Hatrack River Forum: Collaboration (a brief question)

This is topic Collaboration (a brief question) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :

Do collaborative ventures in writing work?

Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :

Neh?

edit: (PS - looking for short film ideas)

[ June 06, 2004, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: fallow ]

Posted by porcelain girl (Member # 1080) on :

depends on the people involved. i collaborate extremely well with one on my best friends when it comes to most anything, especially writing.
whether it be a screenplay, a short story, or a personal essay, we work off eachother's energy very very well. in fact i do almost everything better when i am working with someone else. alone i rarely get anything done.

Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :

PG,

how do you start your projects?

fallow

Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :

Yes and no.

So, how's that for a nice, definitive, concrete answer? [Wink]

Seriously, I've had a little bit of experience in this area, and I've found that working with a collaborator works - but only as long as the collaborators block off time to work. Now, I have to say that my experience with this has been with close friends at a time when we saw each other every day. Once we began working at different places (we wrote at work, during times when there was nothing else to do), and didn't see each other as often as we had, we quit writing.

But while we were working, we worked well together, were producing pages on a regular basis, and were coming up with something that people seemed to want to read - being as we wrote at work, there were plenty of people who were curious as to what we were doing and asked to read what we were writing when we told them what we were up to. Of course, it's hard to miss three adult women huddled around a computer giggling and whispering madly, like a bunch of adolescents (we were two of us in our 40s and the other in her early 50s when we were doing this).

Now, I have to say that we weren't aiming at great literature - we were writing a fantasy/bodice-ripper that grew out of a series of e-mails we had been sending to a (male) friend of ours who is in the military and was stationed in England at the time. In fact, he even contributed a page or two occasionally. But, the point is, writing together did work. On a lot of levels, actually: one of my collaborators is now married to the gentleman we started writing for.

I think the key, besides setting aside time to work, is to write with someone you know well, who you get along with, and who will not get into ego-trips that affect the good of the writing.

I don't know if this answers your question, but I hope it helps at least a bit.

Edited to add: that Porcelain Girl (who posted while I was writing this post, is absolutely right about feeding off each other's energy. In my experience, that is when the best collaborative writing is done - when there is an energy going that each person taps into and boosts.

[ June 06, 2004, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: littlemissattitude ]

Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :

LMA,

does w/out a doubt.

had any good ideas lately?

fallow

Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :

And you're looking for short film ideas? Hmmm.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that might be good for a short film. But I'll think on it a bit and let you know if I come up with anything. S'all right?

Oh - one question: what's your idea of "short"? Ten minutes, fifteen? Shorter? Longer?

Posted by porcelain girl (Member # 1080) on :

well, it depends on the project, but mostly we just talk and talk and talk nonstop. then we talk while taking notes and then talk while organizing said notes. the real test will be when i move in with her and we really put our ideas to the test.
for the most part we've just been brainstorming and helping eachother with our own personal projects, but i swear we are an explosion of ideas together.

Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :

I should hope they work. 99% of our scientific knowledge is published by virtue of cooperation, apprenticeship, and peer review.

Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :

Lovelock?

Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :

I believe OSC called it "twice the work for half the pay."

Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :

Pohl/Kornbluth

Niven/Pournelle

Woodward/Bernstein

Asimov/Silverberg

I think that the successful collaborations out there show that they can work.

Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :

thanks for the comments, folks.

I was asking about creative collaborations because I tend to be most creative in that context - with a sounding board. The trouble I've encountered with trying to foster collaborative creative efforts is "closure" for lack of a better term. Perhaps I've asked this question around here before, I can't recall. It seems to me that the most creative folks I know have a strong tendency for prolonged "fussing". They can't finish a project. They will leap into it and generate reams of material, but can't ever bring the project to completion.

has anyone experienced this? any insights into how to seal a project rather than let it drift into nothingness?

fallow

Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :

I'd be happy to just not hate whatever it was I wrote when I got done with it.
[Smile]

I know, practice, practice, practice.

Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :

Thieves world