Guest NPC Characters

[Brutal_One]

In a similar vein to good TV series that have a regular fixed cast (akin to player characters in an RPG) and special guest characters (akin to RPG NPC characters) if you have a series arc with regular characters have you ever ‘hired’ (I.e. invited to contribute) any other writers for one off characters that fit into your story arc? In effect a writer for an episode. They would need to understand the story arc universe (presumably by reading and liking your work). If not would you consider it?

In particular the idea is a ghost writer maybe to maybe but for example a feminine feel for a female ghost writer to your story for a chapter say if you are a Male. So not an ongoing commitment just a one off chapter. Once I maybe have the next 4 chapters in this first story arc of mine ROD Adventures so with 4 established main characters by then I would be interested to try this with a new either female (written by a female ghost writer) or Male (written by a Male ghost writer) one off NPC character in the story arc.

Thoughts?

Brutal One

 

[lovecraft68]

First thought is feel free to feel free. Your stories, your babies, try whatever you want.

For me personally I'd rather try to stretch myself creatively and handle all of my characters. Granted in most of my stories there's only the couple in question with maybe a a secondary character to use a foil to create/advance a situation.

In my off lit series I'm juggling about 10 characters, 6 of whom are major the other four a bit more secondary, but important.

They are both female and male, white and black, some supernatural most regular people.

A witch, a female gun for hire, a detective, a Mafia Don, an assassin with a gypsy heritage, and a man who went through an integration and is now a living vessel for an evil voodoo spirit.

They all have to have their own quirks their own voice and traits and way of thinking and they have to be consistent. Its not easy and I'm sure I'm not always hitting the mark, but I feel the challenge helps me improve as a writer.

I think bringing someone in to write a character rather than do it yourself is cheating you out of a chance to expand your own ability.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've collaborated twice with different writers where we each brought our own previously established characters together into a common story, both of which were well received (especially by existing fans of the individual story streams).

With one of those writers I went on to borrow one of his characters, and he borrowed my leading man and wrote him (me) a Valentine's Day gift.

And young Master Doom over there -----> borrowed my Suzie and EB for his 750 Word anthology entry, and I borrowed him and his mom for mine. I'm not sure who was most disturbed by that little exchange .

It's a good way to stretch yourself as a writer; especially with a collaborative story, if you write it turn and turn about and keep the exchanges seamless.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've collaborated twice with different writers where we each brought our own previously established characters together into a common story, both of which were well received (especially by existing fans of the individual story streams).

With one of those writers I went on to borrow one of his characters, and he borrowed my leading man and wrote him (me) a Valentine's Day gift.

And young Master Doom over there -----> borrowed my Suzie and EB for his 750 Word anthology entry, and I borrowed him and his mom for mine. I'm not sure who was most disturbed by that little exchange .

It's a good way to stretch yourself as a writer; especially with a collaborative story, if you write it turn and turn about and keep the exchanges seamless.

I think it was around the time you came around I created a "Tag Team" competition where authors signed up, a non participant drew names and wea paired off to write stories with the theme of teamwork.

A few people dropped out and some authors ended up writing with more than one author so they weren't screwed, all in all it went well.

My story, written with the amazing Xelliebabex didn't win, but we did win the monthly with it, its still on her page.

Interesting experience....keep thinking of doing it again sometime.

 

[SimonDoom]

Collaboration with other authors is tricky. I think it usually works best when the authors know and respect each other's work and achieve a level of comfort that they can work together and at the same time advance their own individual artistic purposes. The difficulty with very general invitations to collaborate is that those preliminary steps have not been taken. I need a good reason why I would want to collaborate with another author about that author's idea rather than just write my own story.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, just realistic. No one should feel discouraged from pursuing any genuinely felt artistic goal, but they should be prepared to do the legwork that's needed to pull it off first.

 

[lovecraft68]

Collaboration with other authors is tricky. I think it usually works best when the authors know and respect each other's work and achieve a level of comfort that they can work together and at the same time advance their own individual artistic purposes. The difficulty with very general invitations to collaborate is that those preliminary steps have not been taken. I need a good reason why I would want to collaborate with another author about that author's idea rather than just write my own story.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, just realistic. No one should feel discouraged from pursuing any genuinely felt artistic goal, but they should be prepared to do the legwork that's needed to pull it off first.

Writers-creatives of any type-are a funny quirky bunch and there's a thing called ego.

Sometimes its like putting two supposed alphas in a room and it becomes a who's dick is bigger debate at every turn.

If you're not capable of some respectful give and take its not going to work.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I wouldn't mind participating in a "Tag Team" series such as Lovecraft mentioned, but let someone else ghost an entry in an established series? No, I would not do that. Part of my process is that I know how the story ends at the start, and write the journey between those two points. I couldn't risk too much of a detour.

 

[Brutal_One]

Collaboration with other authors is tricky. I think it usually works best when the authors know and respect each other's work and achieve a level of comfort that they can work together and at the same time advance their own individual artistic purposes. The difficulty with very general invitations to collaborate is that those preliminary steps have not been taken. I need a good reason why I would want to collaborate with another author about that author's idea rather than just write my own story.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, just realistic. No one should feel discouraged from pursuing any genuinely felt artistic goal, but they should be prepared to do the legwork that's needed to pull it off first.

