Lots, as it turns out. And quite a few things that could break the "shared" quality of the world. So, I ask that you observe the following guidelines.

Every editor has to walk a fine line between "artistic freedom" and "quality control." It can be tough to tell someone that their story doesn't "fit in" with existing works, or that it needs to be polished a little bit more before being ready for publication. As such, I'm going to try to list my standards ahead of time, to keep the process as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

(Of course, I can't -- and don't want to -- stop someone from writing just because they're not "following the laws." You can write anything you darn well want. Bear in mind, though, that if you ignore the rules, your story definitely won't be canon, and I may give you long mournful looks or something.)

So, if you want to write a story in the Tomorrowlands universe, please read the rest of the page carefully. Some guidelines are there to limit your artistic freedom, yes, because we all have to agree on a set of rules to run a shared world by. But some guidelines are just restating what should be obvious; and some are there to help you sharpen your ideas of the world, suggest avenues to explore, or improve your writing -- so don't be intimidated by the length of the lists!

COMMON SENSE

The following guidelines have nothing to do with Tomorrowlands specifically; these are the (condensed) rules that come up in every "shared world" writing situation. If you're curious about them, drop me a line, or ask a member of your local writer's group.

• Don't write anything that could get you (or me) arrested. This means child pornography, credible threats of violence against real-world targets, etc. Also, I may reject any story I find personally revolting -- although, with my standards, this tends to mean things on the order of "positive depictions of rape" or "unequivocal support of hate crimes".

• Respect the canon. For example, the New Year's Flyby happened in New York on New Year's Eve, 1996; don't have people act as if the Flyby never occurred. There wasn't a second one in Seattle (or anywhere else for that matter); so don't have any dragons buzz the Space Needle on December 31, 1996.
  I plan to eventually establish an "official" timeline (of not just the events I describe, but also major happenings from other people's stories). Until then, I'm probably the only person who knows all of what's going on, so ask me. Lots, if necessary.

• Respect other people's characters. Okay, maybe Dennis Redwing is actually a close personal friend of your main character, Bob. But maybe he isn't. That's for me to say, not you. Consult with the character's "owner" if you want to use someone's character in more than just passing.

• No making real-life people into characters. This is more of a copyright issue than anything else; someone's "real self" is just as much their property as their "characters" would be. Plus, it's a quick way to get in trouble if that person reads the story and doesn't like what you've done with them.

• No powergaming. No "unblockable death attacks" or "I'm a reincarnated god" or "have three wishes for anything" or "I'll hold off that tank battalion while you guys steal the gem" or "well, yes, you killed me, but I just made myself a new body". First of all, it would be stopped by the inbuilt checks and balances of the world (or other mages); read more about this in the next section. Secondly, it's in very poor taste.

This list describes the constraints specific to the Tomorrowlands universe. Some of these are a consequence of the way the world works; some of them are a consequence of my personal expectations. They are all equally important.

• No self-insertion. Yes, I know this is a world based on Earth, so logically we all should exist there. But self-insertion constrains the writer greatly, makes it more difficult to capture an audience, and at best just leads to an awkward story all around. Please, at least make an alter ego with a different name, or preferably a different character entirely. Also, read the disclaimer to find out why I'm disallowing this. Read the disclaimer, and did I mention read the disclaimer?

• No cross-migration of characters from/to other worlds. Tomorrowlands is about people exploring their own world; dimension-jumpers have plenty of other places to go, and Tomorrowlands inhabitants should have far more pressing issues than visiting Pern. (Of course, crossovers are inevitable; I'm not saying don't write them, I'm just saying they won't be canon.)

• No alien invasions, nuclear exchanges (or threats thereof), or other world-endangering occurrences. See next rule.

• For that matter, no evil overlords, mad scientists, or secret conspiracies of mages out to take over the world. The world of Tomorrowlands has a checks and balances system that keeps such things from building to threatening levels. I don't want to reveal too much in advance about this system, but you'll see. (For your reference, the level at which such threats are addressed is probably about equal to "World Trade Center.")

