What it boiled down to was that I wanted to know what differences there were, as a writer, between working on your own stuff and working on somebody else's. The distinction, in my mind, is that "your own stuff" means characters and worlds that you have created solely on your own, as opposed to things created by somebody else. When you're a television writer, it seems to me that you are working largely with somebody else's stuff (at least, if you have a career like Espenson, where you work under people like Joss Whedon). And I wonder if that ever feels limiting or constraining.
She responded (albeit via somebody else's question) by saying how much she preferred to work with other people's characters. She mentions being excited that she gets to "play in this sandbox" and work with characters and worlds that are already rich and developed. She then went on to talk about what characters she never got to write for that she always regretted, and so on.
I'll admit, I was flabbergasted by this response. At first I thought she was just putting good spin on it, because I thought surely she can't enjoy having to work under the creative control of somebody else. But listening to her, I could tell this was not the case. She really did prefer to take something that already existed and add her own flare to it.
In case you were wondering, I'm obviously the exact opposite. I don't know if I could stand not having complete creative control over the characters I was writing. Even if I was given a lot of slack and freedom, I would always know that these were somebody else's babies and that I couldn't treat them however I wanted. I would always feel the creator looming over me and saying "He/she would not say/do that." What Espenson referred to as a sandbox I just saw as a can of worms I wanted no part in. I can't even see myself attempting fan-fiction, even if it is a franchise or universe I love. For example, I wrote some scripts for a Star Wars comic, but it had to be set in a time and place where no pre-existing characters would be so that there wouldn't be any interaction or overlap.
As far as that goes, I also know I'm enough of a control freak that any attempt I've made in the past to co-write with somebody else has always ended in disaster. For starters, I don't know how the process should be done so that it all blends smoothly together. It always seems such an obvious, jarring joint when one writer stops and the next begins. And I also have a hard time letting somebody else take over characters and plot events that I consider "mine." Maybe I would fear the looming creator if I were working with somebody else's stuff because I know I myself would be that looming creator.
I suppose this might just be the difference between a novelist and a TV writer, although that seems unfair (not to mention implicitly smacking of elitism). I'm used to playing God, so to speak: making the world, making the characters, and creating the plot all on my own. Oh, sure, I get inspiration and ideas from other places, but every writer does that. The big difference is that I know that I have to do everything; there aren't going to be other writers to fill in the details for me. Which is fine, I generally think of myself as a detail-oriented person, and in a lot of ways I like that.
But now I feel like my next challenge should be to try collaboration. There's always the chance that my past attempts have failed because of some other factor other than my inherent inability to work with other creative types. If nothing else, it should be an interesting exercise that could teach me a thing or two.
The question is, then: are there any writers out there that I know who are as dead-serious about the craft as I am?
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