Collaborative fiction
Encyclopedia
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing
by a group of authors who share creative control of a story
.
Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally - many collaboratively written works have been the subject of a large degree of academic research.
writers and writing circle
s have experimented in creating group stories, such as Robert Asprin
's Thieves World
and MythAdventures
- such approaches date back at least as far as The Floating Admiral
in 1931. There are many highly regarded collaborations, but also some collaborative work produced as spoofs or hoaxes such as Naked Came the Stranger
, which was allegedly written to illustrate the point that popular American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar.
Collaborative writing can greatly increase motivation and speed of production for authors. Debbie Dadey
and Marcia Jones are quoted as saying that books in the Bailey School Kids
series take between "two weeks to two years to write". However, the process can also be slow and methodical: of collaborating with the novelist Edwin O'Connor
, Edmund Wilson
wrote "In writing alternate chapters with Ed, I very soon ran into difficulties. He would not always accept my cues of my methods, and I found my narrative blocked. I suspected that this was deliberate and that we were playing a game of chess, and this suspicion has been corroborated by Mrs. O'Connor's telling me that, in sending back Chapter 4, Ed had said to her with satisfaction, "Well, I guess I've got him now" ". Collaborative authors commonly publish under a joint pseudonym
, such as Judith Michael
, Lewis Padgett
or Grant Naylor
, particularly if they intend to only write as part of a collaboration, or if their other work is in a significantly different style than their collaborative work.
to successful books, if one partner has other commitments or is bored with the project, then losses, delays and pressure on the relationship may occur.
The Association of Authors' Representatives recommends that "a collaboration agreement must deal with termination of the collaboration: How the collaborators can part ways, who keeps the money, who keeps the rights to the material".
Moreover, there can be legal complications if, for example, two authors are under contract to write other books individually for different publishers - if there is any overlap on the types of books then the contractual responsibilities need to be thoroughly examined to avoid copyright problems.
author may focus on a specific protagonist
or character in the narrative thread
, and then pass the story to another writer for further additions or a change in focus to a different protagonist. Alternatively, authors might write the text for their own particular subplot
within an overall narrative, in which case one author may have the responsibility of integrating the story as a whole.
The methods used by commercial collaborative writers vary tremendously. When beginning writing the short story 'the toy mill' Karl Schroeder
and David Nickle began by writing alternating sentences, whereas when English authors Terry Pratchett
and Neil Gaiman
wrote Good Omens
they largely wrote separate plotlines and then collaborated much more heavily when revising the manuscript.
The collaboration may be very limited indeed, when John Green and David Levithan
wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson
the only plot point they decided on was that two characters would meet at some point in the novel and that their meeting would have a tremendous effect on their lives. After this decision, they separately wrote the first three chapters for their half and then shared them with each other. After sharing, they then "knew immediately it was going to work", as stated by Levithan.
Woodmansee uses studies of writing practices since the Renaissance to conclude that the modern definition of authorship, is a 'relatively recent formation' and that previously 'more corporate and collaborative' forms of writing prevailed, suggesting a long history of Collaborative Fiction. She further argues that the concept that 'genuine authorship consists in individual acts of origination' is an entirely modern myth.
For Renaissance playwrights, collaboration appears to have been the norm, Bently notes that nearly two-thirds of plays mentioned in Henslowe's papers reflect the participation of more than one writer. There is also an issue of continuous revision, it was common practice in Renaissance English theatre for professional writers attached to a company to compose new characters, scenes, prologues and epilogues for plays in which they did not originally have a hand. Scott McMillin has exported revision as a deconstruction of authorial individuality in the Sir Thomas More manuscript.
In an artistic sense, as Lorraine York notes, “Critics and readers feel a persistent need to ‘de-collaborate’ these works, to parse the collective text into the separate contributions of two or more authors” . This is part of a tradition in criticism to view collaboration as a subset or aberrant kind of individual authorship - such that later readers could separate out by examining the collaborative text. Particular examples of this approach to criticism include Cyrus Hoy
who studies authorship in the Beaumont/Fletcher plays.
There have been several university-based projects that investigated collaborative fiction, both from a writing perspective and as a testbed for scientific techniques, such as visualization of narrative structure.
and a creative writing class that he taught at the University of Oregon
. The cover of the book says it was written by O.U. Levon—the name of this supposed author, spelled backwards, is "novel U.O." (University of Oregon).
