Do you collaborate when writing?
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- readertim109
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Do you collaborate when writing?
Do you always write on you own, or do you sometimes work with a partner or partners? I notice some books are written by more than one person. It seems like it would be hard to write with more than one person, because you'd have to have a lot of communication with the person. What do you think?
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- kaytie
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That doesn't mean I work in a vacuum, though. I have two friends who are also writers and we share our work once we're past the first draft stages. They're at the same level I am (we all have agents) and are brilliant in ways I wish to improve on. I like to think I bring good comments to them, as well.
And now, with my agent, I get even more feedback. I don't consider our relationship as a collaborative one creatively, but he knows the business better than I do so I take his suggestions really seriously.
- DuchessAngel37
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I think collaborating depends on what you're writing or HOW you're writing.
For instance, is Person A coming up with the ideas and plotting and Person B is the one actually doing the writing?
Or are they both working together, which would mean they'd have to have similar styles.
My current collaboration involves one of my affiliates in my fanfic community, and we have completely different styles of writing, so our plot involves a main character who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka split personality) as a result of being molested as a child or seeing his parents killed (we haven't decided which yet), and we're each taking a personality and writing from that vantage point. His 'normal' personality is outgoing but quiet, kind, just your 'everyman' kind of guy. She's taking him and writing it in third person. His 'new' personality developed when he was a kid, as a defense mechanism for what he went through, but he really doesn't start coming out until he's grown and this guy is brash, ballsy, egotistical, a partier. I'm taking his side, and it's being written in 1st person. (1st person cuz he's selfish, get it?)
The plan is for readers to just be reading all this.. la di da, then suddenly it changes to this hard rocker dude, then it's back to la di da. Each 'guy' has his own friends, 'Josh' has one steady girlfriend, 'Damian' has one girl that he sees regularly, but every day has a new "girlfriend". So readers (hopefully) shouldn't even realize right away that these two people are the same guy.
The best part about this is that we can write independently of each other for a few chapters, as Damian doesn't show up until chapter 3, where he'll have a whole chapter to himself, then it goes back to Josh for awhile. We don't have to connect them to each other until maybe 6 or 7, when either Damian comes out in the middle of something Josh is doing, either work, or a date, or something, OR Josh's friends (or girlfriend) see Damian out, doing his partying, hard core thing, and then Josh has to take the fall. Then we can still work independently, but we'll just have to make sure we're both following the same track.
In the end, we decided that Damian will kind of take over, because as Josh's job gets more and more stressful, he keeps running into the person/s that hurt him, and more and more people give him sh*t for what Damian has done, he starts to crumble under the pressure, and Damian has to step up to keep him from falling apart, until it gets to the point where Josh IS Damian. But we haven't yet decided on whether Josh will just take on Damian's characteristics and still be Josh, or will Josh cease to exist.
And yes, notice the Jesus/Devil reference in Josh/Damian.
So far, really, that's all we've gotten. The actual writing part has not yet begun.
For the record, anyone who watches One Life to Live can point out that we're not entirely original here, but we're not copying the Jess/Tess thing in its entirety.
Wow that was really long. Guess I'm more excited about it than I thought.
- ResearchScholar
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The writing process is not like assembly-line work, where each person's input into manufacturing the product is the same. Yet, many people do not seem to be aware of that simple reality. Clearly, for obvious reasons, those of less capability do not wish to acknowledge that reality.
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It works quite well for us, I do the writing, I send him what I've done every so often, he reads it over and gives me feedback. It's nice to have someone to give me feedback, and it's also nice to have someone who can help me out when I get stuck. I don't know that I would want to do this all the time, but for this one, I do enjoy it.
Or maybe I'm just addicted to my boyfriend and will go for any excuse to interact with him. Who knows?
- lukebodell
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On the other hand, if one of the partners is resistant to put the effort or is less interested or even the mindsets don't match of the partners, so this could eventually lead to fights. Also, one who worked more would feel bad as far as the credit is concerned.
So, yeah one should keep these things in mind before setting up any collaboration.
- ALynnPowers
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I was actually the fourth author on a professional paper from my university days... and I didn't write any of it. I was just on the author's list because I helped with the research and was like the expert on the date analysis.
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- kezzstar24
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- moderntimes
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But I am now collaborating in a special way. A graphic novel artist who creates supernatural adult-oriented horror and sci-fi comics and I will be teaming up in 2015. I'll take about a dozen of my horror short stories, rewrite them in a script format, and he will use the text and dialogue, plus my story line, and illustrate the stories. We're going at this 50-50 and it will be a treat. Then we'll package the whole lot as a special issue graphic comic.
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ALynnPowers wrote:I've always wondered how collaborative writing works.
I was actually the fourth author on a professional paper from my university days... and I didn't write any of it. I was just on the author's list because I helped with the research and was like the expert on the date analysis.
You're an expert on date analysis, ALynn? So, like, could you come on a date with me and give me feedback? "Not enough leg." "Too much talking about your parents' divorce." Because I would appreciate that. I've never met an expert before!