Writing In Someone Else’s World

I began my career writing in someone else’s world, but I gained that opportunity by utilizing my own work. TSR (then the publisher of Dragonlance) was not publishing independent novels, but the editor with whom I met agreed to read my manuscript nonetheless. Upon doing so, he was impressed enough to ask me to submit material to the series. This led to three short stories, which in turn led to my first published novel — THE LEGEND OF HUMA.

I was fortunate enough to find another publisher for my own manuscript. FIREDRAKE and a sequel were bought by Time Warner, and a year after THE LEGEND OF HUMA came out, FIREDRAKE saw print. Thus began the Dragonrealm, which I still write to this day!

My work with Dragonlance continued and eventually led to another spectacular fantasy world — Azeroth, setting for the World of Warcraft!

While I enjoy writing in both my own worlds and those into which I’ve been invited, there are certainly differences. Yes, Dragonlance, World of Warcraft, and my Dragonrealm all pay homage to such works as LORD OF THE RINGS, but the details of each vary immensely in other ways, and therein lies the challenge.

With a series such as my own, I am, of course, fully in charge of what happens…with approval from my characters. The wizard Cabe Bedlam, the eternal creature called Darkhorse, the Lady of the Amber, the Dragon Kings, the aptly named Gryphon, and the accursed warlock, Shade, have all sprung from my imagination. This is not so for most of the characters and situations when dealing with someone else’s world, and especially not so for a setting as rich as that of Azeroth.

With WoW — and, to a point, with every other shared world I’ve been a part of — not only has the setting been forged by one other person or more (very likely teams), but they have already built upon the original foundation and made many corrections of their own. This means that instead of just poring through source material of my own making, I am reading through what could be looked at as generations of lore. There will be overlap and contradictions, something any author will discover in their own work, but it’s potentially several times more trouble when dealing with a multifaceted setting such as Dragonlance or WoW. In fact, with Dragonlance, I was given one official and oft-published timeline that literally said my character had been born hundreds of years before the founding of the order of knights to which he belonged!

Fortunately, because of the imposing wealth of information Blizzard’s developers maintain for each of their worlds, they also have a group of dedicated researchers available to answer nearly any question and to double-check new material. Yes, mistakes have been made, but I defy anyone to create a better system. Heck, our own history and world-events books are riddled with errors…

The wealth of information and teams of researchers are only some of the ways that writing for a series like WoW clearly differs from leaping into my own work. With shared world work, story lines are usually dictated, or at least approved, by a number of people, and then synopses are written and rewritten again with input on several fronts. Many of the novels I’ve written for Blizzard were also designed to adjust earlier, simpler aspects of Azeroth’s history. That resulted in creating new facts, new pieces of lore that, yes, negated previous bits of info, but did so in order to make the game — the ultimate product — continually fresh and exciting for the millions of players.

Of course, any writing project — let alone a shared world project — takes months to complete. While with my own work that means little deviation from my general intentions with the story, with a shared world project like WoW, those months can mean new lore, new information that needs to be implemented. Sometimes that requires returning to the beginning of the story and revamping parts throughout. It may also require doing so more than once.

In addition to the above, working with a shared world will always mean working with some of its characters and lands in each novel. The main protagonist may even be a well-known character who the company wishes to flesh out more. That again generally requires departures from how the characters were previously viewed. Naturally, the reader’s assumption is that the writer has full sway over the character’s transformation, but every alteration, however minute, is discussed, okayed, and — more often than not — very much dictated by the company.

Not every author is comfortable dealing with such restrictions, but even as a reader, I always imagined myself in the worlds of my favorite writers. Successfully penning stories in other people’s worlds seemed a natural progression. The key is to understand that whatever is written for a setting such as WoW belongs, and will always belong, to the company, in this case, Blizzard. Whatever other characters or situations I devise, whatever enhancements I suggest for existing characters and situations…in the end, they all belong to Blizzard. Accepting that key difference is why I have always been able to move from my own work to shared worlds and back again, and enjoy both.

Writing in a shared world might seem the greatest dream for a fan of that setting, but anyone gaining the chance better be prepared for some harsh surprises. Creating your own world can be daunting enough. Confronting the restrictions and necessary changes demanded of you when delving into a world such as Azeroth can be even more so. Yet, if you can enter into the project with an appreciation for what’s been done before, and if you understand the part your contribution needs to play to keep that world fresh, working in a shared setting can be as much fun as doing so in your own…

Print Friendly