Because of Kesey's attachment to the project, the book was widely reviewed in newspapers and magazines. Critics were generally intrigued by the book but ultimately critical of its shortcomings: noting in particular the lack of a coherent voice and a too-large cast of characters. Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Bob Sipchen noted, "Caverns is an amusing lark, full of weird characters and goofy plot twists. It was a sufficiently intriguing project to make The Mainstream Media swarm around Kesey again. But no one is calling Caverns literature."
in collaboration with De Montfort University
, apparently inspired by the success of Wikipedia
, in February 2007. It was heavily advertised and it quickly became a target for vandalism
. On March 7, 2007, the Penguin Books UK blog
announced that the project had come to an end.
The story could be contributed to by any site visitor, although a team of students at the University moderated contributions, in an attempt to keep the project on-track. Due to the number of edits (over 100 every hour) Penguin imposed "reading windows" that froze the novel so that editors could read over what had been changed to get their bearings on where the story was going.
Reactions to the project have been mixed, with some commentators expressing interest in seeing how the project takes shape, including the potential educational benefits while describing the current progress using terms including "predictably horrible".
In April 2008, the Institute of Creative Technologies of De Montfort University published A Million Penguins Research Report , which concluded:
and used both to improve the writing skills of the participants and as a testing ground for scientific techniques, such as visualization of narrative structure.The project attempted to show students the workflow of a novel from inception to production and to improve teamwork and feedback skills. Workshops lasted up to a week and aimed to produce a full length novel from a plot idea provided by an established author, with younger students producing smaller sized novels Because the workshops were very short the use of collaborative writing was required so that a novel could be produced in the timeframe. Techniques from software engineering
were used to arrange the workload amongst the students.
Prizes was given to Dave Eggers
, partially for his work with the 826 project
, which uses many collaborative techniques to engage school children, and community groups in writing. The 826 Valencia chapter consists of a writing lab, a street-front pirate supply store that partially funds the programs, and two satellite classrooms in nearby middle schools. Over 1,400 volunteers—including published authors, magazine founders, SAT-course instructors, and documentary filmmakers—have donated time to work with thousands of students since the chapter was founded. His TED Prize wish was for community members to personally engage with local public schools.
can be fully open with no rules or enforced structure as it moves from author to author; however, many collaborative fiction works adopt some set of rule on what constitutes an acceptable contribution.
Writing games for collaborative writing have a tradition in literary groups such as the Dadaists and the Oulipo
. The advent of the internet
has seen many such collaborative writing games go online, resulting both in hypertext fiction
and in more conventional literary production. For example, the Baen's bar forum, known as 1632 Tech, has been a prime force behind the many works in the popular alternate history 1632 series
under the aegis of Eric Flint
— especially The Grantville Gazettes
. Author and scholar Scott Rettber's paper "Collective Narrative" discusses connections between avant garde
literary groups and online collaborative fiction.
and computer roleplaying gamers and related 'fandom
' activities. Role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons are often seen as a process to generate narratives though each characters interactions
Such table top roleplaying has always been an exercise in collaborative fiction, but can possess more structured rules: players acting out in an antisocial way can be penalised by the game mechanics (thought they are just as likely to be penalised socially).
, Galaxiki
, and Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga encourage the development of fictional universes rather than novels (though 'Epic Legends' is parody of fantasy universes).
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
by a group of authors who share creative control of a story
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
.
Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally - many collaboratively written works have been the subject of a large degree of academic research.
Commercial collaborations
Traditional fictionFiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
writers and writing circle
Writing circle
A writing circle is a group of like-minded writers needing support for their work, either through writing peer critiques, workshops or classes, or just encouragement...
s have experimented in creating group stories, such as Robert Asprin
Robert Asprin
Robert Lynn Asprin was an American science fiction and fantasy author and active fan, best known for his humorous MythAdventures and Phule's Company series.- Background :...
's Thieves World
Thieves World
Thieves' World is a shared world fantasy series created by Robert Lynn Asprin in 1978. The original series comprised twelve anthologies, including stories by such science fiction authors as Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Andrew J. Offutt, C. J. Cherryh, Janet Morris, Chris Morris...
and MythAdventures
MythAdventures
MythAdventures or Myth Adventures is a fantasy series by Robert Lynn Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye. After twelve novels by Asprin, published 1978 to 2002, he and Nye continued the series with seven more books...
