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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5099970" data-attributes="member: 2205">Oh, hey!I'm not sure that I necessarily expected you to add much.  I think the problem is that fundamentally both you and the other side, whomever that may be, are right.  There aren't any reasons why a really good author can't be working in a shared world environment, putting out stuff that's just as good as anything in the "regular" writing environment.  And I think that the quality selection process over the years has improved, especially at publishing houses that recognized the need for keeping a firmer eye on quality than may have been the case in the early days of shared world fiction.  But the other side is right too... there are some constraints that can be present in shared universe scenarios that, while individually may be unlikely to be a deal-breaker, in the generalized environment, and cumulative of each other, are not negligible.And, well, there's preponderance of evidence.  The stereotype didn't form in a vacuum, it formed because people read several shared world books that didn't really live up to the standard of literature that they'd read in the general market.  As I sad, you're both right.  Good authors can work in that environment, and in fact, some of them certainly do.  But the other side is right too in that their perception isn't just blind prejudice, it's based on the evidence of books that they've read.No doubt, but that's not always the case.  Stepping outside the fantasy arena, look at, say, the Hardy Boys line.  You have to use the same main characters, the same secondary characters, you have strict constraints on the structure of the novel, and most importantly, everything has to be "reset" back to the state that it was before the novel was written.  No character can achieve any lasting growth that carries with him to the next novel.  No character can be killed, or move away, or otherwise have any significant change.  The setting itself has to be exactly the same as we left it.It's great for lines that don't operate under these types of constraints, but plenty of them do.  It's a spectrum.  And while, as you say, a skilled writer can still write a good story regardless of constraints, at the same time, every constraint you add stacks the deck with incremental details that could make that more difficult to achieve.  And, just as not all line editors are created equal, neither are all authors (or members of any other profession, for that matter... I don't pretend to be any better than middle of the road at what I do professionally), so stacking the deck against them if they're not the best authors writing for the line is only going to make the chances of their work turning out poorer all the greater.Hey, if it doesn't apply to you or anytong you know, then great!  I've certainly read of situations in which it does apply and has happened.  Where the writers are just contract guys doing it to pay the bills.  I think it'd be naive to say that it's not something that happens.Not that authors in non-shared world scenarios can't write books that are just about paying the bills.  Robert E. Howard specically owned up to writing many of his stories for no good reason other than the paycheck.  It happens.But do I think that it's more likely to happen in a shared world environment than in a non-shared world one?  I guess that's really the question.Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but plenty of authors, editors, and entire publishing houses over the years haven't lasted very long in the business.</blockquote>

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