Dec 01 2008
On Round-Robin Collaborative Fiction
You’ve probably seen the (rather long) short story I concluded yesterday; if not, here it all is. I’m not one to let a learning experience like that go by without taking advantage of it, so here are my conclusions on getting into that sort of round-robin collaborative fiction.
The advantage is that nobody knows what exactly is going to happen. That makes it interesting. It also means you’re not going to spend half an hour sitting around a table arguing over what’s going to happen next—everyone writes, without having to worry about the other writers either physically or metaphorically looking over their shoulders until the project is finished.
The disadvantage is that nobody knows what exactly is going to happen, and as a result the person in last position is likely to end up with a greater share of the narrative “load”. It’s also easy to get pulled into one story when you thought you were going to write another, which can be very, very frustrating. Moreover, while it has all the “But I thought THIS was going to happen” factor of working with people, you don’t get the advantages of collaborating: the ability to bounce ideas off each other and make them better than either could come up with alone, the knowledge that you really are writing the same characters and not killing them and sticking your own ghosts in the bodies every time the turn rolls over, and just the group-feeling that comes from working together on a project. People collaborating in isolation doesn’t work very well; I learned it from my last major gig, and I’m learning it again here.
But while this experience is not for everyone, it might be for some people, so the following are my rules for trying to keep it as non-frustrating as possible.
Rule #1: Try to avoid it. It may seem nice to have a bunch of other people splitting the work, but when you’re doing it sight unseen, you’re going to run into setbacks, like not knowing what the story’s going to be about when it starts. This is worse with the end, since when nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen, it’s very easy for everyone to give in to the temptation to leave the person in last position with all the loose ends and very few clues on how to fix them. Similarly, the person on the end is probably going to come up with something that didn’t fit your vision of the ending at all, and might be a little bit bitter in the process.
Rule #2: If you’re thinking of disregarding Rule #1, at least make sure that you’re working with people who have the same aesthetics, if not the same writing style. I’ll be honest—this was a big problem for me in yesterday’s projects. I try to avoid D&D-world fantasy at all costs, I have an allergic reaction to characters whose characterization seems to be based around stereotypes, and…. well, my family is under instructions to shoot me if any of my characters’ voices “drip sex”. It’s decent writing, and technically it’s my genre, but the styles clash worse than plaid and paisley.
Rule #3: Have an outline. I cannot stress this seriously enough. Otherwise, nobody’s going to have any clue what’s going on, and that makes for issues that nobody’s going to see ahead of time. Like the person with the end having way too many loose ends to tie up and no idea how to do so, or a secondary character stealing the show because nobody’s quite sure what to do with the first one, or any of a number of potential hazards. It also gives you a chance to make sure you aren’t going to break Rule #2 by accident, as outlining will give you a feel for your fellow writers.
So. That’s what I learned this weekend. What do all of you think?