- such approaches date back at least as far as The Floating Admiral
The Floating Admiral
The Floating Admiral is a collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club in 1931. The twelve chapters of the story were each written by a different author, in the following sequence: Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha...
in 1931. There are many highly regarded collaborations, but also some collaborative work produced as spoofs or hoaxes such as Naked Came the Stranger
Naked Came the Stranger
Naked Came the Stranger is a 1969 novel written as a literary hoax poking fun at contemporary American culture. Though credited to "Penelope Ashe", it was in fact written by a group of twenty-four prominent journalists led by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady...
, which was allegedly written to illustrate the point that popular American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar.
Collaborative writing can greatly increase motivation and speed of production for authors. Debbie Dadey
Debbie Dadey
Debbie Dadey is the author of over 145 children's books, including The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series.Dadey was a first grade teacher and librarian before becoming a full-time writer...
and Marcia Jones are quoted as saying that books in the Bailey School Kids
Bailey School Kids
The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids is a best-selling children's book chapter book series. The books in the series are co-authored by Marcia T. Jones and Debbie Dadey....
series take between "two weeks to two years to write". However, the process can also be slow and methodical: of collaborating with the novelist Edwin O'Connor
Edwin O'Connor
Edwin O'Connor was an American radio personality, journalist, and novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962 for The Edge of Sadness...
, Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
wrote "In writing alternate chapters with Ed, I very soon ran into difficulties. He would not always accept my cues of my methods, and I found my narrative blocked. I suspected that this was deliberate and that we were playing a game of chess, and this suspicion has been corroborated by Mrs. O'Connor's telling me that, in sending back Chapter 4, Ed had said to her with satisfaction, "Well, I guess I've got him now" ". Collaborative authors commonly publish under a joint pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
, such as Judith Michael
Judith Michael
Judith Michael is the pseudonym of the husband-and-wife writing team of Judith Barnard and Michael Fain . Barnard has worked as a journalist, educational film writer, biographer and editor. She received a B.A. from Ohio State University and an M.A. from Northwestern University. Under her own name,...
, Lewis Padgett
Lewis Padgett
Lewis Padgett was the joint pseudonym of the science fiction authors and spouses Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, taken from their mothers' maiden names. They also used the pseudonyms Lawrence O'Donnell and C. H...
or Grant Naylor
Grant Naylor
Grant Naylor was the collective name used by writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor for their collaborative work, particularly the television series Red Dwarf. Grant and Naylor themselves called this pseudonym a "gestalt entity" Grant Naylor was the collective name used by writers Rob Grant and Doug...
, particularly if they intend to only write as part of a collaboration, or if their other work is in a significantly different style than their collaborative work.
Legal aspects
Disadvantages of the collaborative writing process can include problems with series or sequelsSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to successful books, if one partner has other commitments or is bored with the project, then losses, delays and pressure on the relationship may occur.
The Association of Authors' Representatives recommends that "a collaboration agreement must deal with termination of the collaboration: How the collaborators can part ways, who keeps the money, who keeps the rights to the material".
Moreover, there can be legal complications if, for example, two authors are under contract to write other books individually for different publishers - if there is any overlap on the types of books then the contractual responsibilities need to be thoroughly examined to avoid copyright problems.
Process
A collaborativeCollaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
author may focus on a specific protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
or character in the narrative thread
Narrative thread
A narrative thread, or plot thread , refers to particular elements and techniques of writing to center the story in the action or experience of characters rather than to relate a matter in a dry 'All knowing' sort of narration...
, and then pass the story to another writer for further additions or a change in focus to a different protagonist. Alternatively, authors might write the text for their own particular subplot
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
within an overall narrative, in which case one author may have the responsibility of integrating the story as a whole.
The methods used by commercial collaborative writers vary tremendously. When beginning writing the short story 'the toy mill' Karl Schroeder
Karl Schroeder
Karl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality and interstellar travel, and have a deeply philosophical streak...
and David Nickle began by writing alternating sentences, whereas when English authors Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
and Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
wrote Good Omens
Good Omens
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a World Fantasy Award nominated novel written in collaboration between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman....
they largely wrote separate plotlines and then collaborated much more heavily when revising the manuscript.
The collaboration may be very limited indeed, when John Green and David Levithan
David Levithan
David Levithan is an American young-adult fiction editor and award-winning author. His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published in 2003...
wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a novel by John Green and David Levithan, published in April 2010 by Dutton Juvenile. The book's narrative is divided evenly between two boys named Will Grayson, with Green having written all of the chapters for one, and Levithan having written the chapters for the...
the only plot point they decided on was that two characters would meet at some point in the novel and that their meeting would have a tremendous effect on their lives. After this decision, they separately wrote the first three chapters for their half and then shared them with each other. After sharing, they then "knew immediately it was going to work", as stated by Levithan.
