These days, many respected authors are climbing down from their ivory towers to open dialogues with their fans. Few however are taking things as far as Canadian author Lynda Williams. She's created the Okal Rel Universe; a world that blends science fiction and fantasy themes to explore the good, bad, and necessary of human existence, and a world she's inviting others to play in.

The universe exists through a series of novels written by Lynda (and sometimes co-author Alison Sinclair), and simultaneously through published short stories and novellas written by Lynda's 'votary authors'; a selection of Okal Rel fans approved to contribute to the official canon of work. At least that's the plan, and the forthcoming publication of the first Okal Rel Anthology suggests that this bold experiment in publishing is starting to take flight. Lynda's debut Okal Rel novel, Throne Price was released in 2002 and like another sci-fi epic currently enjoying its last cinematic hurrah, the first book was actually Episode IV in the series. Next up is the first prequel Courtesan Prince (Episode I) published next month, which Lynda hopes will keep her from having to explain the saga's backstory to every person that asks.

Collaboration with votary authors is an essential element of Okal Rel, and it's one that Lynda's publisher has set up the Fandom Press imprint to accomodate. Any fan of the existing works can make contact with Lynda, chat through ideas, and perhaps be anointed as an official contributor to the ORU mythos. It's certainly one of the more unusual paths to publication, and an experiment that if successful could transform the relationship between authors, publishers, and readers.

Lynda shared with us the background to Okal Rel, and her hopes for its future. Read on for an insight into a unique publishing approach and how you, yes you, can be a part of it.

Great Writing: How did you come up with the Okal Rel universe? Did you intend from the start that this would be a shared universe project?

Lynda Williams: That's hard to answer, because I've been living and writing in some version of the Okal Rel Universe since childhood. Writing was how I played, as I was growing up, and I usually played with one other, special somebody. For the last 20 years that was mostly Alison Sinclair, co-author of Throne Price and its forthcoming sequel, Far Arena. So while I have always been passionate and sometimes even dogmatic about maintaining the ORU as a place I wanted to tell stories in, I've always been open to collaborating. I believe, in fact, that writing is a natural response to becoming a fan for creative and talented readers.

GW: What do you hope to accomplish by working in this way?

LW: Corny as it may sound in the cynical 21st century, I believe in my work and want it to touch as many people as it can, in as profound a way as possible. Including others in the writing process promotes that mission in a lot of complex ways. Naturally I hope that those who write for the ORU will be desperate to read everything I have already written, and everything written by other ORU authors. But that isn't essential (particularly as the number of works grows), and the point isn't to create a captive audience. The point is to provide a way "in" for talented people who love my universe. I'm a compulsive teacher. I've spent twenty years in the field, as a post-secondary classroom teacher, and now work as project leader for a Centre for Teaching and Learning, dealing primarily with e-learning initiatives but also with teaching as scholarship. Even writing is like teaching, for me, because it is all about the feelings created, the values endorsed and the questions raised. There ought to be a natural progression from being a reader to becoming a writer, for those who are so inclined. Instead, there are very high barriers, bristling with discouraging advice. I know. I've been there. And what I learned in going through the process of publishing, first with Circlet Press and then with Edge, was worth more than any number of workshops.

It was an exciting, demanding but rewarding way to learn because there was a real prize at the end: publication. You can't learn to be a swimmer if you never get into the water. I don't see how anyone can become a professional writer, either, if he or she doesn't learn about the publishing cycle, with all its joys and agonies, not to mention the marketing experience at the other end. (For example, the title "Throne Price" was a big mistake. Nobody gets it right. I was told by book sellers that one should never begin a book title with the letters "TH" to start. And then the fact that both "Throne Prince" and "Thorn Price" seem more natural is a big headache. So, one lives and learns.)

Perhaps I am just weird, but I find I can be a more assertive marketer of my own work when I can say to the writer who asks me about opportunities, "I don't control the rest of the world, but if you want to work with me, here's a way." I was struggling for a while, in fact, with how to honour my desire to share the writing experience when I knew I had to promote my own work more, and worry about other writers less. You see, I came to the conclusion before my own breakthrough, that there are a lot of good writers out there who just can't "break in". So when Windstorm Creative became my second publisher, I told them that I wanted to include other writers eventually, and they came back with the idea of Fandom Press.

