Shared Worlds

Has there ever been "shared-world" spanking fiction? Shared-world short story collections used to be quite common in the 1980s and 1990s - usually in fantasy settings. For those who don't know what a shared world is, I'll explain; a group of writers get together to create a 'world' - a fictional setting, usually a city with the surrounding countries lightly sketched in. They decide its general layout - (Merchant's Quarter here, ruler's palace there, names of main streets etc) its history, climate, politics, religions etc etc. Each writer then creates their own cast of characters and writes stories about them. They can use events from another writer's stories to influence their own tales, and even include (with permission) another author's characters as bit-part players in their stories - for example, say author A has two antagonists gunfight in the market square; author B might use the event as a distraction to allow one of his own characters to dodge past someone who was searching for them, while author C might decide that one of the gunmen's wild shots has injured one of C's own characters, and author D uses the incident for his character to demand stricter laws...and so on. While major inconsistencies must be avoided, minor ones are allowed - they give texture to the world as each character is seen slightly differently by different authors (I remember one series where the shaven-headed robed priest turned out to be a shaven-headed robed priestess, under a religious oath not to reveal her true gender, and the scowling rogue festooned with lethal weapons whom everyone was wary of proved to have never actually been in a fight - his fearsome reputation a complete bluff...). As one editor explained it 'No adventurer ever got hired by claiming to be the [i]second[i] best swordsman in town!'
While it would take some work to create a suitable setting (a girls' school, a private club, a suburb...?) it could prove an interesting project, and a good way for authors to inspire each other...
What do YOU think...?

I've done this in the past, the "world" being various human-inhabited planets in the galaxy in the 28th century (or occasionally other times in the future)--this particular one is seemingly quite controversial, however... --C.K.

There's a bit of fanfic about various concepts (Lurking Dragon's Rejuverse springs to mind), but no actual shared world that I'm aware of. It's quite a cool idea though, be fun to explore.

An ambitious and very interesting idea! I came across the Thieves' World series years ago and really enjoyed reading it. It was especially compelling to watch how the story lines of the various authors' characters intertwined and became something so complex.
No doubt a setting could be created to base spanking stories in. The tricky part would be in the editing. A group of like-minded authors might not require much refereeing, but it would probably still take a bit of juggling to keep the stories from contradicting or invalidating each other.
All in all, it sounds like it could be fun. If you want to give it a go, I'd participate.

I've done something like that. Back in the old WWIV BBS days I ran a shared world story series set in a pre-industrial civilization. It started out actually with a murder mystery in an abbey and then branched out from there to include several dozen characters such as nobility and merchants and peasants in the surrounding kingdom. there were three kidnappings, several thefts, a few murders, an attempt on the king's life, a few attempted murders, a couple sieges and even a love story. this all took place online. We even had maps and an almanac in order to keep everything straight. Eventually it collapsed of its own weight.
What made it work for us is that we also had a discussion list where we would hash out plot points and also we would meet every few weeks in local restaurants and discuss strategy. So yes I don't see why a spanking related story in a shared world would not be possible. It would, however, require some effort at communications among the participants.
I know that there exist mailing list software packages such as majordomo or parabots that can be installed and run on a website provided the hosting provider allows a database to be created. Something like that would have to be created in order to have an "out of game" discussion forum. Or another forum could be created in the forum area.

This is rather like storyboard I'm assuming. I joined a kind of shared world settled round "The Old Curiosity Shop", which now seems to have lapsed.

I'm willing to have another go if somebody sets up the theme - there are three very good suggestions in the previous paragraph.

Watch out for "The Saddle Maker's Apprentice" which is a collaborative story soon to hit these shelves, set in and around a saddle maker's shop.

There aren't many of these around now (I think George Martin's Wild Cards may be the only one, it's certainly the longest running one), but as the OP said they were quite popular in the '80's and 90's. It's a case of deciding on a setting and then starting to contribute really.

Seegee, I LOVE the Wild Cards series! I have all 21 books of the series so far. (A new one is scheduled to come out later this year.) I think the thing that makes Wild Cards so good, besides the many talented authors that have contributed to it, is the superb work George Martin has done as the editor. myrkassi, this is your idea, and you have some good ideas about the direction you want the series to go, so I'll nominate you to be the editor of this shared world spanking series. (If you want the job, no pressure.)

So you're the one! Kidding. I could never get into Wild Cards. I bought the first one when it came out and it wound up as a DNF. Wish I'd kept it, it would be worth something now. The good news is for fans of the concept is that George absolutely adores it. There are two things that make his eyes light up when people want to discuss them with him and one of them is Wild Cards. I think if it came down to a contest between A Song of Ice and Fire (TV viewers know it as Game of Thrones) and Wild Cards, he'd pick Wild Cards every time.
If we get this thing off the ground, yes I'll try and help with editing if I can and if anyone else wants me to, although I doubt I could do it on my own.