Question WA stories in other media?

Gen 2 was implemented under these rules with one variant... that upon their absence from active participation in the process of continuing the plotline, Gen 2 authors relinquish control over their character for the purposes of moving forward with the universe. They would still be credited for work they completed and as the character creator (with any earnings that might happen to exist as a result of that) but the team would gain the right to write future works as needed for the evolution of the story, even if that means an evolution of the character, plans for them, and so forth.

Not that we wouldn't do our best to make sure any contributors benefit from movie deals and so forth if they ever happened... but we wanted to be realistic about the 'lost author' situation... and ensure that such challenges as Gen 1's plotline faced cannot happen to Gen 2.



In all honesty... we've answered fairly bluntly that reworking the universe to meet the demands of published work or release in another media format would require a LOT of work. And that's true. But not so much that it would be impossible. Not all that much more than the editorial process of any other series of novels being prepared for publishing or conversion to webcomic, video/screenplay. Tennyo would be a 'big' challenge... but not insurmountable. Clearly, she cannot be Ryoko... but a retcon that makes her take on traits of an anime figure similar to Ryoko for an anime that only exists in the WU is certainly doable without breaking the character concept. Ayla's Marvel buyout and other trademark name issues can be dealt with the way every other universe deals with them.

Its actually possible that working out how to handle the 'business' of it all would actually be more complicated than the writing/retcon that would be necessary. But don't get me wrong... reworking 9 million words of existing text into a collection of publishable novels would NOT be light work. It would probably be far easier to write unique stories in the universe for conversion to comic or screenplay than to work from the existing text... but if I were to try, I might do something like:

Stopping the Ninja's
Jade's origin
Chaka in martial arts class
Jade against Bloodwolf
Nikki in Magick class
The Brawl with the Alphas
Ayla and the art of Investment... and holdouts
The Boston Brawl
Hank and paper swords
Billie and the sim with 'Hades' and her rescue of her family (flashback)
The Halloween Invasion

---

Second movie would be the Outcasts line

Outcast Corner - jam session
Combat sims - drawing from a lot of the sim finals
Hit the ranges with Erik and show the video
Intersect the Halloween Invasion, showing non-Kimba battles ending with Erik going 'boom'
Introduce Eldritch
Interlude with Jobe and the drow harem
The Voodoo wolves / intersect with TK
The Darwin series
the formation of Wondercute


Third movie?

Atm, I think it'd probably be the leadup to the formation of the Atlantean League... so the bringing together of Kodiak, Loophole, and Kayda, and the reformation of Tansy. Harder to say 'exactly' what scenes would be the core thread of that one though... would probably include the death of Aung, the redemption of Skybolt/Cav, but I'd have to think more on it to pin down the 'full' arc.

If you have this sort of project in mind, I have two recommendations.

1. Don't propose it to the Cabal until you are 100% serious that you are going to pursue it. You will, literally, be entering into a contract with us and there will be commitments and expectations on both sides that will not work out well in the event of projects that go 'off the rails'. For example, selling the rights to use concepts and characters in a video game... is something we can't do multiple times, as most such projects require exclusivity. And even if you don't, there's no guarantee that the next person won't. So if we sell that first attempt to you for a case of beer and then EA games approaches us, its not even an option to sign with EA (even though I think most of us value our souls, tarnished as they are, too much to sign with EA). And given that you're probably looking at 'after the fact' compensation instead payment up front (your project doesn't HAVE a studio's finances behind you to purchase IP up front), our % cut of an 'incomplete' project is 0.

2. When you do propose it, have enough of it fleshed out that you can really sell the project to us. How are you going to incorporate the IP? What's it going to look like? How's it going to play? Most industry projects have to create a working demo to get access to valuable IP.

As I've noted to Schol-R-LEA in PM, the idea of doing a 'reduction' version of the canon storyline for animation or for print publication is not unique. One of the biggest difficulties is in handling the rights and royalties for the original creators, especially those who are no longer active parts of the community. But if we were able to work out the legal difficulties, two things would be priorities.

First, we'd have to trim a number of 'visible' elements that are copyright / trademark elements that we would never run into problem with as free online content... but definitely would get legal attention if we started accumulating royalties. Its not as insurmountable a challenge as it sounds but it would take some major re-writes. But ....

Second, it would also need significant reduction. In truth, there's plenty of room for sprawling journal entry style writing with mention of every detail covering every detail of every day in online fiction... paying customers tend to start getting feisty if you don't progress the plot after 100k words (a 400 pg novel). I completely expect 13 million words of Gen 1 canon could be compressed into a much more engaging and active 3 million words. And if the writing was cleaned up in the process... well.. some of our early stuff was rocky. Some of our recent stuff is rocky. I wouldn't pass up a hard core editorial pass on any of it. Not as a change to the original releases... but as a adaptation / reprint? Oh yes. The fact that 3 million words is just over 30ish novels vs 150 for the collection as is? Well... I know which I'd find easier to sell.

As for web comic or animation projects? What you should keep in mind is that anything you do should be done in cooperation with the canon team. Any agreement we make is going to give one or more of us oversight / veto authority... yes, you can always do a WhatIF version (as long as you aren't making any money from it), but we're not averse to seeing someone try. But we DO expect it to be handled with care and to standards. If you want to use the content as a means of honing your craft, that's awesome, we're flattered that you're inspired that way. But if you want to take the WA universe and do a web comic or an animation and you don't do as professionally as possible? We are probably going to ask you to stop. And before you take money for it, please take the time to work up a contract with us. That'll protect you as much as us.