GW: Is your publisher supportive of the multiple-author aspect of the project?

LW: Fandom Press, as it is currently formulated, is the brain child of Windstorm Creative's CEO, Jennifer DiMarco, and Windstorm remain 100% behind it. But agreeing to become one of the first guinea pigs was compatible with my own goals. As it turns out, it has worked very well for me. I used to feel half-guilty about promoting my own book when I encountered people like my earlier self, aching to become published writers.

Now I have a way to let the good ones "in" without getting distracted from my own mission. In fact, I find it easier to promote the ORU when it benefits others besides myself, and having some kind of honest invitation up my sleeve helps me to identify keenly with aspiring authors.

Publishing with the ORU also has the mutual benefit of shared marketing responsibilities. I help to sell the votary works, and I naturally hope that votary authors who are genuinely turned on by the ORU, will encourage their readers to explore the main series published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, and the growing body of work coming out from Windstorm. Not to mention the background information on the web.

GW: So you're actually contracted to two different publishers?

LW: Yes. Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, is the publisher of the ten novel series (in progress). They have accepted the role I play with Windstorm Creative but work solely with myself, or myself and Alison Sinclair, on the ten novel series. It is unusual, I know, for two publishers to be bringing out the same fictional series in different forms. But the ORU is something entirely different, and traditional publishing, both at the same time. It gets even better. The first ORU story ever published in print was actually sold to a third publisher, and there are a few of my stories on the web, also, that are part of Canon. It is truly bigger than any one medium it appears in, and even the publishers are sharing.

GW: When setting up a working universe, is there a lot of technical writing to set up the history, characters, maps etc., or does that stuff come as a by-product of each story?

LW: I have a lot more details set up, in advance, for the ORU than most authors ever create. My evolution as an author has been more in the mould of someone like Tolkien than most modern writers, at least with regard to the "tip of the iceberg" nature of what finally makes it into print. I have literally been writing and thinking and doodling things about the Okal Rel Universe since I was in high school, and I am now nearly fifty. I connect my writing to nearly everything I study or experience. I was studying special relativity, as a high school student, when I came up with the beginning of what would become reality skimming as a faster than light mode of travel. Which is not to say that rel-skimming could pass inspection for hard science, entirely, but the inspiration for it came from summer courses I took during my "I love physics" phase.

GW: Is there a danger of the details of the world getting in the way of telling a story?

LW: Always. But that is true of any truly new or different setting. It is no worse in a science fiction story than it is in good historical fiction. Throne Price had a particular problem, in that regard, at the beginning. It is actually book four of the main series, but due to the vagaries of fate was published first. There is a lot of background covered in the first chapter that would be easier to tolerate as a refresher, or a "catch up" review for people who had already read the first three novels. It speaks to the impact the ORU has on those who do manage to "get into it" that the book was short listed for the Benjamin Franklin best fiction of the year award despite that inhospitable beginning. Book number one of the series, Courtesan Prince, is coming out in the summer of 2005. There's nothing like starting a story at the beginning, and I am looking forward to having it in hand, as the ORU "ambassador" to the uninitiated.

But the very fact that the Okal Rel Universe is different and complex will always be both its strength and its weakness. If something is very easy to understand because there is very little in it that is new or different, it might be easier to get people's attention initally but hard to hold their interest or make a unique impression. I accept the hard work of getting across really different social systems and technology, in order to tell the stories predicated on them. Grand goals aside, however, details must contribute to the story in hand before they ought to be included. I think I've got clever about that, by leaving out any details that are unnecessary to the current story, without contradicting them, either. Nersallian fertility manners are not going to feature in a story about Demish trade wars, for example, but if a Nersallian is mentioned it should not be in a context where he or she behaves just the same way the Demish might, sexually.

GW: With the doors open to other writers, how organic are the 'rules' of the universe? Are you the sole arbiter of what can be done?

