lunabee34 | Successful Co-Writing: the Who with the What Now?

There are a lot of ways people co-write (and Wayne Koestenbaum, who always writes boring books about interesting subjects, wrote a book about the erotics of collaboration between male writers that is obviously on point here). I think the most practical way to work would be to have a "story editor" and a "scriptwriter." (At least this is what I fantasize, because if I were to collaborate it would be with someone who can actually make up plots.)

I think the most practical way to work would be to have a "story editor" and a "scriptwriter."

*nods*

That makes sense to me as well.

I'm seeing from the comments that while everyone's method is different, they are all variations on the same theme of give and take.

I think it works however you want it to work, and however, you and your co-writer work best together. I've never written something with someone else, but I've known co-writers where one does the outlining and ideas, and the other does the actual writing, and I've known co-writers where one writes and then the other edits and adds some more and then the first person edits again and writes some more, it just keeps growing and growing, and I've known people who mostly just treat it like a round-robin. I imagine there are as many ways of co-writing as there are of writing.

So what's the project? Because I've always wanted to try writing something with someone, just to try it. (This is not the best reason to write with someone, I admit.)

The project is basically this. I made a post a couple entries back about how well I think the worlds of SGA and SPN could be married. Then I wrote a couple pages of Rodney in a parking garage getting attacked by a vampire and being saved by Sam and Dean. I think it's a great opening, but I've got nothing else. I have no clue what will happen in the story; I have no idea if it should be gen or if there should be a pairing or multiple pairings; I don't know if all the action should stay earthside or if the Winchesters need to go to Atlantis. I've just got no clue other than the fact that I want these two worlds to interact with each other.

Actually, for a crossover, I wonder how well it would work to have each person write something from the POV of each universe/main character? That might be really interesting as a collective work, sort of pushing even further what someone else described as working for Xander/Spike. Of course, in that case, what I'm imagining has a bit less seamlessness (is a bit more seamy?), so that you can get some of the flavor of each universe in the writing.

But I do think constant communication is the only way to do it. You have to be writing the same story.

(I am not the person to do this project with, as I don't do SPN. But good luck!)

I figured this would not be your bag. :) But if you do ever come up with an idea for collaborating, let me know. I'd like to give this a go as well, and I think you and I would work well together.

That alternating universe POV is a really interesting idea. This is getting a little bit exciting. I have the feeling that even if I don't end up writing this fic with someone, my creativity is being sparked to the point that I can work on it myself.

Another idea I just had might be good for people with really different writing approaches. I do good dialogue (that sounds like a weird threat or something), but my other stuff -- what I think of as filler or padding, which might be one reason why I don't do it very well -- isn't so good.

It would be really interesting to team up with a writer who was really good at the other stuff -- plot, description, movement, blocking, everything but dialogue, really -- and I'd do the dialogue and she'd do what she did best (we might need more than two people on this). I have no idea how it'd turn out, but I think it'd be really fun.

Also: as soon as we find a project, let's try it.

(AND: peevishly, livejournal's spellcheck, in addition to not knowing how to spell spellcheck or livejournal, doesn't know how to spell dialogue. They want to hack off the last two letters. Arg.)

That would be a really interesting way to approach a project. I think that would actually work fairly well.

(I call those parts "the tweeny bits")

In terms of a project, is there anything in SGA that you've been dying to write or noticed a dearth of or been wishing somebody would write? *is very open*

Also, look at my pretty Teyla. :)

That is a very pretty Teyla.

I have about a dozen stories I want to write in SGA, mostly because they address issues I don't get to read in SGA fic, but none of them have gone anywhere, particularly not now that The Devil Wears Prada has taken over my brain (and I've stopped watching the show. That might have something to do with it, too).

The top three are (in no particular order):

1) the college sports AU, spawned by the barista race kerfuffle a while ago. Ronon is a basketball player, John a golfer, Teyla runs track, etc. Race is present in college sports in a very visible way (and also I love sports), so I thought it would make an interesting story.

