That’s what I was thinking. I’m “Thieves’ World”, a bunch of authors agreed on the broad outlines of the world, and each started writing stories in it, often presenting the same events from different people’s perspectives — perhaps factually inconsistent, and that’s just fine.
Did you have the same author giving different and inconsistent versions of a story, different ways things might have gone? That is part of what I am describing.
To what extent did the authors play off not only the broad outline of the world but other authors' stories? That is another part.
I suspect that part of what makes it work is using the Internet for coordination, conversations among authors on Discord discussing what they are doing. That would have been harder in the past, at least for authors not living near each other. In the case of Glowfic many of the authors share the same house or at least the same neighborhood, so could do it with the communication technology of a century ago.
There were definitely conflicting versions of the same story from different writers, and from different characters' viewpoints is both Thieves' World and War World. I have no idea how much actual collaboration there was.
One author established the world background and wrote the first few stories. Other authors could write their own stories in that world, and use developed characters, but were not allowed to make major changes in an established character's personality/history. Most of the authors were well-known at the time, or were considered talented up-and-comers.
How does one find a particular continuity, or especially the start of a particular continuity, on Glowfic? Their user interface does not seem transparent, and a search on "Iomedae" is unproductive.
You can search on continuity or on character and author, then assume that the threads were posted in order, which I think they usually are.
Also, a thread may have, on its first page, a link to the previous thread in the continuity and, on its last page, a link to the next thread — but you can't count on it. The continuity I described in my post links the second thread to the third but doesn't link the first to the second, possibly because it's "on hiatus" not "Here ends this thread". And the third doesn't link to the several threads, consistent with each other, by the same authors, and still going, that follow from it.
Hmm. I've found it possible to access "in His strength ..." and read as much of it as exists. But I'm still at a loss as to how to go from there to other linked threads such as the other two. I tried searching on "Iomedae" and got nothing. I don't think I know what you mean by "search on continuity": Is there a way to get a listing of continuities, or to find it what a continuity is called and enter it as a search term?
The effect of the narrative I've read is singularly like that of an rpg where each player in turn is asked, "What do you do?"
The authors do a nice "man from Mars" effect of showing the United States through the eyes of characters to whom it's a bizarre and alien society that needs something like an anthropologist to figure out. I've liked that effect ever since I encountered it in Kipling's "As Easy as A.B.C."; a version of it is the climax of my favorite SF novel, Courtship Rite, at the point where Oelita decides to flee into the desert.
The Glowfic page [https://www.glowfic.com/posts] has a Search link in the second row of links from the top. Click on that and you get a screen that lets you search on Continuity, Author, Character, Setting and Subject.
If you search on Iomedae (not the various Iomedae plus epithets) you get a list of posts she is in. That doesn't get the first in the series I discussed, I think because for some reason it is filed under Iomedae plus an epithet.
If you search on the continuity "A Clash of Arms to be Eternally Remembered" you get the next five by the same authors. I haven't figured out how to find parallel threads by other authors such as the one I linked to; I saw them when they were coming out in the list of recently updated threads.
I agree that it feels like an rpg, part of the reason I think it is a literary form that grew out of rpgs.
I have to say on one hand it makes me think about possible themes for my next cycle of RPGs (toward the end of the year I'll hand out a prospectus and see which of several proposals my players like). I kind of like the tension between the worldviews of people from different worlds. On the other hand, I've only played D&D once this millennium, and Pathfinder never, and I don't know how their worlds work, so I wouldn't go for a literal borrowing, but more for a broader inspiration. I'm actually quite a fan of the stories rthstewart has been doing over on Archive of Our Own about the Pevensie children coming back from Narnia and having to adapt to life as children after having reached their thirties in Narnia—particularly https://archiveofourown.org/works/136373/chapters/195392 where Susan, at about 16, gets involved in espionage in Washington DC . . . but that's a different reason for children to have unexpected competence. But I'm still turning this over . . .
One minor problem with some threads based on Pathfinder is that the authors and some readers know a lot about the magic system, which makes seeing how characters figure out solutions to their problems using it interesting. I don't know it and find elaborate uses of magic somewhat boring.
Really off point but may I strongly, strongly recommend the Arthur trilogy by Bernard Cornwell? Using the myths and the history to build the world worked absolutely brilliantly. Nothing else he has written comes close.
Sounds a bit like the old 'Thieves' World' series, written by a number of different authors. Or, Jerry Pournelle's 'War World'.