LW: It is safest to say that I am the sole arbiter, just to avoid misunderstanding about how far flexibity might extend. I am not giving away the farm, here. I have spend my whole life establishing the settings in which the stories of my main series will play out, and have far more to lose than anyone who takes a casual interest in working with me. I am, and will remain, "god" for the foreseeable future. This is not a trivial restriction and I refuse to apologize for it. For one thing, I will not tolerate nihilism in ORU works. And I won't accept a story that undermines the established order of things using a trick that begs the question, "If this guy could do that, why can't anyone else". People out for cheap thrills will not want to play. I will, however, entertain any idea and work with people collaboratively to explore those I am able to embrace. People who want to work with me, and share at least some of my main goals thematically, will not encounter obnoxious interference. But I have learned my lessons, in life, about being too generous, as well.

Let's just say the bigger the change, the harder a votary author will have to work to establish that change. And that may mean research of the history books or popular science kind. It will certainly mean starting from a sound and thorough understanding of the ORU as I have established it, and developing a convincing representation of that starting point before diverging from it. On the other hand, since the ORU spans 1,000 years of history and many, many cultures, there are opportunities for doing many, many things. It's a question of multiple infinities. Are there an infinite number of compatible stories? Yes. Does that mean anything goes? No.

My best advice would be, if you are irked by the whole set up, and long to do away with reality skimming, or overturn Sevildom in a short story that invalidates the rest of the main novel series, or want to prove that Reetions arbiters can be corrupted, then you are better off doing your own thing elsewhere. To be part of the ORU, officially, there will be restrictions. Absolutely. But nothing worth doing is ever without constraints.

GW: How do you work with other writers of Okal Rel stories?

LW: I don't take submissions from authors so much as create a relationship with them. Anyone who can write and is willing to work with a coach on the ORU side of things will succeed, at least for the time being.

Authors come to the project prepared to respect my authority on matters of ORU integrity, and with a generally like-minded attitude to literature. Compatibility is a major concern. That's why I say people ought to like the books in order to work as votary writers. The first step for an author is to find out if he or she likes the books and sees potential for stories in the background information available on the web.

Contact, either in person or by e-mail, is the next step. If we reach an understanding, the author is added to my mailing list and is "in the loop" on works in progress and other news. Exactly how I work with an author depends on the person. If she has an idea of what she wants to write, but needs an appropriate settings and background details, I will give her suggestions. If he knows where and when he wants to set the story, I might get involved at the stage of the first draft, as an editor. Or I might ask as ORU "historian" and provide names, dates and other details for the author to use as background material. How I work with each author is, to date, pretty individual.

The end product, however, becomes part of the ORU canon and future authors writing in the same period or working with the same details, have to be consistent with all ORU canon that is applicable to their work. The contributions are authorised and officially accepted as contributing to the greater whole. That is not the case in fan fiction. Fan fiction authors have no restrictions. I have no problem with fan fiction. I hope and expect to see some of it spring up around the ORU, eventually. I expect I will like some of it, and really wish some of it had never been written. But it won't be part of the Okal Rel Universe story, only a reaction to it. Votary authorship is authorship in the traditional sense, with the primary difference being that it is done with the origin author as editoral advisor on what can and cannot fit into the existing scheme of things. Votary authors get paid. In the case of anthology stories there is a flat fee, which is normal for anthologies in general. If an author goes on to write an approved novella, then the author gets the royalties for that work, less a small percentage that goes to me as the orgin author.

Basically, I want the Okal Rel Universe to be about living my values as well as succeeding commercially. Being willing to engage other authors, creatively, in one of those values, provided it can be done in a way that contributes to the whole.

GW: How does your collaboration with Alison Sinclair work? Do you prefer to write collaboratively?

LW: Alison and I go way back. We met in our first year of university and between us, we've written our way through four post secondary degrees. For most of those years, the Okal Rel Universe was our private playground. We wrote Throne Price first because it was the book, in the ten novel series, where her main character joins the series. At that time, Alison was already published and I was the newbie, writing and re-writing what has since become the material for the first three novels. (Only the first one, Courtesan Prince, is finished. The next one is close and the hope is that it will be out in 2006. The third one is sketchier except for chunks that are already completed.) The fifth book in the series, Far Arena, is once again by Alison and myself, and is already written. Edge is waiting for me to get #2 and #3 done before they publish #5.

