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 This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| Collaborative Writing Question from someone ages ago, and who has subsequently blocked me, but I thought I’d tackle it anyway now that I found it again. They just can’t see it (and because they’ve blocked me, I can’t acknowledge them). Anyway – how do we write collaboratively? Now, there are various ways of collaborative writing. There’s the style here on WdC which is interactives where people read what has come before and add a new chapter (at least, they are supposed to read what has come before… that is not always the case, oh nonono…). Then there is the way an increasingly large number of famous authors do it, which is one person writes an outline, and then an underling fills in the details in the style of the famous author. And then there is ghost-writing ("20240727 Ghost Writing" ).But none of them really come under what is considered true collaborative writing. This is when two people work on the outline together (and you cannot pants it in collaboration successfully), and then write it together. And, truth be told, there is no one way to do it. Consider the following: *In The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter wrote alternate chapters, reading back over the previous chapter to get the idea of where they were going. *In Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman used an idea from Gaiman and a vague outline and both wrote separate books (Pratchett wrote 60k words, Gaiman 45k), and then they sat down over a period of time and merged them. *In The Talisman Stephen King and Peter Straub sat down together with an outline and wrote with one of them typing and them both throwing ideas in. King took the lead, and that is why it speaks with his voice more than Straub’s. *In Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Michael Palin and Terry Jones bounced off each other while Michael’s wife typed everything and then they edited it all together. This is why the stuff they wrote together is so different from what they wrote individually. These are four successful and different ways of collaborating. But I think three things are needed for a collaboration to work: 1) the two people need to have the same idea of where the story is going; 2) the two people need to have similar previous writing styles before the collaboration; & 3) the two people need to acknowledge when they need time apart from the collaboration. So, why collaborate? * Because you think your voice on its own is not going to work for a story. * You want to get the voice of someone else into your story to make it feel different. * It sounds like fun. * It is a way for you and a friend to write something together. * It can help break idea block (that form of writer’s block where you have an idea but no clue where it is going). Yes, I have collaborated. Some regular readers may know I did stand-up comedy for a little while, and a mate also did it, so between our sets, we’d do some sketch comedy, and we wrote the sketches together. The friendship almost didn’t survive. I went more into acrobatics and did my comedy that way, while he went into dinner theatre. I have not collaborated with anyone since. And this brings me to the next point – collaboration is not for everyone. Not everyone can write with someone else. When it comes to writing, I was always a control freak, something I have only let go of since becoming a ghost-writer back in 2015. Now I am more comfortable just writing what others want, but genuine collaboration – I still struggle. So, if you find it awkward to collaborate, there is nothing wrong with you. If you can’t even complete a chapter on an interactive, that is fine. But if you do like the collaborative writing sphere, then that’s great. It’s better to work with others and create something than to work alone and struggle. Good luck everyone! |
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