2) the policy one, stemming from the recent discussion in my journal about foreign policy in SGA, where people are held accountable for their actions (it turns, out you can't actually break the Geneva Convention and not have to pay the price! You also can't let the US run everything without political consequences back home!) I can already tell this story is a lot of wish fulfillment, both in terms of what I want from SGA and in terms of what I want from my government (and also from the international community).

3) the one where Teyla and Elizabeth are dating, and Teyla and John are close friends and on the same team, and Elizabeth is John's boss, and they all act like adults when they have to deal with these things. This is the one I want to write the most; it's also the one I've thought about the least.

I am definitely not the right partner for a sports fic. I know very little about sports and I don't find that subject particularly interesting. :)

The policy idea interests me a lot; it's very much something I'd like to read. But I have to admit that I don't know a lot about foreign policy or how the Geneva Convention actually works, etc. And I don't know a lot about military policy and procedures either.

The third option is the probably the one I'd feel most comfortable working with. Plus, if the last two episodes of SGA have taught me anything, it's that Elizabeth and Teyla are fucking like weasels. Horny, horny weasels. *nods*

That is a pretty Elizabeth to go with your pretty Teyla. (Although I liked her hair shorter.)

The problem with the Elizabeth/Teyla is that I have no plot. All I know is that it's an established relationship, and the three of them come into some sort of conflict where they pretty much have to agree to disagree. Help?

And I saw last night's episode (for the first time in a long time, I decided to watch SGA), and I read a bunch of reactions of people claiming that the episode had a lot of Teyla/Ronon subtext; all I could think was that it completely outed Elizabeth and Teyla. It doesn't get more explicit than that (for lesbians on mainstream television that isn't created by Joss Whedon, anyway).

Do you envision the conflict as being between Elizabeth/Teyla and John or as between John and Elizabeth with Teyla being more neutral or as between John and Teyla with Elizabeth being more neutral or as between Teyla and Elizabeth with John being more neutral?

I think last night's ep definitely had Ronon/Teyla subtext but the Elizabeth/Teyla was there in spades. And you missed the scene in the previous episode where Teyla is so so glad that Elizabeth is alive that you could see her smile from eight galaxies over. Wonderful moment.

What I really want is a conflict where all three of them are on opposite sides, and all three feel like the other two agree with each other and are ganging up on the third person. But like I said, I have no plot ideas whatsoever.

(The Earth contingent do something Teyla thinks is stupid; she thinks John and Elizabeth are idiot Earthers and have no idea what Pegasus is really like. It was a decision that was made/undertaken because of/on a mission, and Elizabeth feels like John and Teyla both underminded her authority. John wanted a military response, but was overridden by Teyla and Elizabeth's instincts for diplomacy. Everyone ends up unsatisfied with the outcome, and the decision ends up having been the wrong one anyway -- but it's also clear that any other decision would have been the wrong, one, too.)

Oooooh, I love fic that's based on misapprehension.

Okay, so what could this decision be? Maybe John's team is sent to make contact/negotiate with a people who have a good relationship with Teyla's people and these people practice something that the Earth contingent finds morally reprehensible but Teyla finds acceptable and a matter of course. Hmmmmmmmm........

That sounds good; and the SGA response would have to be a choice between a military one and a diplomatic one, where the choices didn't look different from the outside but were turf-fighting or something from the inside.

Now what could it be? (Actually, my first thought is some combination of Soylent Green and Childhood's End -- the SGA episode, not the book.)

Refresh my memory on Childhood's End and I have to confess that I don't know what Soylent Green is. I've heard people say "Soylent Green is people" and assume it's some modern day Swift thing, but I don't really know.

*is lame*

That's actually all there is to Soylent Green: the population has grown too large, and in order to feed everyone, people eat "synthetic" food, but it turns out the synthetic food is made of people. The movie's plot has something to do with a detective investigation, and class dynamics, and a romance, but really, all anyone needs to know is: Swift, but with corporations.

