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

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

I've been wondering for some time now how those of you who co-author fics negotiate doing so. It seems to me that writing with another person is potentially an incredibly rewarding experience but also one that can be fraught with tension. The only time I attempted to co-write a fic was roughly two years ago, and while the experience was very positive and a lot of fun, the fic was ultimately abandoned when we both had different visions for the project.

In the interest of full disclosure, my musing is prompted by an unfinished fic currently sitting on my hard drive. I'd love for someone to write it with me, but I'm unsure how the actual writing would proceed. Does one person do most of the actual writing, while the second person contributes heavily in the outlining, plotting, and revision/expansion stages (which seems the most workable model to me)? Do both people write equally, maybe taking turns every page or so (which seems much more difficult to me as even two very good writers will differ in terms of style)?

If you have written with another person and feel that the experience was a positive one, please share with me your tips on co-writing. And I'm maybe kinda putting out feelers to the hard-core flisters here about collaborating with me on something. Maybe. LOL

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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.

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

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