Crazy writing idea

~scribbledink Feb 20, 2013 Student General Artist

I have been thinking of a crazy book writing idea... I remember playing games around the camp fire and long car rides when you tell a story and pass it around letting each person add their part and change the story. Well, my idea simply builds upon that same principal. I have slightly modified it but I would like to find 4 other authors and do the same type of action of passing the story every 10-15 pages and then all meet at the end of the book and as a whole create an ending to the story. It is a simple plan but I want to take a different swing at a book writing idea.

What do you think of this idea?

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Devious Comments

~FanaticalPublishing Mar 1, 2013

The word for that is a 'Round Robin'; I've seen other people do it, I even took part in one; it turned out pretty well.

If you want it to not look like a round robin(for example, if you want to try to have it published) then have one person edit it, smooth out the differences.

~StickMenCreation Feb 28, 2013

It sounds like a great idea! How about just giving it a try? You could treat it as an experiment. After all, you will benefit from the experience of breaking away from traditional format, and may discover something totally new in the process.

~Dreamworld88 Feb 27, 2013 Student Writer

What if you had each author write the story for a different character's viewpoint? That way the character wouldn't seem different each 15 pages.

*merrak Feb 27, 2013 Hobbyist

I think `raspil and ~KyteGlory have the best point here. I think it's a good "let's learn something/practice/have fun!" idea - so certainly worth doing. But if your sole purpose is to produce something for readers, I think you're doing it for the wrong reason.

*JeffandWilbur Feb 27, 2013 Writer

I like the idea a lot. Personally, I can't see how something can be "fun for writers and boring for readers" as the emotion put into writing something reflects on the readers, but that's probably just because I have no idea what I'm talking about. Potentially (not factoring your linguistic and story-building skills), you could spawn a more digestible version of that godawful "39 Clues" series that had many authors working together.
tl;dr just go with it. It sounds alright and you never know.

~AircatSkylion Feb 26, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

I agree with KyteGlory. It would be very enjoyable for the writers but wouldn't create a good story.

~scribbledink Feb 26, 2013 Student General Artist

I wanted to first meet in a group and set the scene and cast of main characters. I would then do the transition stage with writers of different styles to try and bring the book to a well rounded style. In end I would then like to meet again and decipher the ending as a group and edit the story as a whole. I am not sure it would work but I always try to think of what has not been done or is in all fact different from the normal trends of what is popular or normal.

~KyteGlory Feb 21, 2013

It's essentially roleplaying at a massive word count.
Like all roleplaying, it's great for the writers and horrible for the readers. You might have fun. You could potentially learn a ton. But the story you produce is bound to have a broken plot, schizophrenic storytelling, and an overall lack of cohesion. So it's good for practice, but bad for your resume. Mind, it's perfectly fine if you want to do it just for fun and experience. Just don't expect that you'll turn out a masterpiece.

One thing I have seen done that tends to work out is when authors each contribute a short story to a single theme or overall narrative. Since each author's contribution is self-contained, it avoids most of the problems that arise when authors who don't share a mind try to share a story, but there's still the sense of building off one-another and creating a greater whole.

~carusmm Feb 20, 2013 Student Writer

too dumb for words.

`raspil Feb 20, 2013 Writer

try it. what's the worst that could happen? it doesn't work or it does but either way you're learning something.

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