Does anyone else enjoy co-writing?

[Stockholmblondie]

Probably easier writing everything yourself, but to me it can be very fun writing with someone else. Given that you find someone you click with, with similar likes and turn ons. I tried it a few times, and it has turned out to be lots of fun.

 

[jehoram]

Probably easier writing everything yourself, but to me it can be very fun writing with someone else. Given that you find someone you click with, with similar likes and turn ons. I tried it a few times, and it has turned out to be lots of fun.

welcome to the forum!

I've had a sort of co-writer status with my editor Athalia, but it's mostly been where I've re-written some of her stuff to reflect a male point of view, and she's re-written my stuff to reflect a female point of view. Since we both strive for a more reality-based erotic style, it serves as a sort of reality check. Where the contribution is substantial, we give each other credit. But we've never co-written a piece from start to finish. It might be fun to try.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

Thanks, good to know there are others into similar things.

 

[sr71plt]

I have thoroughly enjoyed cowriting with Sabb as Shabbu (and in a couple of additional pen names with him in the marketplace). The only downsides are, first, that I write a lot quicker than he does and have to sit on my hands waiting for his parts to show up and put restraints on my thinking to let him take his parts where wants to take them. Our approach is to take on separate characters in the story and bandy their perceptions of the action back and forth in separate sections. Second, since I write so much and he's my editor (and I am his), he doesn't have much time left to write himself or to cowrite.

 

[R. Richard]

The only real co-writing that I have done is with Sunset Thomas on The Anatomy of An Adult Film. Sunset, with some 300 adult films experience, had an in depth knowledge of a subject where I didn't have that level of knowledge. I learned a lot.

 

[TxRad]

There used to be a very lovely and funny author here that has since had to leave because someone outed her. We wrote one story and had plans for several more. It was a very fun and informative experience.

 

[masterandmargarita]

Just like anthology movies with different segments by different directors, I think that it is an absolute blast to come up with co-writing concepts. This has always been pretty popular in horror. I did a co-write my wife for our 2014 Halloween entry - designed a story that could spin in two different directions so that we could write our sections separately. Personally, I think it works out best when you can mix the male/female perspectives, but that is coming from my straight-guy point of view of course.

 

[sr71plt]

Personally, I think it works out best when you can mix the male/female perspectives, but that is coming from my straight-guy point of view of course.

Right. The gay male perspective would be different on that.

 

[lovecraft68]

I ran an unofficial contest here last year, a tag team competition where authors were randomly paired off and we had to write a story around the theme of team work

My original partner had to drop out and I finished with XelliebabeX.

It was a fun experience we talked through yahoo voice chat and it was great how we would start out confused then everything would come together.

When the contest was done, the authors had to decide who's page it would go on. Seeing unlike me, Ellie had a chance in survivor I gave it to her.

Its By Demons Driven and it won first place in the April 2014 monthly contest. So it netted her a shiny W...

Teach me to give something away, you know what they say about nice guys...

But she earned it, anyone that can deal with and pin down my scatter brained writing style deserves a reward

 

[49greg]

I had one experience working with another person. Not as a co-writer, but doing a story for someone else. It was a 'fan' who wanted me to write a specific story for her. It started out OK, she had an outline of where the story would go, and I sent a first draft of the first part, to let her see my take. It was about five thousand words.

She liked it, but started changing things. A lot of things. And so it went and I found that rather than writing a story for her in my style, I was writing a story for her in her style. She made so many changes that I asked her if she wanted to continue on her own. But she insisted she needed me.

Part of it was fun, but sometimes her changes had misspellings or really bad grammar. When I changed the first one like that, she changed it back, and then I did, then she did, even after I explained that it was incorrect. It got worse and worse.

Eventually after twenty thousand plus words and only about half done I gave up. I found someone else to do take it on, introduced both, by email, after getting both of them to agree to it, and gave the new writer all I had. Months later I asked both of them how it went, the other writer answered me (we correspond regularly if not frequently) but never mentioned it. I never heard from her again. My guess is that he had as hard a time as I did, or else he had more patience and did it more to her taste.