Childhood's End is the one where a planet has a ZPM that runs a shield, but the shield is too small to accommodate a large population so as soon as people turn 25, they commit suicide. Of course, Our Heroes (tm) are appalled by this and "fix it" so that people can live past 25. It's a lot like that TNG episode Half a Life, where people committed suicide when they reached 60 so no one had to care for the elderly.

Okay, cool. I remember that SGA ep now.

So, throwing out ideas randomly:

1. They want to trade with people for some vital piece of technology but the people don't want to trade for it as it's considered a religous relic, but Atlantis actually really needs it and so they consider stealing it as it's fulfilling no function for these people but spiritual. I think it's weird that the show rarely addresses that Teyla and Ronon have spent their whole lives believing in some sort of theology in which the Ancients figure prominently. Even after all they've seen and experienced would they be able to disabuse themselves of the notion that the Ancients aren't gods? I mean, I have a hard time shucking the internalized trauma of my fundamentalist upbringing and there's no indication in the show that Ancestor worship is an oppressive religion. LOL

I'm running into blocks because I keep thinking of things that I just don't think Teyla would be on board with. Like, I don't think she'd ever approve of a people who collaborate with the Wraith, giving up some of their citizens to save the majority.

You know, I really was just thinking old people and the infirm get turned into food. Because it would be easy, and would make sure that the population could easily run/hide from the Wraith, and it would make sense in a "do anything to survive" kind of way that doesn't involve collaboration with the Wraith.

I'm not sure how I feel about the stealing religious artifacts issue, because I feel like it's already been played out on screen and in fanfic: obviously, the extreme immorality of the SGA hasn't run off Teyla and Ronon yet.

Maybe if it were something that is both a spiritual object and something necessary to that culture's continued survival, but not as "necessary" -- or as interesting -- as it would be to the SGA. In fact, maybe the argument between Elizabeth and Teyla is that they both agree that it would be wrong to take the thing, but Elizabeth thinks so because it would only be useful as a military toy (it's a nuclear bomb builder or something) and she doesn't want to go there, while Teyla thinks so because it's just plain wrong to steal (and is a little perturbed by Elizabeth's flexible morals when it comes to the people of Pegasus).

True, true. We'd be rehashing the same ground as Planet Kids in some ways.

I like your idea about the old and the infirm getting turned into food. That's something that the Atlantis expedition would find incredibly abhorent. And maybe the beef could be that the Lanteans are afraid that people are coerced or murdered or forced into becoming Fruity Oaty Bars--their position being that it would be impossible to have that kind of policy and not abuse it. Dad getting a little too annoying? Just off him. Political opponent proving a pain in the ass? Make him into a sandwich.

But Teyla sees it as a very loving sacrifice--something that's always chosen and never forced. Or maybe she's kinda grossed out by it too but she knows it's always voluntary and it makes good practical sense for this world that is very agriculturally poor and for some reason that we'll have to think of can't relocate. And this could still be Teyla being perturbed by Elizabeth's flexible morals. We'll be allies with the Genii but not these cannibals. LOL

Yeah, it could work, but then how do John and Elizabeth differ on the issue? I can see more clearly the triangle of confusion for your example of the religious Ancient artifact.

It's beginning to sound like Stranger in a Strange Land, only without the orgies--a deficiency that I think you and your collaborator(s) can be relied upon to remedy.

LOL

Oh, Exec. You know all the ways I love you, right? No need to go all EBB on you, huh?

SSL is one of my alltime favorite novels *until* they get to the orgies because I'm all, YOUR EXPLANATIONS FOR WHY NO ONE IS GAY ARE LAME, HEINLEIN. LAME. LAME LAME LAME. LIKE A ONE LEGGED LAMA. LAME.

Okay. What if Teyla thinks everything's cool as is, John's completely disgusted and wants to break off negotiations with these people immediately and Elizabeth wants to try to rehabiliate them and then trade?

But I see your point about the religious artifact making a much clearer case. And honestly, I'm incredibly intrigued about theology in Pegasus. I think it's a matter that's gotten, oh, zero attention in the show and one that deserves a shit ton of attention. I have yet to see and would dearly love to find a fic that addresses spirituality Pegasus style.

