The largest challenge of writing in a shared world is not having a clue what anyone else is doing. I write a lot of material in the world of Shadowrun. We do far better than most when it comes to communication and having consensus about where the world is headed. Still, even with our advanced communication principles little bits of lore slip between the shadows and become the stuff of confusion.
Too many cooks, some say, spoil the pot. On the other hand to few cooks lead to unfinished stories. I point to the recent(ish) deaths of novelists Tom Clancy and Robert Jordan and the rather eventual untimely demise of George R.R. Martin as reason why a story world should always be shared. However, how far should that sharing go? Canadian tandem Ian Esselmont and Steven Erikson created a massive series of novels between the two of them. Their styles and ideas are divergent, but the world works together for all their effort. It works because they came up with this stuff together and continue to believe in that shared vision.
Role-Playing gameworlds are a different beast entirely. The grandaddy of the all, Dungeons and Dragons is a massive universe built of several often interlocking worlds. This setup affords plenty of space for differentiation. In fact, the storylines are generally so locational that two dozen writers can be branching off in many different directions without once having to worry about stepping on each others tales. Shadowrun is not as lucky. We’re focused on a singular world–Earth. While our world presumably leaves the same sort of room for individual mischief that a world of dragons and sorcery does, the premise of our world removes a great deal of that possibility by demanding that everything be under the halogen glare of big brother in the form of a cadre of corporations that mean to control us all.
This means that everything we do is usually writ large and that means that everyone that does the writing is beholden to everyone else to be upfront and explicit about what they are aiming for. Easier said than done. Somehow we’ve managed to pull it off so far, but at what cost? It takes a toll and over the years a multitude of writers have come and gone through the system. We lose folks to stress, disinterest, overworking, and just plain time to move on. I’ll say this though: we’ve gotten to the point where some solid new writers have moved into the system and finally I’m excited to see where Shadowrun is going to take me next.