There they go again...

gp101 · Feb 2, 2007

Yet another collaborative effort at a novel. This one, put out by Penguin. Check out the story from Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070201/wr_nm/penguin_wiki_dc

At least with this one, I think it will show that a collaborative work of significant length by multiple, unaquainted writers will not produce something very viable, and it will prove this on a big stage.

I wouldn't mind reading a novel with multiple authors if each author worked with the same outline, synopsis, character arcs, themes, and character names. It would either be interesting or frustrating to see how the tone, voice, and pace changed from chapter to chapter (ie, author to author). That is, if they were veteran writers. If they were veteran writers within the same genre, it might even be great fun to see how they would work without pre-ordained storylines. I would buy a novel if Elmore Leonard, James Elroy, and Lawrence Block took turns with blocks of writing. However, I fear that either of these scenarios would be a disaster if it was a bunch of us newbie writers instead of the big guns. Just a hunch.

scarletpeaches · Feb 2, 2007

Are you forgetting the marvellous Crack of Death?!

Classic quote from the above link:
Fancy trying your hand at creative writing but can't quite find the time?

Uh...wow. No, really. Wow.

Doctor Shifty · Feb 2, 2007

Something tells me this is not going to reach the heights gained by Atlanta Nights.

CheshireCat · Feb 2, 2007

I wouldn't mind reading a novel with multiple authors if each author worked with the same outline, synopsis, character arcs, themes, and character names. It would either be interesting or frustrating to see how the tone, voice, and pace changed from chapter to chapter (ie, author to author). That is, if they were veteran writers.

Well, you can check out -- let's see if I can remember the title -- Naked Came the Phoenix, I think. And there was another I believe was titled I'd Kill for That. Both "serial novels" written by around a dozen well-known names. Each writer worked with a bible, characters and setting provided by the editor, and each author wrote one chapter.

And, yes, you can definitely see how voice and pace and tone changed from author to author.

I believe royalties were donated to fight breast cancer.

willietheshakes · Feb 2, 2007

"Naked Came the Manatee", I think.

CheshireCat · Feb 2, 2007

willietheshakes said:
"Naked Came the Manatee", I think.

Huh. Went and raided my shelf, and my copy is titled Naked Came the Phoenix. St. Martin's.

Maybe they changed the title for other editions. :Shrug:

The Lady · Feb 2, 2007

Above all, remember always that all contributions may be edited, altered or removed by other contributors

That's from the website. You can actually take down other people's efforts. There's no way a certain kind of person is going to be able to resist continuously deleting the whole thing. The first chapter is down to one line already.

RG570 · Feb 2, 2007

I'm still waiting for a reasonable explanation for why people would want to do this.

arrowqueen · Feb 2, 2007

As the old saying goes: 'A camel is a horse designed by a committee.'

I should imagine a novel written by umpteen different authors would have similar qualities.

Willowmound · Feb 2, 2007

Long lasting when dry?

willietheshakes · Feb 2, 2007

CheshireCat said:
Huh. Went and raided my shelf, and my copy is titled Naked Came the Phoenix. St. Martin's.

It's nice when everyone gets to be right...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0449001245/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

OverTheHills&FarAway · Feb 2, 2007

"Before you cast your judgements allow yourself to embrace the new. At least, that's what Big Tony told himself as he bent over in the prison shower, picking up the soap. To his surprise and, indeed, his diaspointment, nothing happened. The horror stories of the penal system were way over rated."

That's the beginning of chapter one, as of this moment. Interesting. Big Tony, huh?

And they have a choose your own adventure version as well.

JanDarby · Feb 2, 2007

There's a whole tradition of "naked came ..." collaborative novels, usually done for fundraising. One of the most recent ones in that vein didn't use the "naked came ..." title, but was I'd Kill For That, written by a bunch of mystery writers, each of whom wrote a chapter. I read a review somewhere that said you couldn't tell that it was written by different authors, and maybe that was true for casual readers, but for anyone who was paying the least little bit of attention, it was obvious. In fact, it made for an interesting exercise in understanding authorial voice. I really like several of the authors in the collaboration, and their voices are so incredibly different, so it was interesting to see them apply their diverse voices to the same basic characters and premise.

