Have you ever collaborated with another writer?

[KikiKisses]

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!

 

[WCSGarland]

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.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

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.

 

[Erozetta]

I've collaborated with six other authors so far, and have plans to collab with at least two more.

 

[iwatchus]

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.

 

[WCSGarland]

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.

 

[Djmac1031]

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.

 

[iwatchus]

@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.

 

[PennyThompson]

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.

 

[iwatchus]

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.

 

[Djmac1031]

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.

For sure. Emily and I have never met face to face, or conversed over the phone.

 

[Djmac1031]

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.

That's generally how we've done it, and through just posting chunks of story and / or discussing the ideas via DM.

 

[WCSGarland]

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.

Do you have Discord? That could be used as an alternative to Google chat. If you want anonymity from the collaborator, all you would need to do is create your own server and make a new profile for it.

 

[Erozetta]

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, emailing each other word documents (be careful that your name isn't attached), and private messages, mostly. Though with one we do talk on the phone regularly, it's not always about writing, lol. I also have Discord and discuss things there.

Personally, as long as you're okay with hearing another person's ideas and allowing them to work in your world or don't overtake theirs completely, it'll work out just fine. I'm pretty easy going. I gave @WhiteTailDarkTip my opening, he got ideas from it and started writing, when he'd get stuck, I'd step in to get things moving again and then we'd continue discussing what happens as we go. (And I think every time he sent it back to me I added to the sex scenes, lol.)

 

[WCSGarland]

My google account doesn't even include my real name, so I'm not worried about anonymity with Google Docs, but if I were to collaborate, I'd prefer chatting over Discord rather than Google Chat.

 

[iwatchus]

Personally, as long as you're okay with hearing another person's ideas and allowing them to work in your world or don't overtake theirs completely, it'll work out just fine. I'm pretty easy going. I gave @WhiteTailDarkTip my opening, he got ideas from it and started writing, when he'd get stuck, I'd step in to get things moving again and then we'd continue discussing what happens as we go. (And I think every time he sent it back to me I added to the sex scenes, lol.)

I do have questions if I can give up complete artistic control of something I am writing. I would like to think I could do it, but I know I can be pig-headed (a surprise to no one who has seen my rants on here).

My concern about the interactions is the speed. When I am being effective, I am moving quickly. In the time a message exchange happens, I would like to be three scenes later. I can imagine it working in real time, but I don't see that happening here.

 

[iwatchus]

My google account doesn't even include my real name, so I'm not worried about anonymity with Google Docs, but if I were to collaborate, I'd prefer chatting over Discord rather than Google Chat.

I have a google account that doesn't either. I would hope almost everyone here has that. To be honest, I would be likely to give much more personal information to anyone I was willing to collaborate with. A few people here know enough that they could find me if they chose to. But I am in a position that the anonymity is not as important to me as it is to others. My immediate family all knows what I write. I have tenure and I'm about to retire. I'm not real worried about someone stalking me. Unlike some authors here, I am not getting death threats.

But I fully understand others are in different situations and want and need to protect their privacy. Ideal collaboration would happen with better communication, like video conferencing and even in person meetings that are inconsistent with people's need for privacy. Such is life as a purveyor of smut.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I don’t know whether @Djmac1031 agrees, but I think I’d find colabbing over chat too noisy. We tend to read, absorb, think, reply. So the speed of the underlying communication method isn’t paramount. It’s more epistolary than chat-based.

And the ability to quote previous text easily in Lit PMs is helpful.

 

[Erozetta]

I do have questions if I can give up complete artistic control of something I am writing. I would like to think I could do it, but I know I can be pig-headed (a surprise to no one who has seen my rants on here).

My concern about the interactions is the speed. When I am being effective, I am moving quickly. In the time a message exchange happens, I would like to be three scenes later. I can imagine it working in real time, but I don't see that happening here.

That's where back and forth writing can be helpful.

If you get stuck at some point, sending it to your partner to pick up the next part can sorta reset your brain and when you get it back, it's like a fresh start. The drive is back and you can just barrel ahead with your addition.

