Forum: Author Hangout

Fellow writers:

How about crafting a new work where each chapter is written by a different author?

Unlike "Naked Came the Stranger", each author would be free to push the story in any direction — sci-fi, mystery, comedy, fantasy. Sex? Plenty of it, or none at all. Chapter length? Short, medium, or … well, you get it. In fact, you could write it in dactylic hexameter if you liked. (A phrase I recently heard and couldn't wait to drop into the conver.)

I'd write the first chapter (my idea, assuming SOL hasn't already done a similar project) and that would be the end of my contributions to the project. Then each subsequent writer could put his own name by each chapter heading so the readers would know who to credit. Or discredit.

Not sure how the act of publishing it here would work. Would each chapter have to be posted by the same person? Perhaps wait to publish it until the story is complete … or … something else?

Now that I'm thinking it through, whoever wrote the last chapter could well have the most fun.

Anyone interested?

Paige

PS I asked a few SOL folks what they thought of the idea. Here's one of the responses:

I am not sure that it would work without a moderator. The reader's expectation would be that the story would have continuity between chapters so that everything ties together. Otherwise, the physical description, capabilities, etc could vary so much that it would become a mess. At a minimum, you'd need a style sheet showing physical parameters, expectations for the world, etc. All of these types of stories that I've read have a strong editor to reject the introduction of non-cannon ideas.

Frankly, the idea of 'tossing it over the transom' and walking away is appealing if you're swamped, but I fear it would quickly grind to a halt. Every good writer would want to run their outline/approach by you to confirm that it fits. If you are busy, they'll move on to another project.

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Paige:

He is right. I am swamped and wouldn't have the time to moderate the project. (Assuming any writers are interested in participating.)

However, it might be fun to just let the story meander wherever the various muses take it. It's not like the Nobel judges in Stockholm are monitoring this site for nominees.

whoever wrote the last chapter could well have the most fun.

What makes it the last chapter? The author of the last chapter not asking for any other contributions?

It goes against everything I believe in when writing a story. It's even like thread drift on this forum.

Years ago, like in the 1990s, there was a story written by Anonymous that was not completed. I think it was called "Humiliation of Jane" but it's been so long ago that I don't remember. In fact, it's the story that got me into writing. It was all about mind control, humiliation, and control. That's why my early stories were like that. But I digress. Back to the point. Anyway, people decided to add more chapters to it, so author after author added a chapter.

They totally ruined the story.

I used to belong to a writing group where round-robin stories were a frequent writing exercise. Each member would write a paragraph starter then, after a pre-agreed time limit, pass the story to the next member to add the next paragraph. The results were often quite entertaining, but not the sort of thing others would want to read.

Having said that, Nicci French is a successful husband and wife pairing.

AJ

There was a writing team who had a similar technique. One would write a chapter. The second writer would rewrite it and write chapter two. He would send it back. Writer one would rewrite chapter two then write chapter three and so on. They got two movies a line of books written by ghost writers as one is dead and the other is old.

About 10 years ago there was an SOL Round Robin group that wrote one (or maybe two) stories this way, one chapter per person. The incomparable Rache also had an "Add-a-scene" group that was similar.

Probably the greatest difficulty is that for it to be a good read, writers have to invest, and if they do, they may not like where other people subsequently take the story and therefore lose interest. The pool dwindles and the writing peters out. In the end, they seem to end up as writing exercises rather than great stories.

Cheers
RS