Academic perspectives and projects
From an academic perspective, there is anxiety about collaborative authorial endeavors. Academics are concerned with being able to discover who wrote what, and which ideas belong to whom. Specifically, in the humanities collaborative authorship has been frowned upon in favor of the individual author. In these instances, antiquated ideas of individual genius influence how scholars look at issues of attribution, tenure, etc. Collaboration scholars Ede and Lunsford note, "everyday practices in the humanities continue to ignore, or even to punish, collaboration while authorizing work attributed to (autonomous) individuals". In particular, literary-critical essays often move to "settle" questions of authorship before moving on to their central interpretive purposes.Woodmansee uses studies of writing practices since the Renaissance to conclude that the modern definition of authorship, is a 'relatively recent formation' and that previously 'more corporate and collaborative' forms of writing prevailed, suggesting a long history of Collaborative Fiction. She further argues that the concept that 'genuine authorship consists in individual acts of origination' is an entirely modern myth.
For Renaissance playwrights, collaboration appears to have been the norm, Bently notes that nearly two-thirds of plays mentioned in Henslowe's papers reflect the participation of more than one writer. There is also an issue of continuous revision, it was common practice in Renaissance English theatre for professional writers attached to a company to compose new characters, scenes, prologues and epilogues for plays in which they did not originally have a hand. Scott McMillin has exported revision as a deconstruction of authorial individuality in the Sir Thomas More manuscript.
In an artistic sense, as Lorraine York notes, “Critics and readers feel a persistent need to ‘de-collaborate’ these works, to parse the collective text into the separate contributions of two or more authors” . This is part of a tradition in criticism to view collaboration as a subset or aberrant kind of individual authorship - such that later readers could separate out by examining the collaborative text. Particular examples of this approach to criticism include Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
who studies authorship in the Beaumont/Fletcher plays.
There have been several university-based projects that investigated collaborative fiction, both from a writing perspective and as a testbed for scientific techniques, such as visualization of narrative structure.
Caverns
Caverns is a 1989 novel written collaboratively as an experiment by Ken KeseyKen Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
and a creative writing class that he taught at the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
. The cover of the book says it was written by O.U. Levon—the name of this supposed author, spelled backwards, is "novel U.O." (University of Oregon).
Because of Kesey's attachment to the project, the book was widely reviewed in newspapers and magazines. Critics were generally intrigued by the book but ultimately critical of its shortcomings: noting in particular the lack of a coherent voice and a too-large cast of characters. Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Bob Sipchen noted, "Caverns is an amusing lark, full of weird characters and goofy plot twists. It was a sufficiently intriguing project to make The Mainstream Media swarm around Kesey again. But no one is calling Caverns literature."
A Million Penguins
The first well-known wikinovel was A Million Penguins, an experimental wikinovel launched by Penguin BooksPenguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
in collaboration with De Montfort University
De Montfort University
De Montfort University is a public research and teaching university situated in the medieval Old Town of Leicester, England, adjacent to the River Soar and the Leicester Castle Gardens...
, apparently inspired by the success of Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, in February 2007. It was heavily advertised and it quickly became a target for vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
. On March 7, 2007, the Penguin Books UK blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
announced that the project had come to an end.
The story could be contributed to by any site visitor, although a team of students at the University moderated contributions, in an attempt to keep the project on-track. Due to the number of edits (over 100 every hour) Penguin imposed "reading windows" that froze the novel so that editors could read over what had been changed to get their bearings on where the story was going.
Reactions to the project have been mixed, with some commentators expressing interest in seeing how the project takes shape, including the potential educational benefits while describing the current progress using terms including "predictably horrible".
In April 2008, the Institute of Creative Technologies of De Montfort University published A Million Penguins Research Report , which concluded:
- "Certainly, some of the participants in the project did attempt to 'write a novel' but it remains unclear as to whether they succeeded. What today appears not to be a novel as we know it may in time come to be seen as one, just as work once judged not to be poetry is often later brought into the critical fold. But for the moment at least the answer to whether or not a community can write a novel appears to be 'not like this'. Our research has shown that "A Million Penguins" is something other than a novel and, thereby, opened up new questions and avenues for exploration. It has treated the final product not as a variation of a printed novel or something which could be turned into one, but as type of performance. The contributors did not form a community, rather they spontaneously organised themselves into a diverse, riotous assembly. We have demonstrated that the wiki novel experiment was the wrong way to try to answer the question of whether a community could write a novel, but as an adventure in exploring new forms of publishing, authoring and collaboration it was, ground-breaking and exciting."