All valid points. Just an idea. I think at this stage I am pretty comfortable about writing my Male (naturally) but my female characters too and try and create an authentic dynamic and close relationship they share from having been friends at school. But of course a man can find the female mind difficult to fathom but yes a very close friendship is not that hard to write about but with getting the right level of authentic realism.

 

[SimonDoom]

All valid points. Just an idea. I think at this stage I am pretty comfortable about writing my Male (naturally) but my female characters too and try and create an authentic dynamic and close relationship they share from having been friends at school. But of course a man can find the female mind difficult to fathom but yes a very close friendship is not that hard to write about but with getting the right level of authentic realism.

My recommendation: Keep contributing and sharing with other authors here and get to know authors whose work you like and feel is compatible with yours, and then perhaps reach out to see if collaboration can be mutually beneficial. You're more likely to get a response if you do that.


I suppose an interesting twist on this would be to set up an event oriented toward your concept and find out if authors would contribute to it that way.

 

[Brutal_One]

My recommendation: Keep contributing and sharing with other authors here and get to know authors whose work you like and feel is compatible with yours, and then perhaps reach out to see if collaboration can be mutually beneficial. You're more likely to get a response if you do that.


I suppose an interesting twist on this would be to set up an event oriented toward your concept and find out if authors would contribute to it that way.

I kind of tried it in the Sexual Role Playing but trying to set up a 6 player game is stupidly ambitious and it needs a much simpler scenario. I have only ever seen 2 player games that work like that but it means by necessity the stories and plot twists are likely limited.

I think true in particular story arcs it has to be directed by the world creator so for talented writers that would most likely put them off. Ego again but Ego can drive some of the best writers.

 

[KeithD]

Can anyone point to an example of alternating and separate female-male author perspective takes in the unraveling of a storyline? There must be some on Lit. That would be an interesting approach. I've seen requests for collaboration by other gender, but I havn't heard of posted stories resulting from that.

I do it with Sabb in Shabbu stories, but from same gender/preference perspective.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I'm not sure I could collab about my characters, or people's take on them, I tend to be very protective. While I'm sure somebody could do a great job having fun with my perennial airhead Jeanie, I'm less certain of how they'd perform with some of my other creations.

I don't think I'd trust anyone with Ekaterina/Karen, for instance.

Mark and Becky from Time Rider? Yeah, I'd probably let people have a shot at that.

Amberley? I'm open to the notion.

Freja and Jeanie, quite possibly. But those are comedic romances, they're hard to get wrong.

I dinnae think I'd trust anyone with my flagship characters, the DeBourne Four. Not without a lot of convincing, anyway.

I wrote a medieval play once, and then had to agonizingly give it over to someone else to put on stage, and I hated it. I guess I just don't share well when it comes to my creations, lol.

Still, I'd always listen to a suggestion.

 

[Ginlover]

So this made me think. I have a story on here where I had been writing with another author for a while I then took their character and write a short erotica. I asked permission which they granted though they have never read the story as I would have made their character too dirty.
Then I have 2 stories written and credited to different guys. It's hard work turning a RP into a story but their voice is easy to use and i like the dialogue. As 3 of my 4 stories have had ghost type writers it's obviously something I do without thinking about it. I did it to get a clear male voice

 

[Ginlover]

Can anyone point to an example of alternating and separate female-male author perspective takes in the unraveling of a storyline? There must be some on Lit. That would be an interesting approach. I've seen requests for collaboration by other gender, but I havn't heard of posted stories resulting from that.

I do it with Sabb in Shabbu stories, but from same gender/preference perspective.

I'd like to see it done well. My next story I'm still dithering on alternating first person pov which I dont like reading but feels like it fits the story. Or safer alternating deep third person pov. Or I give up and write it all one person pov

 

[Blind_Justice]

Such a collaboration would be difficult, at least if someone were to try their hand at my settings. I have a couple hundred pages of world and universe lore, for both my Fantasy and Sci-Fi settings. It would probably be easier to whip up something entirely new instead.

 

[OneAuthor]

Can anyone point to an example of alternating and separate female-male author perspective takes in the unraveling of a storyline? There must be some on Lit. That would be an interesting approach. I've seen requests for collaboration by other gender, but I havn't heard of posted stories resulting from that.

I do it with Sabb in Shabbu stories, but from same gender/preference perspective.

Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but here is a story in which a male author wrote all of the male character perspectives, and a female author wrote all of the female character perspectives.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-masks-we-wear

 

[JGittes]

I'd like to see it done well. My next story I'm still dithering on alternating first person pov which I dont like reading but feels like it fits the story. Or safer alternating deep third person pov. Or I give up and write it all one person pov

If you haven't read it recently, 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad is worth a look. It is essentially alternating first person POV, the unnamed narrator and Marlow. I suppose that Marlow's story is technically the narrator's verbatim quotation of Marlow's tale, but that strictly would be very cumbersome. Conrad's brilliance is that he seamlessly combines Marlow's first person account with the narrator's first person account of some things that Marlow wouldn't be able to comment on and maintain his dramatic tension. The story is 95% Marlow and 5% the narrator, so it might not be applicable to a more balanced head hopping story. But it does have me thinking about trying to do something like that. Heart of Darkness is very short, less than 40K words, so doesn't take long to read. Less time than watching Apocalypse Now, the Coppola film based on Darkness. It is brutal though.

 

[KeithD]

Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but here is a story in which a male author wrote all of the male character perspectives, and a female author wrote all of the female character perspectives.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-masks-we-wear

Thanks. I'll check that one out.