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Post by ScintillaMyntan on Sept 24, 2022 20:17:53 GMT -6
Have you ever collaborated on a piece? How did it go? I'm doing that with friends soon. What should I take into consideration?
My main goals are to learn to take both writing and life a little less seriously and to force myself to write something different than usual — all my stories tend to become the same thing in different genres. It'll be fun also to encourage people I know to write more.
I've collaborated on a poem once actually. A friend and I wrote a response to a well-known poem, adhering to the same meter as the original. I think we discussed the idea and each contributed a stanza.
Long before that, I wrote a humorous story with a friend in school. We alternated chapters. I remember at some point taking turns writing an outline, each of us adding a chapter to the outline at a time and then writing the ones we each came up with. Surprisingly, I don't seem to remember that story having led to any arguments, just some discussions, and two characters we disputed the genders of for a few chapters, somehow. It was fun, and the story became a big thing we shared as friends.
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Bird
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Post by Bird on Oct 2, 2022 19:08:03 GMT -6
My creative writing course in high school did a class-wide collaborative writing. We created an island, decided on families to live on that island, and then we wrote stories about those families and often had to collaborate with each other to make sure we wrote coherently about that particular time period on the island - this meant asking what others were writing about for their characters, and then us agreeing on what the main story-arc for the whole island was that we could weave into the background of our character story-arcs. It was HARD. But fun. I think it only worked because we all had our own set of stories about our characters, and the plot of the island had been agreed on by the class as a whole - so we could weave in our stories into that main thread.
Now, collaborative storytelling such as alternating chapters is so much harder I think, especially if you want a somewhat consistent tone. I also suck at the whole reigning myself in and the fact that the other person's ideas for where to go is either better planned (my ideas are fly-by-seat-of-my-pants that don't fit into the agreed upon outline) or they were so left field for me or I was left field for them, that we'd get stuck. So my attempts has only been twice thus far for this style of collaborative storytelling.
My favorite collaborative storytelling is actually roleplaying games - DnD being the most well known, but I play with the Starforged system, Starfinder system, Archives of the Sky, or other indie RP systems. These require a bit more improv, but the Dungeon Master serves as the guide for the improv, so it's not true improv (except for Archives which is very much improv as there is no DM but prompt cards are used to help guide instead). This is also collaborative storytelling as the DM relies on the players to explore the quest and world presented and discuss how their characters react. This then can shift the DM's planned story very easily (a good DM knows how to shift the story based on player's contributions and when to balance that with the original planned plot so the game doesn't go too far off the rails). This is collaborative storytelling, but so many folks don't realize that's what they are doing when they play these games.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Oct 3, 2022 13:29:57 GMT -6
The only time I wrote a piece with someone else was during one of Old LF's contests. It was the only collaborative contest we held. It was fun, terrifying, and challenging. Mainly in terms of communicating with my partner and swallowing pride. I didn't think what we wrote was any good at all. But I never learned how to say that, so I just let my partner have his way and went with it. I cannot remember who won what.
Anyhoo, I didn't particularly like the experience. I think that's why in any interactive writing event my characters tend to remain aloof from the other players. My investigators in Cluedo, and Jessie in Litterbug don't fully interact with anyone. Doing so just gives me the shudders.
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Post by Alatariel on Oct 3, 2022 14:38:39 GMT -6
The only time I wrote a piece with someone else was during one of Old LF's contests. It was the only collaborative contest we held. It was fun, terrifying, and challenging. Mainly in terms of communicating with my partner and swallowing pride. I didn't think what we wrote was any good at all. But I never learned how to say that, so I just let my partner have his way and went with it. I cannot remember who won what. Anyhoo, I didn't particularly like the experience. I think that's why in any interactive writing event my characters tend to remain aloof from the other players. My investigators in Cluedo, and Jessie in Litterbug don't fully interact with anyone. Doing so just gives me the shudders. I remember the collaborative contest! I don't remember who I collaborated with, but I remember it being fun and challenging. We got along great and came up with something good, though I also don't remember what we wrote. I have a feeling we placed, maybe got second place? Ah, wish I could remember more. Otherwise, I've never collaborated with anyone and often wonder what it would be like...might be easier with a dual perspective and have each person write from one perspective each. That could be cool. |
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Hey, hey! I'm so excited about our upcoming activity. Should be announced in the next few days. Stay tuned....