Catalyst Castle

This idea just came to me the other day, but I thought I would mention it here and see if anyone else was interested. I was thinking that it would be fun and interesting to get a few people to collaborate on a fictional universe. The idea is that each contributor would write their own separate stories, but that they would all take place in the same fictional universe. This could work in much the same way that Marvel and DC comics have their own universes home to dozens of authors writing their own stories about hundreds of different characters. The same can be said of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, as well as a plethora of other fictional universes. I envision multiple people writing separate stories, but borrowing places, characters, and events from each other to create a level of connectedness across the whole project.

I was thinking that one possible vehicle for carrying such a project would be a magazine. I’m picturing about 10-20 pages of short stories and serialized story arcs published as a downloadable PDF file every other month. It seems like that would be a good way to collect different authors’ works and make them available together. Having a goal of publishing 10-20 pages every two months creates a generous schedule that will hopefully act as a motivator to actually do some writing, but not be an unrealistic expectation for a group of people who are no doubt already leading busy lives.

As far as the nature of this fictional universe goes, I’m open to ideas, though I was thinking something with science fiction and/or superheroes might be good as it would give authors plenty of room to work in, with lots of options and ideas to explore.

If you enjoy creative writing, and would be interested in exploring this idea further, please comment below. I’d like to open a dialog with anyone else who might want to collaborate on a project like this so that we can start working out the details.