: Re: How could collaborative writing in one world work? I have the idea to propose a world and some initial stories and offer other authors online to add their stories to this world. Could that

@Goswami879

Vote Up Vote Down

A supplement to this answer:

All the shared-world anthologies I've read had "framing" stories written by the primary author, the one who came up with most of the setting and is driving the process. For example, Eric Flint wrote or co-wrote several of the 1632 novels, including the first one, and Robert Asprin was heavily involved in the Thieves' World books.

Coming up with an interesting setting is useful, and if well-done is a lot of work. But it's still "just ideas" until somebody creates something from it. That should be you, both to demonstrate investment and to show people what you had in mind. There are lots of ideas out there; most authors have many that will never come to fruition. So your idea is "just another idea" until you give it real shape by writing something based on it that invites others in. You need a story that's engaging enough to capture people's imagination and that has "holes" that can be filled in -- opportunities to develop interesting plots and major characters that fit into the world.

Also, do make sure you do the necessarily legal/licensing stuff so that people know they can safely write in your world -- you're not going to come back and sue them later for creating derivative works, etc. Since most authors have ideas of their own already, they're unlikely to see the benefit of taking such risks to write in yours. So make it clear that there's not a risk there.

(0)

Login to post a comment!