Between the story with me and WTDT, I think he tracked changes and I wrote about 45% and he wrote 55%, so fairly even but not exactly even.

The hardest part is figuring out which account to post it to. I insisted he post it to his because it was an idea I loved, but it was dead in the water for me until he came along and revived it. He deserved the credit for it and I was even fine with him not mentioning me at all in it. He insisted, so we compromised on an author's note.

Ultimately, it's a matter of being willing to stop at a certain point and hand the work to someone else to let them do their part. Or you finish it and hand it off to them, let them fill in any gaps or scenes they feel are missing and continue that way.

I've also done a collaboration where we wrote two versions of the same story. His pov and her pov. For that, one of us fully wrote the story and the other wrote the opposite pov using the first work as a guide of what happened and when. That was pretty easy to do without breaking up the writing flow.

There are many different ways to write with someone else.

 

[iwatchus]

All of this has encouraged me to try some day, given the opportunity.

 

[Rob_Royale]

@Eosphorus and I have kicked it around and maybe we will someday.

 

[WCSGarland]

I have a google account that doesn't either. I would hope almost everyone here has that. To be honest, I would be likely to give much more personal information to anyone I was willing to collaborate with. A few people here know enough that they could find me if they chose to. But I am in a position that the anonymity is not as important to me as it is to others. My immediate family all knows what I write. I have tenure and I'm about to retire. I'm not real worried about someone stalking me. Unlike some authors here, I am not getting death threats.

But I fully understand others are in different situations and want and need to protect their privacy. Ideal collaboration would happen with better communication, like video conferencing and even in person meetings that are inconsistent with people's need for privacy. Such is life as a purveyor of smut.

Oh, and an update... I just changed my profile in Discord. I thought it would apply to only one server, but apparently it applies to all servers. Sorry if I steered anybody wrong in that regard.

 

[Djmac1031]

I don’t know whether @Djmac1031 agrees, but I think I’d find colabbing over chat too noisy. We tend to read, absorb, think, reply. So the speed of the underlying communication method isn’t paramount. It’s more epistolary than chat-based.

And the ability to quote previous text easily in Lit PMs is helpful.

Agreed. Chat might be useful in some instances perhaps, but the problem I'd se there is people tend to talk over each other.

Even if its well meaning. And what will happen is the stronger of the two personalities will dominate and steer the conversation.

Communication through written word gives each time to think through and clearly express their thoughts in response.

lets say the scenario is: an idea has been pitched. One author for, the other against.

The one for it will put up the stronger argument and push, and the one against it won't have time to formulate their response in a clear, detailed way.

not saying it wouldn’t be fun to chat here and there on it, but overall im not sure how conducive face to face/ live speaking would be to rhe writing process.

 

[iwatchus]

I have done a lot of creative collaboration face to face in the past (sw design, ux design, feature design) with great success. To me, there are two big differences with doing chat collaboration and in person collaboration.

I find there is a great deal more mis-communication in writing than there is in person. text messages just don't carry the nuances that face to face interactions provide. There has been a lot of good research on the deficiencies of each remote medium, trying to find ways to offset the limitations. It is better than it was, but not by much.

But the speed of communication is just so different. I have found it difficult to impossible to undertake design tasks over chat. I suspect it would be even worse with writing. When I am being creative, I don't want to wait for a minute or two for a response. That breaks the whole stream. Two or three people in a room can feed off each other's creative energy and thoughts. It mostly works the same over zoom, but with dampening effects from the mis-communications. Waiting for an extended period between each point just kills that energy, like pushing the rods all the way into the reactor.

I have never tried this with writing, just discussing editing, which I believe is better than it would be creating a story. Or maybe I am just not a good candidate for collaboration in this environment, which would disappoint me, but it is what it is.

 

[Erozetta]

Oh, and an update... I just changed my profile in Discord. I thought it would apply to only one server, but apparently it applies to all servers. Sorry if I steered anybody wrong in that regard.

If you have Nitro you can do different profiles for different servers