//|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES // || \\ || || Writers' Guidelines (8/21/98) // || \\__// || || Copyright 1998 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________ Before I go into the nitty-gritty of the guidelines themselves, I'd like to preface things by saying that I don't actually run things in as tight- fisted a ways as a simple reading of the guidelines imply. For the most part, I'm pretty easy-going about things and willing to be flexible. The guidelines exist primarily so writers know what they're getting into, and what sorts of things I reserve the right to do should things turn ugly. They have not yet turned ugly, and I hope they never do, but I want a lever and a place to stand in the event they ever do. I. Origins of the Guidelines Back in 1993-4, I put a lot of work into building the Patrol universe, founded by Michael Montoure. Soon, others were writing for the imprint as well, and for a while, all was spiffy. But then a serious philosophical difference over how the universe should work arose, and since Montoure had by that point pretty much given the universe over to whoever wanted to write in it, it came down to a vote. I was outnumbered, and left rather than have to fight an uphill battle against writers determined to (in my eyes) ruin the universe. This got me thinking. I still wanted a "serious" world to write in, but I'd been badly burned by the whole Patrol situation. So I decided that I'd create a universe that I controlled and owned. I'd let others write for it once I'd established the basics, but the understanding would always be that if a disagreement over how the universe was run arose, I would win the argument. Period. Selfish? Probably. But I wasn't going to invest the serious effort in building another universe only to have it hijacked out from under me again. So far, it's worked pretty well. I've bent the rules a couple of times because, well, I made them and I can make exceptions to be a nice guy. In fact, most of the guidelines have been unnecessary because of the one I've been scrupulous about following, and that is.... II. Who Can Write For ASH Like I said, ASH is my baby, and I'm kinda protective of it. But I always feel guilty about being a hardcase about rule enforcement, so I find it's better to avoid the problem in the first place by stacking the deck. Specifically, I want to be able to trust a writer who's doing work in ASH. Both on a personal level and a professional level. In other words, trust them not to be jerks and trust them not to be hacks. What this all comes down to is that ASH is NOT an "open" universe. I decide who gets to write ASH stories, either by inviting someone or being asked and saying okay. So, one: If I haven't known you for a while, at least casually through email conversations, don't expect me to let you in. And two: If you haven't been writing for long enough that I can gauge your quality (and this means you have to have been posting to RACC or some other group I read and I have to have been reading your work), don't expect to get in. ASH is not a place to break into RACC. I will be a little more lenient on these restrictions if you want to write a short piece for the Time Capsules anthology, however. Yes, this is going to keep the writer pool on the small side, but since I want to be able to personally edit every story before it's posted, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather keep the output low and the quality high than vice versa. And that leads into.... III. Editing Before any ASH story is posted, it must be sent to me for editing. A lot of this will just be basic proofreading and technical suggestions, since I have a "thing" about proper language usage, and don't want to be associated with a story that's full of typos and confused phrasing. I'll also reformat technical things like linewidth and paragraph indentation so that all ASH stories have the same basic look (this is easier than it sounds, since emacs lets me rewrap paragraphs quickly). The other reason for editing is to catch bits and pieces which run contrary to how I think the ASH Universe should go. No matter how many sourcebooks and FAQs and suchlike I write, there will always be things I haven't spelled out about the world. If the writers were limited to only writing in established territory, it would get boring pretty fast, both for them and for the readers. So I go over the stories to make sure any new additions to the world fit in. It also helps me figure out what gaping holes *should* be plugged with an informative post, but hadn't been a problem in my own stories for whatever reason (i.e. the Causality Wars FAQ). What I *won't* do is try to force writing style changes unless I honestly think the writing is confusing. I don't expect other writers for ASH to ape my style. As long as the style works, it works. IV. Ownership Here's a potentially sticky part, especially as RACC has become more aware of such issues over the past three years. I own the ASH Universe. With a few exceptions (mainly old RPG characters like Tymythy Twystyd that I absorbed into it), I own all the characters in it. That includes characters created by other writers for ASH stories. This has two main implications: 1) If I should ever sell or license ASH to someone (like, for a comic or RPG), I have the right to sell or license all characters created for ASH by other writers. 2) If a writer decides to stop writing for ASH, I may keep the characters, let someone else write them, write them myself, etc. This is especially important if you want to write issues of an existing series, so that any characters you create can be passed on to the next writer without trouble. Now, as I've said, I'm not an ogre, and I'm open to compromises on these points on a case-by-case basis. I have had a writer withdraw and take his characters to sell elsewhere (Mystery Men, if you're curious), and if I did do a licensing deal I'd try to cut all the creators in for a fair share (although this would probably amount to a free copy of the product, since the odds of ASH making real money are smaller than the odds of my winning the lottery). But if you can't stand the possibility of giving up control of a creation (perfectly understandable...it's what drove me off Patrol), then you probably don't want to write for ASH on a regular basis. V. What to write Okay, you've gotten past all the other hurdles in this post, you're pretty sure you're eligible to write and can abide by the editing and ownership stuff. Now, what to write? There's two basic choices. Make your own series, or write for an existing series (or one which doesn't exist yet but I'd like a writer for). Making your own series is the less restrictive creatively, but the harder to get approved, because you have to do a lot more work making sure the concept fits in with the ASH Universe. Start with a short pitch to me rather than writing a complete first issue, because I may shoot an idea down on something very basic and fundamental. No sense busting a hump churning out a good story when you'll never post it. At the time of this writing, both Warden and Conclave are examples of writer-created stories in the ASH Universe. If you want to write for a series concept I've created, you have less worry about fitting it in (although you still have to understand how it has been fit in...I got one proposal for STRAFE way back when which showed the writer hadn't even read Academy). On the other hand, you're more limited in character development and other plot elements, because I have some preconceptions of how the characters should be and won't accept certain alterations (for example, giving Jen Kleinvogel the ability to fire energy blasts from her eyes would be nixed, no matter how interesting you think the developments behind it would be). Additionally, if the series has a previous writer, he gets first dibs on continuing the story and should be consulted before making any major changes to characters he added, since he might want to come back to them. Existing series not being written at the moment are LNH 2023 (Austin Loomis) and Time Capsules. If you want to write one of these, ask and I'll ask the current writer if he'll agree to let someone else take over for a while. Time Capsules is a special case, however, since it's an anthology title and not intended to have a "regular" writer. Read Time Capsules #0 for the general guidelines for that title. VI. Inter-Imprint Crossovers No. To elaborate, while the Barrier may be weakened, it's far from gone, and dimensional travel to and from the ASH Universe is still very difficult. For the time being, there will be no crossovers between ASH and other imprints (although I might be open to some LNH 2023 ideas involving a generation-gap crossover like the kind that's been done in the Star Trek novels recently). Just to be safe, assume there's a big "No Crossovers" sign behind the editor's desk. Crossovers within ASH are another thing entirely, but don't expect to start with one...you gotta establish your own series before crossing it over with anything.