Too many cooks
Other educationally motivated work has been developed by the University of LondonUniversity of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
and used both to improve the writing skills of the participants and as a testing ground for scientific techniques, such as visualization of narrative structure.The project attempted to show students the workflow of a novel from inception to production and to improve teamwork and feedback skills. Workshops lasted up to a week and aimed to produce a full length novel from a plot idea provided by an established author, with younger students producing smaller sized novels Because the workshops were very short the use of collaborative writing was required so that a novel could be produced in the timeframe. Techniques from software engineering
Software engineering
Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software...
were used to arrange the workload amongst the students.
Community and educational uses
Collaborative writing has been used to increase community engagement in writing: one of the three 2008 TEDTED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
Prizes was given to Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
, partially for his work with the 826 project
826 Valencia
826 Valencia is a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping children and young adults develop writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.-Overview:...
, which uses many collaborative techniques to engage school children, and community groups in writing. The 826 Valencia chapter consists of a writing lab, a street-front pirate supply store that partially funds the programs, and two satellite classrooms in nearby middle schools. Over 1,400 volunteers—including published authors, magazine founders, SAT-course instructors, and documentary filmmakers—have donated time to work with thousands of students since the chapter was founded. His TED Prize wish was for community members to personally engage with local public schools.
Recreational collaborative writing
Collaborative fictionFiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
can be fully open with no rules or enforced structure as it moves from author to author; however, many collaborative fiction works adopt some set of rule on what constitutes an acceptable contribution.
Writing games for collaborative writing have a tradition in literary groups such as the Dadaists and the Oulipo
Oulipo
Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
. The advent of the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
has seen many such collaborative writing games go online, resulting both in hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in "literature" and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a...
and in more conventional literary production. For example, the Baen's bar forum, known as 1632 Tech, has been a prime force behind the many works in the popular alternate history 1632 series
1632 series
The 1632 series, also known as the 1632-verse or Ring of Fire series, is an alternate history book series and sub-series created, primarily co-written, and coordinated by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books...
under the aegis of Eric Flint
Eric Flint
Eric Flint is an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are alternate history science fiction, but he also writes humorous fantasy adventures.- Career :...
— especially The Grantville Gazettes
The Grantville Gazettes
The Grantville Gazettes are anthologies of short stories set in the 1632 universe introduced in Eric Flint's novel 1632.The Gazettes started as an experiment: a professionally edited, officially sanctioned "fan magazine" published electronically...
. Author and scholar Scott Rettber's paper "Collective Narrative" discusses connections between avant garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
literary groups and online collaborative fiction.
The influence of tabletop gaming
Other forms of collaborative fiction have evolved from of the practices of table topRole-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
and computer roleplaying gamers and related 'fandom
Fandom
Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...
' activities. Role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons are often seen as a process to generate narratives though each characters interactions
Such table top roleplaying has always been an exercise in collaborative fiction, but can possess more structured rules: players acting out in an antisocial way can be penalised by the game mechanics (thought they are just as likely to be penalised socially).
World creation
Sites such as Orion's ArmOrion's Arm
Orion's Arm, is a multi-authored online science fiction world-building project, first established in 2000 by M. Alan Kazlev, Donna Malcolm Hirsekorn, Bernd Helfert and Anders Sandberg and further co-authored by many people since...
, Galaxiki
Galaxiki
Galaxiki is a web-based, free content virtual community web 2.0 project. It consists of a virtual galaxy with over a million stars and solar systems that can be explored using a 2-dimensional map...
, and Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga encourage the development of fictional universes rather than novels (though 'Epic Legends' is parody of fantasy universes).
See also
- Shared universeShared universeA shared universe is a fictional universe to which more than one writer contributes. Work set in a shared universe share characters and other elements with varying degrees of consistency. Shared universes are contrasted with collaborative writing, in which multiple authors work on a single story....
, for when authors collaborate in a setting rather than a particular storyline. - Round-robin storyRound-robin storyA round-robin story, or simply "round robin," is a type of collaborative fiction or storytelling in which a number of authors each write chapters of a novel or pieces of a story, in rounds. Round-robin novels were invented in the 19th century, and later became a tradition particularly in science...
- Collaborative blogCollaborative blogA collaborative blog is a type of weblog in which posts are written and published by more than one author. The majority of high profile collaborative blogs are based around a single uniting theme, such as politics or technology....