I liked Bewitched and Elf, though, and with the premise of the story being what it was, and on the recommendation of a friend, I went, and it was worth it.

The idea, if you didn't know, is that Harold Crick wakes up one morning to hear Emma Thompson's voice narrating his life. He's an IRS agent, and his life is extremely boring--lives alone, no friends, counts his brushstrokes when brushing his teeth, etc. A few days after he starts hearing the narrator, she says, "Little did he know, [something something about an event] would lead to his imminent death."

There is so much meta-fictional stuff here that my Victorian children's lit teacher in grad school would have had a heyday with. Then again, it would be interesting to compare this movie to Veronica Mars's narration, as well. What an interesting twist on the breaking of the narrator-reader wall. "Slippage" was my Victorian teacher's favorite term, and what slippage was here! But it wasn't the usual kind, the kind that breaks the wall between the reality of the book and the reality of the reader, which was so prevalent in Victorian children's lit. Instead, it broke the boundaries between the narrator and the character, in a very obvious way (a way another friend terms "pretentious," saying that the movie was too self-aware, yet I think was that way on purpose).

Anyway, great movie. Funny and original. Highly recommend it for the lit geek and non-lit geek alike.

I'm going mad with the mystery. I want to know NOW! I think this is why I love books. While a TV show is only an hour long, if there's a season-long mystery, they sure do love to drag it out. In the case of lost, it's a 3-year-long mystery that shows no signs of being solved anytime soon. They're driving me crazy, I tell you!

Despite that, the season premiere of LOST did get me excited for the season. However, I might just let the next few episodes pile up on my Tivo before watching, so I can have the instant gratification of being able to go to the next episode right away. Delayed gratification for instant gratification.

And I just have to say: I love Jericho!

you can tell that this is being written by a YA author in some spots (thanks to the YALSA listserv, I know that one writer on the show is the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky).

****SPOILER ALERT**** I especially love the nerdy teen character, whose name I'm forgetting already, whose mom died in Atlanta and who works at the local grocery store. When he hears that Jericho needs food and that the owner, a middle-aged woman whose name I also forget, didn't get her weekly train shipment due to the nuclear bombs, at the end of this last episode you see the kid out in the middle of nowhere, investigating a train wrecked with a car. He opens one of the train cars and the last image is of all that food, the food intended for the grocery store's weekly shipment. What a good kid.

Posting frenzy this evening? I suppose. It's been a while since I posted, and then all of a sudden I've got a lot to say.

So I watch a lot of TV in the evenings. For one, with being sick so much recently, it's much easier to watch TV to entertain myself when I can't go outside and do something for lack of enough balance or energy and I can't read for the migraine I have. There's only so much staring at the wall one can do. For another thing, I got DirecTV when I moved into this apartment, and I feel a financial obligation to make it worth the money I'm paying for it. It's my entertainment budget for the month, so dang it, TV, entertain me!

Seeing as how this is the beginning of the fall season for a lot of shows, I've been watching all sorts of new stories. How they begin actually tells you a lot about storytelling, I think. Heroes, for example, starts entirely too slowly, and in a book, the writer would have lost me by now, despite the intriguing characters. Okay, perhaps not lost me, but I'd certainly have said to find a way to introduce the main conflict of the story more quickly. I must say, though, that the little vignettes in that show do a great job of starting each character's story with action, especially the cheerleader.

But that's just one show. Here are all the new shows I've been watching, and some not-so-new.

The shows that are standing out to me this fall

Eureka On the Sci-Fi channel, and totally worth finding. It's like Northern Exposure or the Gilmore Girls, with its fast-talking quirky characters--but in a small town full of entirely science and technology nerds. My favorite show of the year. And the "season" is almost over already!! It couldn't have been more than six episodes. I hope they come back with more soon.

Jericho which I'm watching right now. Love it. Though I still will always think of Gerald McRaney as a 30-something detective with a cowboy hat permanently attached to his head. I'm on the edge of my seat and I want to know what happens next NOW!

Heroes Interesting concept, but the first episode was all setup and barely any story. Give me story, people! But the characters are intriguing, so we'll see where it goes. Like I said above, it does a good job in some areas, not so good in others. I'm willing to give it a few more episodes.

Vanished Only so-so, but for some reason I keep watching. It feels like it should be finishing up already after only 3 or 4 episodes, because I feel like they've already revealed all the secrets that would be within the realm of possibility.

Bones 2nd season, but just as fun. I really love David Boreanaz, just as much or more as when he was Angel (which I only watched all of this summer on DVD).

Shows I'm finally getting to watch from the beginning that I've been watching despite not quite knowing what was going on

Avatar: The Last Airbender--about the best show on TV, for all ages. SO fun! Great storytelling, funny and dramatic at the same time. Totally worth owning on DVD, which is my plan when I have an extra $40 in my budget. Until then, I'm DVRing it on Nickelodeon. It's currently in its 2nd season.

New shows I'm not impressed with:

Men in Trees This looked like it'd be a quirky, fun show like Northern Exposure--set in a small Alaska town, but from the perspective of a woman. But it's only okay. I've continued to watch it because I have hope for it yet, but I'm far more impressed already with Eureka.