Alison may or may not be available and willing to work with me on numbers 6 through 10, but we are still in contact every other week or so, by phone, and good friends. If she isn't game when the time comes, I will work on the rest of the books alone. If she is, I'll work with her.

My preferences regarding collaboration depend entirely on the collaborator, and the project. I like working with votary authors as an editor and advisor on ORU matters. I loved working with Alison on Throne Price and Far Arena. I would probably enjoy doing joint works of some kinds, with some people. Great ideas can come from "role playing" your way though a story on the telephone, over coffee or by e-mail, before shaping it into a complete story. But I also like the greater potential for artistic control that comes with being the sole author of a work, when that is most meaningful to me. I suppose it depends on what I am out to accomplish and how much respect and trust I have for my co-author.

GW: Is the shared universe model something that particularly suits science-fiction, or would you hope to see it expand to other genres?

LW: Good question. I feel inclined to argue that every universe is a shared one. Take detective literature. Someone created the hard-boiled private eye in the big city, as a sub-genre. Everyone who writes a story that makes use of that stock figure is writing in the same universe, more or less. Science Fiction makes the whole affair more explicit because the trappings are not shared with the real world and can become disproportionately significant because they are so visible. So if you replace "shared universe" with "style" or "trend", sharing happens all the time in other forms of literature. In one sense, it is our determination to draw lines around things and attribute any single work to one person, entirely, that is unnatural, because we are all inheriters of other people's "worlds". But that's waxing a bit philosophical. There does seem to be something about science fiction and fantasy that lends itself to working with shared universes. One reason might be the powerful appeal to the imagination. I believe shared universe authorship could be meaningful wherever there is a genre that inspires people to imagine themselves becoming part of an adventure.

Whether I want to see more or less of that in the world, I don't know yet. The key question for me, personally, is how votary authorship in the ORU will develop as literature. Can it be satisfying for authors and readers, without diverging in directions that I cannot tolerate? Will it generate greater value, as a whole, or distract me from getting my own magnus opus completed? I just don't know yet, for sure. But I do know that science fiction is participation literature. And I think that's a lively and positive thing.

GW: What's next for Lynda Williams?

LW: Courtesan Prince is coming out this summer. Once that happens, I will have the first book of the main series in hand, and be able to get on with the job of promoting it without bumbling through an explanation of how the book in hand is actually book number four of a series. Don't get me wrong! I love Throne Price. I would be gravely disappointed if people who enjoy Courtesan Prince didn't buy Throne Price immediately, because they can't wait for books two and three to be published. But I am finally in a position to start at the beginning, which is hugely empowering.

The first anthology of stories set in the Okal Rel Universe will also be out by the end of the year, all going well with the process at Windstorm Creative. Having that in hand will be a big help in explaining the Fandom Press opportunity to votary authors. With those two books, and the Windstorm novellas Kath and Mekan'stan as well, filling out the promise that works from both publishers will be integrated, I am looking forward to quite a nice little growth curve of progress. And I have the work in progress to establish a small, but steady stream of new books each year, for the next five to ten years.

I've been asked if I will ever write anything except Okal Rel Universe novels and I do, already, write some other fiction.  I have a story in the latest edition of the Dandelion literary journal, in Canada, for example. I publish non-fiction as well, most recently two chapters in Dr. Dee Horne's LitCan Project publication on the role of information technology in the publication of literary journals, in Canada. But the ORU will keep me pretty busy for a while, yet.

For the full primer to the Okal Rel universe, visit the Okal Rel website. Throne Price by Lynda and Alison Sinclair is available directly from Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing (whose website also features extracts from Courtesan Prince) or from Amazon UK, who helpfully list it as being written by 'Lynda William and Alastair Sinclair'. The shorter-form ORU stuff is from Windstorm Creative.

If all this sounds like your cup of tea, you're in luck. Lynda is looking to widen the circle of ORU writers, and submissions are open for the next Okal Rel Anthology. Start by devouring the stuff on the Okal Rel site and if it feels like a world you could write in, then email Lynda and say hi

UPDATE: Lynda has since updated the Okal Rel site with more specific information about how you can get involved. Click here to reality-skim over there.