What if Teyla thinks everything's cool as is, John's completely disgusted and wants to break off negotiations with these people immediately and Elizabeth wants to try to rehabiliate them and then trade?

Those are all completely natural reactions, and would be really interesting to explore.

On the other hand,

I have yet to see and would dearly love to find a fic that addresses spirituality Pegasus style.

Either way, if you're game, we've got our plot. (Now we just have to decide which one. Or we could do both, and have a series on our hands. I mean, the thing that I want see most is everyone dealing with issues that don't really have any good resolution.)

Maybe.... Oooohhh oohhh ooohh

These two things are tied.

I mean, doesn't it make it much much easier to steal from cannibal bastards than peaceful farmer fred?

Let me think about that. Because: wow.

I'm hoping that's a good wow and not a "Dear Lord you drank all the wine again didn't you Lorraine" wow.

LOL

No, I just need to think out the logistics of writing this thing -- we can't just dump it on our poor heroes all at once (or on the readers).

*nods*

I agree. Plus I actually *had* been drinking all the wine last night so who knows if I was making any sense. LOL

Doesn't it make it much easier to steal from cannibal bastards than peaceful farmer fred?

Bearing in mind, however, this immortal exchange from "Butley":

EDNA: I'm not having any bomb-throwing radicals skipping my seminars!
BUTLEY: Any bomb-throwing radicals are WELCOME to skip my seminars.

Pls to be explaining this Butley. LOL

I recognizeth it not.

It's a very funny mid-seventies play by Simon Gray about an English professor (in both senses of the term) who not only has to deal with the usual academic stresses, but both his ex-wife and his boyfriend are getting married to blokes he can't stand. It was made into a movie with Alan Bates.

Oh that does sound funny. I'll have to see if I can Netflix it.

You know, I really was just thinking old people and the infirm get turned into food.

CANNIBAL #1: You know, I never liked your mother-in-law.
CANNIBAL #2: So, just eat the noodles.

Bada-bing!

Well, as you know, Reremouse and i have collaborated a lot. What works for us is...

First, we just talk about our story idea. See where our ideas line up and where they don't, and kind of hash it out. Decide how we want it to go. Rere is very good with actual concrete outlines, plucked out of our meandering instant message conversations. Heh.

I like to write Spike predominately, and she likes to write Xander, so we usually do the 'bulk' of our favorite character's pov ourselves, but of course can switch back and forth if necessary.

We decide on our first scene, where we it to end up and what's to be included, and then whoever has the best opening line just starts. We write until we're 'played out' or want a pov shift and then send off the written bit - usually about 100 or so, 300 words - to the other person.

We usually are talking in yahoo the whole time, checking stuff and getting ideas, and we write until....well...bedtime or whatever, heh.

That's how it works for us. Take into account that the very first time took a little time to feel each other out, so to speak, and learn weaknesses and strengths and how 'touchy' the other is, which is not very at all, yay! Reremouse rocks to write with, but i think i got mega-lucky on that score.

You just have to be able to let go of your own dearly-head plot or character ideas if it's not working for the story, and be flexible about stuff. Writing with someone who's uber touchy about things or can't take hints or criticism would suck, so....

Good luck!

Ooooh, this is really interesting.

It seems that the key for you guys is really being in constant communication the whole time. It sounds like you don't go off and write and then present the ideas to each other; you are communicating for most of the time as you're actually writing. Is that right?

Yup, exactly. We're always bouncing ideas off each other, making sure the story is going where we want it to go, that kind of thing. It really works well for us. Everything we've written has been this way, and i personally think it's a compliment when someone says they can't tell what part i wrote and what part Reremouse wrote.

I certainly think that your collaborations with her read seamlessly. There's no stylistic breaks, which I think is pretty awesome.

I was actually going to suggest something similar to what

tabaqui brought to the table. I've been working in a similar fashion on a couple of different projects and it has been an extremely fun and rewarding experience.

