I was a creative player, but I got some bad injuries early on and I decided that if this was a jungle we were playing in then it's better to be a lion than a lamb.
A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.
I am certainly not arguing for the de facto autonomy of the individual work, even though there is much to be said for making the attempt to see it in that light as one facet of the reception process.