Paul S. Kemp's defense of shared world fiction

[Desdichado]

Well, there's something to that too, of course. Clearly we don't all appreciate the same things in our fiction.

Heck, even barsoomcore and I, who share 90+% of the same brain patterns, are sharply divided over the merits of Steven Erikson and Douglas Adams.

There's very little that's objective about writing quality, with the exception of some editorial consensus around what constitutes "well-written" prose; beyond that, it's all subjective of course.

 

[Rykion]

Yeah, I don't really feel that way. I think that a writer who uses a bizarre setting or scenario as a replacement for good writing isn't going to get very good results. That's a poor crutch to get by on, in my experience.

Strangely, I don't see where I said originality was a replacement for good writing.

I'm content reading well written books too, but I love when I stumble on a book that is innovative as well.

 

[Dire Bare]

That said, I drew (and draw) no conclusion about the Warhammer line or tie-in fiction generally (I've read other Warhammer titles and lots of other tie-in novels that I've enjoyed quite a bit). I simply conclude that that author's style is not for me. Nor do I conclude that my literary sensibilities are superior to yours (or anyone else who enjoyed that novel). I simply recognize that art (and that's what we're talking about here) speaks to each of us differently and that my subjective preferences are not a proxy for objective quality.

If only everyone could be so open minded, not just about writing, but art in general.

 

[JLowder]

The phrase "labor of love" specifically means something that is done for personal enjoyment rather than material gain. I can love my job, but as long as I'm getting paid, it is not a labor of love. A book someone writes as a labor of love is usually in their spare time and not under contract or deadline.

Passion is indeed important to any writer, and any process that puts artificial constraints on what or how a writer creates can be deadening.

However, you are assuming you can see into someone else's heart, their creative soul. You can't. People write for different motivations and readers or even other writers or editors have no foolproof way to tell if someone is writing one of those seeming "labor of love" novels because he or she hopes to be famous or rich or to score with someone who digs the artistic type or some other non-aesthetic reason. And without being privy to the editorial process, you don't know what changes were made to any work on its way to the bookstore--or why those changes were made.

Similarly, some "shared world" books are put together in precisely the liberated fashion you describe. The first draft of The Crystal Shard, for example, was written without a contract or deadline and submitted blind, unsolicited, to TSR. The pitches for the original Harpers books involved writers telling TSR "This is the book I want to write, and here are some chapters and the plot" with no input or promise of contract or pay.

It's also not accurate to equate the presence of pay with a lack of passion. They are not mutually exclusive. Someone can work in publishing because she or he loves the work and, coincidentally, be lucky enough to get paid for that, just as a doctor can be passionate about medicine and get paid for that pursuit.

In fact, let me note that pay in publishing overall is miserable. The average advance for a shared-world novel is, say, $5,000; a fair number of books do not earn over that advance. If you break that down per hour of work required to write the typical 90,000 to 100,000 words, you'll find that your annual salary will likely make you eligible for government cheese. Most writers, even of shared world books, do not write full time. They write in their spare time, usually because they love to write.

All that said, there are aspects to shared world projects (contracts, editorial control, etc) that can be anti-creative, and these production issues are what contribute to the high number of mediocre titles in some shared world lines. Some writers can successfully negotiate these minefields and create the books they want to create. Others cannot.

But, in the end, it's a mistake to assume that you can tell something about a writer's motivation--whether he or she is writing for a paycheck or to tell a story--by the fashion in which a work is published.

Cheers,
James Lowder

 

[Rykion]

All that said, there are aspects to shared world projects (contracts, editorial control, etc) that can be anti-creative, and these production issues are what contribute to the high number of mediocre titles in some shared world lines. Some writers can successfully negotiate these minefields and create the books they want to create. Others cannot.

This is exactly the overall point I was trying to make. You expressed it much better than I did.

I want to re-emphasize that I make no assumptions about the motivations of shared world authors. The following is the third item I wrote in a list of reasons that I feel some shared world fiction tends to be mediocre. "The book is written to order, not as a labor of love." There are really 2 parts.

The first part is about books "written to order." I'm talking about when an author is presented with pretty much everything that must be in a book with little room for deviation, and often a very tight deadline. Good examples are some tie-in novels based on events that have already been defined by an rpg, miniatures game, or a movie. I'm not talking about all shared world contract work in general.