Currently I am working with my friend Cait on a series of X-Files adventures some of which are the most cracktastically funny things I have ever written and also with a very good friend on an epic Xenafic. Like 400 plus pages epic. lol

Anyway before we start a new story or chapter we briefly discuss and outline what we want to happen. Then we work together via messenger to flesh out the idea and merge our two visions into one. There is a lot of give and take and just plain free forming, but I find that kind of stimulating when I have to think on my feet.

Also, we each have a character which we write predominately, but we keep each other honest on characterization and such.

And as

tabaqui said it takes a little while at first to adjust to working with someone else and get used to their quirks and style.

Good luck with the project! I would love to see the results. :)

It sounds like a lot of people use this model actually.

I don't know if I'll actually collaborate with anyone on this but I think I've gotten rid of my writer's block in any case.

And I'm maybe kinda putting out feelers to the hard-core flisters here about collaborating with me on something.

If it contains 1) Lorne 2) Dirty, smutty sex (as opposed to that completely unsmutty sex?), 3) Lorne + awesome skills 4) wacky offworld adventures 5) spanking, 6) in space!, I'm totally in ;)

(Okay, not with the spanking)

(probably)

ANYWAY. I've only co-written a couple of fandom things. One was a story, and I had a great time. We alternated scenes and POVs, and it was fun and challenging. We mapped out where we wanted to go first, and then had a series of back-and-forth conversations about details of scenes as we wrote them and sent drafts to each other. The other was Merc Talk, that 'magazine' that I co-wrote with ozsaur, and we basically did a brainstorm thing about articles to write, and then wrote them and edited them for each other. In both cases, I think it was important to have a mutual sense of where we wanted to go.

I've written some non-fiction things with another person, and the same thing goes. We did brainstorm about how to approach the writing, with a sense of our endpoint (although that did evolve as we were writing), and then split the writing according to our skills/preferences. And then there were many drafts sent back and forth with edits and questions and so on. It was very enjoyable!

the hard-core flisters

Well listen, you know I'm just not comfortable with that scene, OMG.

Oooh, and I completely forgot about co-writing LantisJournal (baby! I'm so sorry! You know I love you). Mostly we were just entertaining ourselves with that one, and then

mklutz decided to make a webpage, and we kept writing more, and cursing LJ downtime, but also loving it at the same time. It was just off-the-cuff wacky fun!

I thought you invented hard core flisting. LOL

I outlined the project upthread in a comment to

thelastgoodname. I see no reason why this story couldn't be about Lorne. Or anybody else on Atlantis LOL which is part of the problem. I've no plot.

PS I love Merc Talk. Cracks me up.

thought you invented hard core flisting.

Stop listening to these things Phil tells you, omg!

I outlined the project upthread in a commen

Dang! An SPN crossover! I can't do that :(

I love Merc Talk. Cracks me up.

Hee! Yay! Thank you! We had a lot of fun doing it!

Oh, phooey. Why don't all my online friends share my exact same interests!!!!!!! LOL

Actually, I think I've gotten over my writer's block for this story so yay! Or at least I've written some more. I still have no plot. LOL

I still have no plot

You say that as if it were a BAD thing.

LOL

I am rather fond of stories where nothing much happens.

*muses*

Maybe I should just embrace the lack of plot.

the fic was ultimately abandoned
and I wish it hadn't been! I would love to see both versions of the plot played out. ;)

I have co-written with someone but it was not a great experience! I haven't done it since I was actively writing in Highlander.

Oh, you're too sweet. It would have been cool either way. I wish we hadn't given up on it either. :)

I hate that you had a bad experience with collaborating.

Leah and I have an awesome time writing together. In fact, we're trying to get in sync to write something else together. When we're going strong, it's more fun than writing alone, because you get that sense of joy from your thoughts synchronizing and feeling like you're two halves of the same brain...

