Paul S. Kemp's defense of shared world fiction

[Rykion]

I should have used the term IP constraint rather than editorial constraint. I was thinking of ideas in setting, character, etc. that an author can't use because of limitations set by the IP holder. I definitely don't have anything against editors.

I also agree that deadlines can be good motivators. Unfortunately, one thing I notice in a lot of shared world fiction is that the storyline feels half-baked or that all the story's loose ends conveniently come together 3 pages before the novel's end. I can't help but think that the deadline hit too soon, and/or there was a constraint on the length of the story.

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.

Yeah, that's what I consider a labor of love. I'm not saying that all labors of love end up being great or even mediocre. I've just found that a lot of my favorite books seem to fall into this category, and it's rare for a shared world book to be written without contracts, IP constraint and deadlines. I definitely wish you good luck on these future endeavors.

 

[Desdichado]

I also agree that deadlines can be good motivators. Unfortunately, one thing I notice in a lot of shared world fiction is that the storyline feels half-baked or that all the story's loose ends conveniently come together 3 pages before the novel's end. I can't help but think that the deadline hit too soon, and/or there was a constraint on the length of the story.

For what it's worth, and I don't mean to offer this as an argument, really, merely an interesting aside, that's also a common criticism of Jane Austen's work.

And she's a classic who's been read consistently for hundreds of years now, and didn't work under any deadline.

 

[JoeGKushner]

If this is in response to point 3 in my post, I never said that shared world writers didn't love the settings or their work. My point was that much of the best fiction starts as a personal labor of love rather than as contracted work with a deadline.
.

Hmmmm... I'm going to go with no.

Robert E. Howard, Burrows, and other writers of the pulp era often were not proud of the work but did it to get paid. Howard rewrote, and resubmitted his material. He was often seeking to expand his audience so that he wasn't tied into one particular genre or field. They did this specifically to get paid. David Eddings? Saw a hole in the fantasy field and wrote... to get paid.

I'm not saying every author is like that, but a lot of the early pulp writers, including the creator of Doc Sampson, one of the foundations of the modern super hero (say hello Batman and hellow Superman), were done quickly, efficiently, and for profit.

 

[Dire Bare]

Hmmmm... I'm going to go with no.

Robert E. Howard, Burrows, and other writers of the pulp era often were not proud of the work but did it to get paid. Howard rewrote, and resubmitted his material. He was often seeking to expand his audience so that he wasn't tied into one particular genre or field. They did this specifically to get paid. David Eddings? Saw a hole in the fantasy field and wrote... to get paid.

I'm not saying every author is like that, but a lot of the early pulp writers, including the creator of Doc Sampson, one of the foundations of the modern super hero (say hello Batman and hellow Superman), were done quickly, efficiently, and for profit.

Umm, yes!

And as Mouse, Mr Kemp, and Mr Lowder pointed out, writing to get paid is not a fundamental flaw of shared world fiction. The plain facts of the matter is that there are writers who do shared fiction that write to get paid, there are writers of shared fiction who write because they love their labor, and there are writers of shared fiction who write because they love AND they want to get paid! And the EXACT same thing can be said of writers who do not write shared fiction at all.

The problem lies where folks unfairly assume that shared world fiction has a higher percentage of either A) crappy writers, or B) writers who only write to get paid (or both!). When I was younger, I read a LOT of standard fantasy fiction (non-shared) that was total crap, and that is what actually pushed me towards my personal preference for D&D shared world fiction. It's not all I read, but I read all of it. My bias is opposite of those who distrust shared world fiction! But, just like them, I think I need to recognize my bias and branch out a bit!

 

[Dire Bare]

For what it's worth, and I don't mean to offer this as an argument, really, merely an interesting aside, that's also a common criticism of Jane Austen's work.

And she's a classic who's been read consistently for hundreds of years now, and didn't work under any deadline.

It's interesting when you study literature . . . you find that many of the "classics" of today were the "trash" literature of yesterday! Makes you wonder what the classics of tomorrow will be?!?!

 

[Desdichado]

The problem lies where folks unfairly assume that shared world fiction has a higher percentage of either A) crappy writers, or B) writers who only write to get paid (or both!). When I was younger, I read a LOT of standard fantasy fiction (non-shared) that was total crap, and that is what actually pushed me towards my personal preference for D&D shared world fiction. It's not all I read, but I read all of it. My bias is opposite of those who distrust shared world fiction! But, just like them, I think I need to recognize my bias and branch out a bit!

I don't think I've talked to anyone who came by their assumptions "unfairly." They didn't just decide that without sampling the field, in most cases, pretty extensively.

Although I read a fair amount of shared world fiction, I tend to hold it to a lower standard in general than non-shared world fiction precisely because I've had so many bad to mediocre experiences with it, relative to the field generally.

It just so happens that I've had just enough mediocre to good experiences that I keep sampling it.

It's interesting when you study literature . . . you find that many of the "classics" of today were the "trash" literature of yesterday! Makes you wonder what the classics of tomorrow will be?!?!

Eh... sometimes. Arguably that might be applicable to guys like Homer or Shakespeare, but in general I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Not sure what you mean, though. Jane Austen was never "trash literature" even in her lifetime.

 

[Wayside]

Eh... sometimes. Arguably that might be applicable to guys like Homer or Shakespeare, but in general I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Not sure what you mean, though. Jane Austen was never "trash literature" even in her lifetime.

Nope, not even arguably. Shakespeare was highly regarded in his lifetime, and Homer was used as a textbook in Greek schools. You're spot on about the credibility of the "yesterday's trash is tomorrow's literature" meme. Pretty much the closest you get are works banned in whole or part for obscenity, like The Flowers of Evil and Ulysses, or that were just ahead of their time, like Moby Dick and Emily Dickinson's poems.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, but "highly regarded" is a vague term. George Lucas is highly regarded in our time. At least, he was before the prequel trilogy.

Doesn't mean that Star Wars may not pass the test of trash entertainment that becomes classic.

And by the time Homer was taught in Greek schools, he'd been dead for 500 years. Assuming there actually was a person named Homer in the first place.

 

[Mouseferatu]

If anyone's still interested in the topic, I just did a guest blog about tie-in on my agent's web site. My point here is from the author's perspective, focusing on how writing tie-in can actually improve your writing and your career. Feel free to comment either here or there, if you're so inclined.

The Swivet [Colleen Lindsay]: Guest Blogger Ari Marmell on writing media tie-ins