The second part is about "labor of love." The phrase is specific to labor done for self-enjoyment or the enjoyment of others without any expectation of getting paid. When I use "labor of love," I'm talking about the kind of books that are written, often over years, without any kind of upfront money or solid guarantee to be published. It's usually an author's first published work, something from a non-traditional author, or something an established author writes for himself as a side project. I've found that many of my favorite books tend to fall in this category, and it is rare for shared world books to be written in this manner. It's not only about passion, but also the time to get the books just right and the lack of editorial constraint.

 

[JLowder]

It's not only about passion, but also the time to get the books just right and the lack of editorial constraint.

Most writers work better with an editor. Editors can be a constraint, but a good editor can help a writer clarify his or her vision. It has to be the right editor, and not all writers are going to find the same editors helpful, but editors are not, by definition, a bad thing.

Same with deadlines. Deadlines can also be very useful for a lot of writers. Given no firm target, writers often dawdle. Writers can endlessly noddle and revise. (Roger Zelazny once told me that he wasn't working on a word processor at the time for that reason--computers made it too easy to revise; if he typed, it forced him to focus his thoughts.) Too short a deadline can be a real problem, but a deadline in and of itself is not necessarily a problem because it can help goad a writer along, even for a "labor of love."

You're not wrong in thinking that the methods of production have a definite impact on a work's quality. However, it's usually a safer critical vantage to look at the work itself and decide whether or not it works for you from what's on the page, rather than get caught up in guessing motivations.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

 

[Mouseferatu]

Most writers work better with an editor. Editors can be a constraint, but a good editor can help a writer clarify his or her vision. It has to be the right editor, and not all writers are going to find the same editors helpful, but editors are not, by definition, a bad thing.

Let me just chime in here with absolute, total agreement. I will be the first in line to state that the published version of The Conqueror's Shadow is markedly superior to the draft I submitted to Spectra, and that's precisely because of my editor's input.

The thing is, Rykion, by your definition almost all non-tie-in novels are "labors of love." Unless you're a huge name author or are lucky enough to get a multi-book contract, there's never a guarantee that your next book will sell. I have two more books scheduled right now--but after that? While I'm more likely to sell my next one, there are still no guarantees. I won't know if my next novel was "worth" my time, financially, until it's accepted somewhere. I'm still going to write it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A word on Editors.

If there were one book I'd want every writer to read, it would be the annotated version of Piers Anthony's But What of Earth?

Anthony admits that editors have a valuable function, but not every editor serves that function.

That particular version of the book is textually the unedited version he originally submitted...plus the commentary that 4 editors made about the book in an effort to do their jobs...plus his commentary on their commentary.

For any writer, its educational and hilarious. Edularious?

 

[JLowder]

Anthony admits that editors have a valuable function, but not every editor serves that function.

Indeed. Working with a bad editor or someone who is a bad fit for a particular project can be nightmarish. Been there, more than once. This can be an especially soul-draining experience when dealing with a license or shared-world, when you may have several different editors or licensing people commenting on a draft, offering up contradictory criticisms that must be addressed. The more people involved in an approval/review process, the more likely the work is to suffer, the more generic it will likely become to satisfy all the various people commenting upon it.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Most writers work better with an editor. Editors can be a constraint, but a good editor can help a writer clarify his or her vision. It has to be the right editor, and not all writers are going to find the same editors helpful, but editors are not, by definition, a bad thing.

Same with deadlines. Deadlines can also be very useful for a lot of writers. Given no firm target, writers often dawdle. Writers can endlessly noddle and revise. (Roger Zelazny once told me that he wasn't working on a word processor at the time for that reason--computers made it too easy to revise; if he typed, it forced him to focus his thoughts.) Too short a deadline can be a real problem, but a deadline in and of itself is not necessarily a problem because it can help goad a writer along, even for a "labor of love."

You're not wrong in thinking that the methods of production have a definite impact on a work's quality. However, it's usually a safer critical vantage to look at the work itself and decide whether or not it works for you from what's on the page, rather than get caught up in guessing motivations.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

It is a general problem with creative endeavours. Without a deadline, you can always revise your ideas and change something to make it a little better, revise it again to make it a little more better or in a different way better and so on. See Duke Nukem Forever.

At some point, you just have to define: "This is not perfect yet, but it is good enough". A deadline helps you do that. Perfection is not attainable, even though we should always strive for it.