Shared World. Creative Commons.

[jaxx6166]

We've decided that the theme for this first outing will be Edgar Allen Poe. Submissions are due March 1. Guidelines appear below.

Submission Guidelines

Who may submit works: Anybody and everybody.

For purpose of this anthology, all works will be licensed under creative commons/non-commercial

Length: Up to 10,000 words. While I'd prefer all submissions to be in the range of 1500 - 6000, I can understand if people need to go shorter or longer. This should give you ample room to tell your story.

Genre: Any, as long as it's inspired by Poe.

Submissions will close March 1, 2010 at midnight EST.

Payment: None.

Please, no gratuitous sex and violence that has no bearing on the story. No racist or other bigoted stories. No child, animal, or inanimate object sex (consensual or not)

In short, use common sense.

Please email or PM all submissions in either RTF or DOC format. Include MR Anthology in the header.

In your submission please include pen name(or user name), acknowledgements, and whatever contact information you want (Got a new book out? Link to it. A blog? Same deal.)

Email address to send correspondence is my username at yahoo.

Kind of like how Wizards of the Coast owns a whole bunch of real estate in mythical worlds like Krynn and Ravenloft.

I'd love to tackle a project like this. Any takers within this board? MoeJoe mentioned it in another thread as being an awesome opportunity to look towards the future.

All works released would be done free of charge under a creative commons license. If anyone wants an exercise in world building, hit me up.

[ficbot]

I don't get it, because I don't know who/what 'Wizards of the Coast' is. Do you mean you want to create, either alone or with others, an imaginary universe and anyone at all may write stories for it?

[jaxx6166]

Pretty much.
Wizards of the Coast are the current owners of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise.
What they have are a series of shared world franchises that their authors write stories in. These are Eberron, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc.

While I'm not a big gamer, I do enjoy and appreciate the amount of world building that goes into designing these lands. So, in essence what I was hoping to do was find some like minded people out here who would be interested in exploring the process of creating a shared world to write in.

It's pretty much a sandbox to play in. If built from the ground up it could be neat.

It's another idea that I've been tossing around in my head. Doing it as creative commons would open it up to the rest of the world to expand upon in whatever way they'd like.

Sure, I know a lot of writers can be a bit stubborn. The mere thought of doing it as creative commons would probably turn off a lot of people. Especially after spending lots of time to do it for free and let other people do what they want within. And to not expect a dime for their hard work.

But, it sure would have been fun.

Oh well.

[Moejoe]

Me and a few writer friends started one a few years back. We called it Avalon, and it was the British Isles after a near future fascist state had taken over (they used the Arthurian myths to give themselves importance and play on old ideas of a New Empire). It was a mixture of cyberpunk and steampunk. I wrote a couple of novels set in that world, but it never came to anything in the end. Takes a lot of work to keep it going, and there's usually plenty of arguments.

[Elfwreck]

I like the idea of a shared world setting for creative commons works. I love worldbuilding; I'm not sure how much time I'd have for writing stories, though. (Also, my experience with writing non-fanfic stories is very very limited.)

[ficbot]

I would be interested, but I am not a huge fantasy reader. I think it would be fun for a bunch of us to maybe play with a shared world that's already there. Like, maybe we could all write a Sherlock Holmes story or something

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I would be interested, but I am not a huge fantasy reader. I think it would be fun for a bunch of us to maybe play with a shared world that's already there. Like, maybe we could all write a Sherlock Holmes story or something

Like a themed anthology maybe? Someone picks, or we vote on a theme and then we all write a short?

[jaxx6166]

Here's the license I was looking at.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
cc by-nc-sa

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-non commercial-non derivative license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

I've never done anything CC. So this would be a first for me.

[jaxx6166]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Me and a few writer friends started one a few years back. Takes a lot of work to keep it going, and there's usually plenty of arguments.

That was my experience with the last one too.

Like a themed anthology maybe? Someone picks, or we vote on a theme and then we all write a short?

That's pretty much where I was going. At least with the MR community. Sure, we can invite other people..but I don't know many

I was thinking along the lines of the Reading thread has their book club. This could be our book club. Maybe we do a MR Quarterly for the rest of the forum that doesn't venture into here much. In that, we could do whatever we came up with in the shared world.

I don't know much about the Sherlock Holmes shared world. I haven't read a Sherlock story since I was 12.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

That was my experience with the last one too.



That's pretty much where I was going. At least with the MR community. Sure, we can invite other people..but I don't know many

I was thinking along the lines of the Reading thread has their book club. This could be our book club. Maybe we do a MR Quarterly for the rest of the forum that doesn't venture into here much. In that, we could do whatever we came up with in the shared world.

I don't know much about the Sherlock Holmes shared world. I haven't read a Sherlock story since I was 12.

I'm in, call it 22 short stories for a decent anthology. And Sherlock Holmes might be a fun place to start, what with the recent horrible movie and all. And I don't see how we, or even a shaved Orang-u-Tan could do worse than the script for that turkey!

Are you volunteering to be the editor of the anthology? It was your idea after all. Oooh, and I'll do the cover art.

[jaxx6166]

Sure. I can give it a whirl. I've never edited an anthology before. It could be fun.

Is there a primer on the shared world Sherlock Holmes stuff? Or am I going to have to sift through Sir Conan Doyle's works to prep myself

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Sure. I can give it a whirl. I've never edited an anthology before. It could be fun.

Is there a primer on the shared world Sherlock Holmes stuff? Or am I going to have to sift through Sir Conan Doyle's works to prep myself

I would say, just make it up as you go along, do whatever you like. I mean, the movies over the years haven't actually been that close to the original works. Nor has much of the fiction. Be inventive, put your take on the mythos, approach Holmes from your own angle. Doesn't really matter if it upsets the timelines or the early canon, as long as you enjoy writing it.

[montsnmags]

A few people here (pshrynk, Lazyscot, RSE, Am) have created stories in what is somewhat of a "shared world" here too. It would be nice if any "shared world" could incorporate all those different aspects their stories share too, though I imagine that would be up to their creativity (and creative-commons friendliness) to do that. I just mention it by way of naming other folk who might be interested, and who might help create a sturdy base for the world ("Turtles all the way down").

Cheers,
Marc

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

A few people here (pshrynk, Lazyscot, RSE, Am) have created stories in what is somewhat of a "shared world" here too. It would be nice if any "shared world" could incorporate all those different aspects their stories share too, though I imagine that would be up to their creativity (and creative-commons friendliness) to do that. I just mention it by way of naming other folk who might be interested, and who might help create a sturdy base for the world ("Turtles all the way down").

Cheers,
Marc

The more the merrier I reckon. I'd think this would be an open call for any contributors, and Jaxx taking the helm as the editor. I'm buzzing already, I have my first story lined up: 221b Hyphen Beta Model, it's about a detective robot on the moon with a strange dependency on music and odd hound-like footprints in the dust just beyond a colony dome....

I'm going to have to write that now even if this thing doesn't go ahead

[jaxx6166]

So, who's in?