Have you ever collaborated with another writer?

When Athalia was alive, I used to "collaborate" with her constantly. She'd edit my stuff, and I'd edit hers. Sometimes it got to the point where I would do a re-write of some of her stories that were told from a male perspective, and she'd re-write some of my stuff to better reflect a female point of view. But we tried to make the transitions seamless. Oddly, she was better at re-writing my stuff than I was at re-writing hers, which made me suspect that women are better at getting inside men's heads than vice versa.

After she died, I published "College Sex Club" in her name. It was based on some snippets she had around and was planning to weave into a story, but I needed to write some connective tissue to bind the snippets together. The seams probably show.

But I don't think I could ever enter a writing partnership with anybody else. Athalia and I had known each other for about forty years before and, while our relationship was never sexual (bad timing, mostly), our friendship remained deep over the years.

I wrote the essay "The Right Editor" based on my experience with her. It says more than I could say in this post, and I'm re-posting it in her memory.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-right-editor
I wasn’t expecting to tear up over this question!
 
I haven't collaborated with any other author yet. I would like to eventually, but I haven't yet put out any feelers on the subject.
 
I just had a fun experience. I'm new to this site (I have read things off and on for a few years.) I really like stories that are set in the past, the 1940s and 50s are favorite eras. I stumbled across a series by @forgotmyantidepressants called "Ride Home" that really spoke to me. The characters seemed very real and the backstory was compelling. When I got to the 4th story I excitedly went to find the next chapter and that was it! Left me on a cliff-hanger! I reached out to her and she told me she wasn't going to finish it, but that in her mind it ended happily. I asked her permission to write a last chapter as a sort of a fan-fiction to help wrap it all up in in my mind. She gave me her blessing, and then was happy with the result!

I'm so glad she didn't think I was too weird for that! It was such a fun experience and it made me wonder if other people have done something similar. I know there are collabs on here, but this was a little different.

Here's her 4 part series: https://www.literotica.com/series/se/493817829

Here's my contribution: https://www.literotica.com/s/one-more-ride-home

I was trying to cram a lot of ideas into one story and get through the plot, so I didn't do as much descriptive work as I might have liked. I wanted to match her writing style a little more too, and if it was a true collaboration I probably would have worked harder on that. But I also didn't want to seem like a plagiarist. If I was doing something like ghost-writing, I definitely would have tried harder to match the style.

I never thought I would enjoy working with another writer, or doing ghost-writing. I have definitely changed my mind.
It was fun! Thank you for reaching out.
 
I sometimes wonder if I play nicely enough with others to collaborate. I guess I used to collaborate well in industry projects, but my writing feels more personal. If I can, I think I would like to. The two most likely people for me to collaborate with write very different things than I do, so that might not work as well.
 
I sometimes wonder if I play nicely enough with others to collaborate. I guess I used to collaborate well in industry projects, but my writing feels more personal. If I can, I think I would like to. The two most likely people for me to collaborate with write very different things than I do, so that might not work as well.
There's always the possibility that the contrast will work out nicely.
 
The two most likely people for me to collaborate with write very different things than I do, so that might not work as well.

There's always the possibility that the contrast will work out nicely.

@EmilyMiller and I have very different writing styles. So much so that someone familiar enough with our individual stories should be able to easily pick out who wrote what in our collaborations.

And yet they still work. All of them have done very well with readers including plenty who had never read either of us beforehand.

I suppose it really depends on a lot of varying factors and I realize it's not as simple as Em and I sometimes make it sound to simply gel with another writer enough to write something together that actually works.
 
Last edited:
@EmilyMiller and I have very different writing styles. So much so that someone familiar enough with our individual stories should be able to easily pick out who wrote what in our collaborations.

And yet they still work. All of them have done very well with readers including plenty who had never read either of us beforehand.

I suppose it really depends on a lot of varying factors and I realized it's not as simple as Em and I sometimes make it sound to simply gel with another writer enough to write something together that actually works.
It also seems much harder to do it remotely. What do people use for communications while collaborating? I assume you are still remote from each other.
 
It also seems much harder to do it remotely. What do people use for communications while collaborating? I assume you are still remote from each other.
Google Docs is your friend! It's actually a ton of fun to work in a shared document, and leave comments and suggestions on each other's parts.

I've only ever collaborated via Lit DMs, emails, and a shared google doc. I'm not really comfortable using other channels for this hobby, but it hasn't been a problem.
 
Google Docs is your friend! It's actually a ton of fun to work in a shared document, and leave comments and suggestions on each other's parts.

I've only ever collaborated via Lit DMs, emails, and a shared google doc. I'm not really comfortable using other channels for this hobby, but it hasn't been a problem.
I have been doing a lot of editing over google docs. And I actually tried the chat feature in it last night to discuss part of a story. That felt clunky as hell, not really conducive to stimulating the creative juices. I have a hard time imagining going any type of remote creative collaboration with something much worse than zoom. But video conferencing has obvious issues for anonymity.
 
Back
Top