To be honest about it, I did promise it in a month, and couldn't keep up that pace, partly because of real life intrusions, and partly because it turned out to be much much longer than I thought it would be. And I never should have included her in the writing, but just finished it and handed it over completed without letting her see any part of it before it was done. Although I think that if I had done that, she would still have sent in revisions marked up like a high school teacher.

I've had another request since then for a story, but never got to it, and a month or so later came across that very same story, with the same names and situations. So I took it off my to-do list, thinking that he had asked several people at once.

I'm hoping that writing a story as a co-author is better than writing a story to someone else's specs.

The moral of the story is that I doubt I will take on a custom story again, certainly not one with such specific parameters.

 

[RejectReality]

Writing on the Laresa's World and Royal Sacrifice chains are right up there with my fondest memories on Lit. Playing off each other to build a world and a story was a great deal of fun.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

Thanks for your replies, cool to hear from others experiences about this. And I know it can be a hassle writing with someone. Waiting for replies, and maybe you got a lot in rl, which means you cant write as much as you would like. But can also be awesome with the right person.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I started to do this (Rent Due was going to be a duality, the exact same story with the exact same events, written from two different views by two different authors). The other author and I ran out of time, and the initial story segment didn't turn out well. I still think it's an interesting idea, especially in the context of a reluctance or D/s story, but it would not be easy to do well.

Would I co-author now? It *sounds* like fun, but my creative impulses tend to be sudden and random, and I imagine it would be hellish for the other author to work around by tendency to introduce plots twists because of a sudden "Hey, cool!" idea. You'd really have to spend a lot of time getting a consistent style going, and the author's fetishes (and schedules!) would have to fit together pretty well. My guess is it rarely works; look at how many books are coauthored in general.

 

[sr71plt]

You'd really have to spend a lot of time getting a consistent style going,

Or, as in Sabb's and my cases, one author (Sabb, in this case) recognized a similarity in style and theme interest already and based the suggestion to cowrite on that.

 

[thesidelongview]

>Given that you find someone you click with, with similar likes and turn ons.

It sounds like a LOT of fun but these are some pretty big givens.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Right. The gay male perspective would be different on that.

For once, we agree 100%.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

To me, the difficult part is finding the right co-writer. Since I enjoy a long build-up to the story, not many men have the patience to wait for the action.

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, the cowriter match up is the kicker. Someone has to be dominant in the organization and someone has to be the final editor (not necessarily the same person). The two should either have similar writing styles or use a structure that emphasizes the difference in style that compliments the story. And it's good to have two who work at the same pace, which is the only problem in my cowriting collaboration.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

Agreed. A similar writing style is important, and also a sense of what the other part likes. Tricky, but can be great fun.

 

[RoyceConnors]

Agreed. A similar writing style is important, and also a sense of what the other part likes. Tricky, but can be great fun.

I like when two writers can play off each other and take it further than each on their own. If the styles don't clash too terribly and the subject matter is compatible, I'm always up for a challenge.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

It can give the story a new dimension, for sure. Also, maybe you can learn some new things about your own writing in the process.

 

[CarnalGerund]

Probably easier writing everything yourself, but to me it can be very fun writing with someone else. Given that you find someone you click with, with similar likes and turn ons. I tried it a few times, and it has turned out to be lots of fun.

Interesting. Patience is a virtue. The buildup is also where you really get to learn a person's sexual persona. Similar likes and turn ons have never been a must for me. Always fun to learn new likes.

 

[Stockholmblondie]

True, you can always learn new things.

 

[sunandshadow]

I enjoy co-writing but the closest I've come to successful co-writing is when I GM an online roleplay. Otherwise I have a very difficult time matching interests and artistic goals with another writer. (I like pregnancy but dislike female characters, so that means either mherms or mpreg, and there just aren't that many fans of those. And on top of that I don't do BDSM, non-con, stories where characters other than the villain die, horror, vampires... I'm just picky, I guess. *sigh*

 

[DreamCloud]

A slow and steady burn is usually the best way to go. The blood must be at a certain temperature before you let off the steam.