• Follow the rules of magic and therianthropy. I've written an essay on Tomorrowlands therianthrope classification, which should provide all the necessary guidelines for the latter. As for the former: Magic is all about willpower changing reality; it can be done in damn near any way you want, as long as that's the basic principle. (No saying that magic ONLY works if you speak in rhymes, or whatever. Your character may believe that, or do it that way because it lends focus to his belief -- but other people won't, and magic will still work for them, albeit with different effectiveness.)
  Countermagic is basically a flat-out contest of will, and as a rule it's harder to prevent something from happening than it is to get it to happen; creativity becomes key in a battle of wills, and it's a lot easier to be creative on the offensive. Necromancy is covered below.

• No undead. When people die, their spirits go off Elsewhere, for reincarnation, or eternal reward, or whatever. Channelling the recently dead is about as far as necromancy can take you; there's no real way to "trap" a spirit into the world. If you're desperate, you can go so far as to animate skeletons or corpses with magic, but they're just that: magically animated bones or bodies. They're not tortured souls screaming for release. They don't remember their past lives or have any volition of their own. They're constructs.
  This rule means, by extension, no vampires. Sorry. If you have a burning need for a vampiric character, make something that looks like a vampire, drinks blood, and has weird cellular processes that break down in sunlight; it'll be a zooanthrope, it'll be mortal, and it'll be alive, but people will call it a vampire. (Plus, a bullet to the head will kill it as dead as a wooden stake.)

I'm trying to keep the rules simple; if you follow the above, you're golden. The following list is good to think about, though, as you're working on that first story.

HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS

• Visit the Tomorrowlands forum. I have a discussion board set up for the sole purpose of talking about Tomorrowlands fiction. It's a great place to network with other writers, get answers to your world questions, and refine your ideas.

• It would be very, very good to explore non-American events. (They say to "write what you know"; I'm American myself, and haven't travelled much, so my contributions to the canon are very U.S.-centric.) In fact, the history as currently written basically ignores world consequences of therianthropy, in favor of the American timeline; go wild with the rest of the world, as long as you're not making anything happen before December 1996.

• You are NOT required to keep stories "G" rated. Or "PG" rated, or even for that matter "R". I may have to hide explicit stories behind a layer of age verification, but I have no personal problem with posting them.

• Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck! I can't tell you how much difference this singlehandedly makes to a story. If you're going to write in the first place, turn out the most professional product you can.

• Fiction is inherently fantasy. Anything can happen. Your story can take any turn you want. However, keep in mind that plausible fiction is good fiction; if people react in believable ways, and events unfold without too many deus ex machinae, your story will be far stronger for it. (Example: Sure, in the Tomorrowlands universe, they could potentially elect a therianthrope president in Y2K, but realistically the average person wasn't ready to vote for one at that time. Just ask yourself, "Does this make sense given what I know of human nature?")

RANDOM THINGS

• No casual web surfing. (I mean your characters, not you. ;)) In late 1996, BBSes were the big thing for stay-at-home geeks, and the Internet was something you got introduced to when you left home for college. The WWW was a fledgling, and to have an e-mail address was fairly rare. Of course, in our world, the Net rocketed us into the next millennium. In the Tomorrowlands, magic became the Next Big Thing, and the 'Net got largely left by the wayside as the dominion of a subculture and a communication tool for universities.
  Cell phones are fairly common among the upper middle class, but GPSes and the like didn't really catch on, and in general any invention introduced between 1996 and today probably hasn't had quite as much impact on Tomorrowlands as it did on Earth.

• Your story doesn't have to be about magic/therianthropes; however, they've greatly shaped the world, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to write about "mundane" happenings in Tlands. (Which isn't to say human, non-mage characters can't be interesting! Just that a story with no "magical" elements whatsoever is just as easily set in "the real world" as Tomorrowlands.)

Well, you can go about this one of two ways. First: If you have a website, you can post the story up on your site, and drop me a line about it. I'll link to the story from the official Tomorrowlands Stories page. Second: You can e-mail me the finished story -- in plain-text, RTF or HTML format, please; no Microsoft Word .docs -- via one of the addresses on my Contact page. I'll archive the story here at Tomorrowlands, link to it from the official site, etc.

Here's the legalese. You retain all copyright to your writing and characters. You grant me a non-exclusive right of reproduction to post your story, and short character bios, on this site. If, in the distant future, the universe becomes popular enough to get a book of short stories printed (or whatever), I'll contact you and we'll negotiate separately for printing rights and/or royalties and/or etc.

And thank you for helping to make the world of Tomorrowlands a little bit more real!

 

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