That’s what I was thinking. I’m “Thieves’ World”, a bunch of authors agreed on the broad outlines of the world, and each started writing stories in it, often presenting the same events from different people’s perspectives — perhaps factually inconsistent, and that’s just fine.
Did you have the same author giving different and inconsistent versions of a story, different ways things might have gone? That is part of what I am describing.
To what extent did the authors play off not only the broad outline of the world but other authors' stories? That is another part.
I suspect that part of what makes it work is using the Internet for coordination, conversations among authors on Discord discussing what they are doing. That would have been harder in the past, at least for authors not living near each other. In the case of Glowfic many of the authors share the same house or at least the same neighborhood, so could do it with the communication technology of a century ago.
There were definitely conflicting versions of the same story from different writers, and from different characters' viewpoints is both Thieves' World and War World. I have no idea how much actual collaboration there was.
One author established the world background and wrote the first few stories. Other authors could write their own stories in that world, and use developed characters, but were not allowed to make major changes in an established character's personality/history. Most of the authors were well-known at the time, or were considered talented up-and-comers.
How does one find a particular continuity, or especially the start of a particular continuity, on Glowfic? Their user interface does not seem transparent, and a search on "Iomedae" is unproductive.
You can search on continuity or on character and author, then assume that the threads were posted in order, which I think they usually are.
Also, a thread may have, on its first page, a link to the previous thread in the continuity and, on its last page, a link to the next thread — but you can't count on it. The continuity I described in my post links the second thread to the third but doesn't link the first to the second, possibly because it's "on hiatus" not "Here ends this thread". And the third doesn't link to the several threads, consistent with each other, by the same authors, and still going, that follow from it.
Hmm. I've found it possible to access "in His strength ..." and read as much of it as exists. But I'm still at a loss as to how to go from there to other linked threads such as the other two. I tried searching on "Iomedae" and got nothing. I don't think I know what you mean by "search on continuity": Is there a way to get a listing of continuities, or to find it what a continuity is called and enter it as a search term?
The effect of the narrative I've read is singularly like that of an rpg where each player in turn is asked, "What do you do?"
The authors do a nice "man from Mars" effect of showing the United States through the eyes of characters to whom it's a bizarre and alien society that needs something like an anthropologist to figure out. I've liked that effect ever since I encountered it in Kipling's "As Easy as A.B.C."; a version of it is the climax of my favorite SF novel, Courtship Rite, at the point where Oelita decides to flee into the desert.
The Glowfic page [https://www.glowfic.com/posts] has a Search link in the second row of links from the top. Click on that and you get a screen that lets you search on Continuity, Author, Character, Setting and Subject.
If you search on Iomedae (not the various Iomedae plus epithets) you get a list of posts she is in. That doesn't get the first in the series I discussed, I think because for some reason it is filed under Iomedae plus an epithet.
If you search on the continuity "A Clash of Arms to be Eternally Remembered" you get the next five by the same authors. I haven't figured out how to find parallel threads by other authors such as the one I linked to; I saw them when they were coming out in the list of recently updated threads.
I agree that it feels like an rpg, part of the reason I think it is a literary form that grew out of rpgs.
I have to say on one hand it makes me think about possible themes for my next cycle of RPGs (toward the end of the year I'll hand out a prospectus and see which of several proposals my players like). I kind of like the tension between the worldviews of people from different worlds. On the other hand, I've only played D&D once this millennium, and Pathfinder never, and I don't know how their worlds work, so I wouldn't go for a literal borrowing, but more for a broader inspiration. I'm actually quite a fan of the stories rthstewart has been doing over on Archive of Our Own about the Pevensie children coming back from Narnia and having to adapt to life as children after having reached their thirties in Narnia—particularly https://archiveofourown.org/works/136373/chapters/195392 where Susan, at about 16, gets involved in espionage in Washington DC . . . but that's a different reason for children to have unexpected competence. But I'm still turning this over . . .
That definitely helps. Thanks!
One minor problem with some threads based on Pathfinder is that the authors and some readers know a lot about the magic system, which makes seeing how characters figure out solutions to their problems using it interesting. I don't know it and find elaborate uses of magic somewhat boring.
Really off point but may I strongly, strongly recommend the Arthur trilogy by Bernard Cornwell? Using the myths and the history to build the world worked absolutely brilliantly. Nothing else he has written comes close.