There's an upcoming book, due out in July or August, I think, that's a true multi-author collaboration of the sort the OP suggested might be interesting. The title is eluding me. Something about the Miss Fortunes. It started out as three separate novellas by Jenny Crusie, Anne Stuart and Eileen Dryer, but they ended up weaving it into a single novel, with each of them taking one of the three main characters (there are three romances happening over the course of the book, one for each of three sisters), and writing the scenes from the POV of the chosen character.

JD

WildScribe · Feb 2, 2007

My husband and I have thought about doing a collaborative type of thing... I dunno if we ever will, but we've talked about it.

imagegod · Feb 2, 2007

I think there may be room for collaborative writing...but this ain't it. This is gang writing...writing without direction, vision or center. Can it work? Can a novel written by a computer work? Depends how you define 'work'.

Will it make sense? Probably. Anything more than that...probably not.

Anthony Ravenscroft · Feb 3, 2007

FWIW, the ur-novel was Naked Came the Stranger by "Penelope Ashe," who in 1969 was two dozen professional journalists.

There are some good novels cranked out by the "every-other chapter" method, most notably Pohl & Kornbluth. It helps if the writers are good friends, see each oter often & have plenty of time to talk an idea out thoroughly before they begin writing (& probably during too).

Hillgate · Feb 3, 2007

Although perversely writing with someone else can work brilliantly for screenplays (not always of course). In fact, in comedy, they sometimes get a bit antsy if it's just one writer. Funny old world.

CheshireCat · Feb 3, 2007

JanDarby said:
There's a whole tradition of "naked came ..." collaborative novels, usually done for fundraising. One of the most recent ones in that vein didn't use the "naked came ..." title, but was I'd Kill For That, written by a bunch of mystery writers, each of whom wrote a chapter. I read a review somewhere that said you couldn't tell that it was written by different authors, and maybe that was true for casual readers, but for anyone who was paying the least little bit of attention, it was obvious. In fact, it made for an interesting exercise in understanding authorial voice. I really like several of the authors in the collaboration, and their voices are so incredibly different, so it was interesting to see them apply their diverse voices to the same basic characters and premise.
JD

Ah. That explains the different titles.

As for voice, yes, any aspiring or beginning author who doesn't understand what voice is could do a lot worse than pick up a few of these serial novels and read them.

And an additional educational benefit is that as writers we can sometimes see the plot and character contortions necessary at the end to tie up all the loose endings!

farfromfearless · Feb 3, 2007

I just finished reading Magic Time by Marc Scott Zicree and Barbara Hambly and it seemed quite difficult for me to distinguish one writer from the other on that particular book. I'm not sure if that's a telling point of a well written book or not, but it was certainly nice not to have to get used to two distinct author's voiced through the story - I find that jarring in most cases.

Doctor Shifty · Feb 3, 2007

Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman write for kids - but not together - mostly. Here is one of their books that they wrote more in competition than together. They took turns to write chapters and the goal was to end each chapter in a place where the other could not recover easily. They could not edit each other's work.

The book is called Wicked, and is the compilation of six books written in the series.
http://www.pauljennings.com.au/books/wicked.htm
http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/books/fst_intro_wicked.html

Both these guys write wacky kids' stuff with lots of gross monsters and events, and lots of fun.

Gabriel · Feb 4, 2007

"gazing at the poker chips as though they were a distant mountain chain, made out of poker chips"

I have to say, I don't care much for the writing.

Penguin Queen · Feb 4, 2007

A Million Penguins! That's the book for me! :tongue

*runs to www.amillionpenguins.com*

Edit: actually, I don't much care for the writing either. Too many words, as a literary agent I once worked for for a while would have said. Still. It's a grand title.

There they go again...

gp101

scarletpeaches

Doctor Shifty

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CheshireCat

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willietheshakes

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CheshireCat

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The Lady

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RG570

arrowqueen

RIP, our sarky besom

Willowmound

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willietheshakes

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OverTheHills&FarAway

McNifico

JanDarby

WildScribe

Slave to the Wordcount

imagegod

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble

Hillgate

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CheshireCat

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farfromfearless

Doctor Shifty

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Gabriel

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Penguin Queen

Break the rules.