Shared Worlds
A "shared world" is a collaborative setting for original material. Writers, artists, musicians, crafters, filmmakers, and other creative people can all play in the same sandbox. This allows them to weave their storylines together if they wish, revisit favorite characters and locations, and enjoy a greater depth of worldbuilding than most solitary projects get.
Some shared worlds are open source and people can do almost anything there in terms of character creation, plotlines, and worldbuilding. Others are proprietary with rules and some guiding hand(s), a little less flexible but more organized and often more coherent as a result. Either way, all shared world have aspects of crowdsourcing, the use of a widespread group to complete parts of a project, allowing them to make things too large for an individual and too wildly creative for a contained team of employees.
Imagine if our modern myths -- such as Star Trek or Superman -- had been open source from the beginning. Then everyone could play. We would have more and better material than we do, and it wouldn't necessarily have that ugly no-man's-land between "canon" and "fanfic." This is what shared worlds are all about: big open playing fields full of busy creators and happy audiences.
Based on my studies, I believe that cyberspace is the natural home of the shared world. There have, of course, been shared worlds for a long time. Early ones came about through magazines and mail, such as the Cthulhu Mythos begun by H.P. Lovecraft. Some derived from more focused publishing ventures, such asThieves' World started by Robert Lynn Asprin. At least one, Medea: Harlan's World, grew out of a worldbuilding exercise for writers and artists. All of them faced challenges in coordinating contributors and fans across time and space. Online, most of those problems go away, although new ones like bandwidth also crop up. A website can efficiently organize the creation and distribution of material, allowing members to discuss the project as they add to it -- and even support it financially, if it's a crowdfunded project. Shared Story Worlds is dedicated to the enjoyment of such collaborations.
I participate in several shared worlds, where I have varying levels of worldbuilding authority and amounts of material created. Come explore them ...
Some shared worlds are open source and people can do almost anything there in terms of character creation, plotlines, and worldbuilding. Others are proprietary with rules and some guiding hand(s), a little less flexible but more organized and often more coherent as a result. Either way, all shared world have aspects of crowdsourcing, the use of a widespread group to complete parts of a project, allowing them to make things too large for an individual and too wildly creative for a contained team of employees.
Imagine if our modern myths -- such as Star Trek or Superman -- had been open source from the beginning. Then everyone could play. We would have more and better material than we do, and it wouldn't necessarily have that ugly no-man's-land between "canon" and "fanfic." This is what shared worlds are all about: big open playing fields full of busy creators and happy audiences.
Based on my studies, I believe that cyberspace is the natural home of the shared world. There have, of course, been shared worlds for a long time. Early ones came about through magazines and mail, such as the Cthulhu Mythos begun by H.P. Lovecraft. Some derived from more focused publishing ventures, such as
I participate in several shared worlds, where I have varying levels of worldbuilding authority and amounts of material created. Come explore them ...
Aether Dancer
Aether Dancer is an open source steampunk webseries produced and directed by Steven Lambert. A meteor storm peppered the Earth with rocks, wiping out the old civilization but bringing strange materials with which to build new ones. The airship Aether Dancer now travels the sky in search of adventures. Fans can create characters and stories of their own, some of which may intersect the main storyline.
Take flight on the Aether Dancer page to learn more about this project.
Take flight on the Aether Dancer page to learn more about this project.
The Blueshift Troupers
Envision a television show where actors of color get total representation, with a different ethnicity featured each season. The Blueshift Troupers is a science fiction show about a team of shapeshifters who travel the galaxy solving problems. The characters remain the same, but they take on new forms to match the local planet's prevailing race.
Pass through the jump gate to explore this project.
Pass through the jump gate to explore this project.
Torn World
Torn World is a science fantasy shared world. It was created by Ellen Million and she holds the final say in its content. A Canon Board consisting of several people edits and approves the fiction, poetry, worldbuilding articles, artwork, crafts, music, and other goodies submitted for consideration. Two major cultural groups are the Snow-unicorn Riders in the north and the Empire in the south. They're about to collide ...
Art by Ellen Million.
Art by Ellen Million.
Schrodinger's Heroes
Imagine a fandom for a television show that doesn't actually exist. It began when Dreamwidth user Melannen used a frame for "101 Asexy Sex Scenes" with attention to character orientations. I created a description and some other materials for the apocryphal television show Schrodinger's Heroes and its imaginary fandom. After I wrote some poetry and fiction, other folks joined in. Enjoy quantum mechanics, meet cool people, and save the world!
Step through the Teflon Tesseract to explore this project.
Step through the Teflon Tesseract to explore this project.
The Silk Road Allies
This project features an alternate history in which China and Italy became close allies, beginning in the first century A.D. It started with my prompt in the Poetry for the Masses project by thesilentpoet. Then marina_bonomi wanted to prompt the same setting for my next Poetry Fishbowl, which had a theme of "alternate history." So the three of us discussed this, and we decided to make it a shared world.
Logo by Marina Bonomi and Tiziano Baracchi.
Set foot on the Silk Road page to learn more about this project.
Logo by Marina Bonomi and Tiziano Baracchi.
Set foot on the Silk Road page to learn more about this project.
The Ursulan Cycle
The Ursulan Cycle is based on the Arthurian Cycle, a massive sprawl of stories, poems and songs, plays, movies, paintings, embroidery, and other cultural material spanning centuries. Originally the heroes were male, furnished with an assortment of heroines for love interests and occasionally antagonists.
For this project, most characters have been genderswapped, so now a majority of them are women. This changes many of the standard relationships and events. The leading themes are political intrigue, romance, adventure, and spirituality.
Step into the Ursulan Cycle to join the adventure.
For this project, most characters have been genderswapped, so now a majority of them are women. This changes many of the standard relationships and events. The leading themes are political intrigue, romance, adventure, and spirituality.
Step into the Ursulan Cycle to join the adventure.