Like some of the other folks on your flist mentioned, Leah & I toss around story ideas on chat first. When we start writing seriously, we at least have a bare-bones plot, know what the major conflict is going to be, and how it's going to end. Then we each go off and write individual scenes in the story, and come back and share them, discuss them on chat, and refine our outline. By the time we've got around a third of the fic written, we usually have a list of scenes that need to be in the story to cover all the plot points, and what POV each scene is going to be in. Then we divide up the unwritten scenes, depending on who has a strong opinion about how any particular scene should go.

I should mention that we've been using either Google Docs (https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=writely&passive=true&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2F&followup=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2F&ltmpl=homepage&nui=1) and Zoho Writer (http://writer.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp?serviceurl=%2Findex.do) to make collaboration easier, and so that we're always on the same version of the story. (they're about the same, btw, Zoho can deal with slightly longer wordcount than GoogleDocs, but for longer fics, you're going to have to break the document into chapters, or the program will lose part of the document.) Each system also has a chat module, so you can write and chat at the same time if that works for you (I'm not coordinated enough to do that too often.), and you can give each other access so that you can edit each other's work.

You have to decide how much you trust your co-writer with your work, and agree beforehand what is okay to do and what is not. Is it okay to edit something you wrote without pointing out the changes that were made, or do you have to go through a "track changes" or similar mode and let each other approve of the other person's changes? Do you trust the other person to tell you when to chuck something and rewrite a scene? Do you trust them when they say: "here, wait, I have an idea!" and *they* rewrite your scene? It depends, obviously, and the different amounts of trust and confidence in each other don't come all at once, or without effort. You can, and probably should, take it in stages.

I think the best place to look for a collaborator would be to talk to folks who have betaed your fic before, and who you have a certain level of trust in already, and whose opinion you respect. Especially those of your betas whose writing you like, or whose writing is simpatico with yours, so that it's easier for your styles to mesh. It's good if you can find someone whose strengths and weaknesses complement your own, so that together, you're better than either of you apart...

This is such good advice. I've used Google docs before in a professional setting; I don't know why it didn't occur to me that the program is ideal for this situation as well.

And I also hadn't thought about setting boundaries with editing--whether your partner will require that you show your work or simply trust your edits.

The more that everyone comments, the more I become convinced that collaborating is an amazing experience that is A LOT of work to get right. LOL

collaborating is an amazing experience that is A LOT of work to get right.

absolutely. It's wonderful when it works right, but it's too easy to hurt someone's feelings or make them feel slighted or just dissatisfied. And that's the last thing you want, isn't it?

I'm lucky that Leah's extraordinarily thoughtful and gracious, but not everyone has that mode as their default setting, so it's probably a good idea to agree on boundaries and how you and your partner would be comfortable working together. Then you can relax and have fun writing cool fic together!

*nods*

And you're not the only lucky one. We all get to benefit from how well the two of you work together. :)

A couple of years back, I signed on as the third of a writing team working on an AU virtual season 2 of SGA. We planned to write the first three eps and an outline of the overall arc together and then write solo installments after that. I did the organizing, taking the overall short outline of the first ep and splitting it into 21 fully outlined scenes we could divide evenly between us. I know some other people split these things up by each taking a different character POV, or each writing a set amount of words and then handing it back.

And P.S.: I'd love to work on something with you, but I'm short on time right now.

That sounds like a really cool project. Did it ever get completed?

I'd love to work on something with you as well. :) Whenever you get some time or an idea you think would be good to collaborate on, let me know. ;)

It was pretty cool, but no, it didn't. Two of the three of us turned in our first scenes, but the third never actually wrote anything, so we sort of just let it go so she wouldn't feel too bad about it. I'd like to one day adapt the solo episodes I mapped out into fics of my own.

I will absolutely let you know when I have the time and an idea. If you have an idea you think I'd be a good fit for, you let me know, too.

Oh you should. I know they'd be good reads.

If I think of anything I'll let you know. I wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to collaborate with you.

:)

Successful Co-Writing: the Who with the What Now?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

on teamwork...

Re: on teamwork...

Re: on teamwork...

Re: on teamwork...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject