In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Some Notes on Writing in a Shared World
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
Acting into the Dark? “I think the success of my work stems from being truthful… the more I let the character take over, the more I feel like that person. When you become the person, nothing is contrived.” Catherine O’Hara
A New Short Story
“The Oldest Debt” went live on Saturday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
This story kind of meshes with the topic of Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week (see Of Interest).
If you enjoy it, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.
Some Notes on Writing in a Shared World
This post first appeared in TNDJ in slightly different form on April 20, 2020. Since I recently opened up the Blackwell Ops world, I thought now would be an appropriate time to bring it back.
One writer asked about the limitations of writing in a shared world. Specifically, the writer wondered how a proponent of writing into the dark could write in a shared world.
So I thought I’d share here how ANYONE can write in a shared world regardless of the process they use.
If you’re fortunate enough to practice WITD, you just write, as you would when writing anything else. If you use some other process, that’s fine too. I really don’t care.
Note: For purposes of this topic, anytime the word “story” appears below, that means any story of any length: flash fiction, short story, novelette, novella, novel or series. Okay? So let’s get started.
First, just by way of an example, if you’ve ever written a holiday story, you’ve written in a shared world. (Likewise if you’ve ever written fan fiction you’re writing in a shared world, but you can actually sell those.)
Have you written a story that centers around Christmas? Did it include Santa or a Christmas tree?
Have you written a story that centers around Thanksgiving? Did it include a big meal (probably of turkey or ham or maybe tamales) and maybe football?
Have you written a story that centers around Easter? Did it include either references to children coloring eggs and/or partaking in an Easter egg hunt?
Or if the focus was on the religious aspect, did your story include references to the risen Christ?
If you’ve done any of the above, you’ve written in a shared world.
When you were writing those stories, did you feel terribly limited because you couldn’t significantly change the Santa character or the big meal or watching football or boiling eggs and coloring them?
Probably not. When you write in a shared world, you must adhere to the traits or characteristics of certain characters and events.
But by the same token, your story itself will be different.
You will almost certainly introduce new characters: a dad and/or mom, different children and other characters and their antics. You might even alter Santa, for example, and have him appear thin and disheveled or even drunk. (Hey, I know, but it’s been done.)
And not all holiday stories are goodness and light and butterflies.
- If it’s a horror story, you might have the children find something unexpected under the tree or in their Easter eggs.
- If it’s a fantasy, you might have them find a Golden Ticket to something. But you’re still writing a “Christmas story” or an “Easter story” because the basic conventions are there.
- In a Thanksgiving story, you might introduce a different, futuristic game on TV (something other than football) which the family gathers around to watch.
- Or maybe it’s a virtual reality (VR) game in which the family actually participates. Again, this could go to different genres, yet it will also remain a “Thanksgiving story” because you stick to certain conventions.
Writing in any other shared world is the same as writing a Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter story.
The only real consideration that remains is whether writing in that shared world appeals to you.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Loss
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 700
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 700
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for January………………………… XXXX
Fiction for 2026…………………………… XXXX
Nonfiction for January.…………………… 700
Nonfiction for 2026………………..……… 20290
2026 consumable words………………… 20290
2026 Novels to Date……………………… 0
2026 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2026 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 123
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29