We are probably close to 20 authors total among those who have written for the canon storyline, though never were all 20 active at the same time. Perhaps the most active at one time was around the time we added the second generation stories (the ones that begin in 2016 instead of 2006) because at that time we had 6-8 authors writing in the original timeline and added another six authors to the team specifically working on gen 2 characters. But while 20 authors working on a shared universe seems a lot, that's actually just the canon authors. There are probably more than 40 authors (that we know of) who have used enough of the concepts and characters of the WU that they felt the need to tag the stories as fan fiction of the universe (or as we call it these days, WhatIF - Whateley Independent Fiction). Some of that is REEEEEEally non-canon. As in, not only are the world mechanics and deeper stories misrepresented, but characters that are well know are portrayed doing very uncharacteristic things and so forth. On the other hand, some really great stories are out there that if you didn't see the tag, you'd never know they were non-canon. Some of these have been adopted into the canon (Sleethr's "Whisper" storyline, for example) because some element of the story expanded on something that we wanted to include in the canon and the story was well enough written that it would be silly of us not to just include what was there... in Sleethr's case, he expanded the development (and spent a lot of time in mail and PM's with me to get it right) on GEO... which has gone a bit off the radar in the timeline for the moment... but will return with a vengeance in the Spring 2008 time frame.

Shadowsblade's work is all What-IF (non-canon), and his representations of some of the characters departs a bit from continuity... doesn't mean they're bad stories, but that sort of thing CAN be confusing if you read a canon story and a non-canon one and you don't see the tags (or they aren't included properly) and you try to reconcile the differences in character. It is actually part of the copyright / usage agreement that people who aren't canon need to include the blurb... but shy of getting legal on someone, there's not much but sound like jerks. And we don't want to resort to legal recourse for someone who is just having fun writing stories. We'll save that for the people who are trying to sell stuff they don't own. :P

But yes, within the canon material... there's quite a bit of collaboration. Sometimes more than others, it takes a LOT of work to round robin a story but there are a number of things that were written with everyone contributing scenes to a coordinating author. We all review work that is approaching finish, which is how we manage the continuity problems as well as we do (not that there aren't continuity issues... there are lots). And a lot of the long range planning happens via email exchange or chat... so even when an individual is writing a specific story from one of their own protagonist characters (we often share supporting characters, but rarely write from the perspective of someone else's protagonists), there are plenty of concepts, foreshadowing, red herrings, and things from other plotlines that can be included. Which is where a lot of the depth comes from, I feel... because we've been seeding hints of things into stories that have yet to blossom 14 years later... but they WILL, assuming we all live that long. :P

Kristin

H.P. Lovecraft's Cthlulu (spelling uncertain) or essentially a primordial builder destroyer of the world. Great (grand) Old One... Mythological engine of creation?