All around cool guy Nathan is setting up a round robin writing exercise. And he's lassoing as many people as he can. Sorry, Nathan, I can't do it (I have too many other invites waiting for my attention, like Matt W's), but I can evangelize for it. He has some interesting twists to the standard shared story meme, like changing one major plot element. That could make for an interesting reading/writing thing. Although, most of those stories tend to end up with an "and then the dinosaurs ate them all" kind of conclusion.
At the last Confusion there were a few writers who had recently completed collaborations (hey, Tobias). Those kinds of projects have always thrown me. I have no compulsions about sharing ideas (see name of blog or "Da Rules" if you don't know), but writing together right now is way far out of my skill set. I guess as a ersatz art director from back when titles in my day thing used to actually mean something, I'm used to assigning work that I've thought I've been pretty damn precise about my instructions (here's a damn sketch, follow it), but have always been surprised at what comes back. At first it was pretty hard to accept others interpretations of both the project and my "exacting descriptions and instructions on what I want to see, damnit." But then I mellowed out, although I'm a stickler for production values (really, I'm a rat-assed bastard for them. When I say use style sheets, I mean uses the fargin' style sheets). So I was really interested in how they handled it. For some it was a "I write one line, they write the next" kind of thing. It still confuses me.
9 comments:
I've tried the collaboration thing before and through the different ways it's been done, it's always interesting to see the outcome. The longest one that I did ended up being just over 31,000 words and then we kind of got tired of it.
The way that one worked was my friend sent the start of the story in an email and we decided not to discuss the plot at all but that we'd read over what was sent and then write for at least a half hour then send it back. Life intervened, and the story kind of slacked off.
It's always interesting to see how collaborations come together. Also, if you've still got that file I sent you, I might have one that's just slightly updated if you were thinking of playing with it, let me know and I can resend.
Also, also, I love the story bones you put up, and I've thought about stealing that for my own blog, but haven't...yet...
Steve,
Since Matt signed on, you've redeemed yourself. And we're a really creative bunch. I'm sure we'll end with "and the dinosaurs sat on them." :D
It's what happens AFTER the dinosaurs eat them that makes the most interesting story though.
(a story bone for you, Steve!)
Mooooooooooo.
(sorry. couldn't resist)
Matt, thanks, but I've got a fire burning in my head at the moment.
Nathan, glad I could get you two together. Er, something like that.
Jeri, well, after animals eat something, there's something else that happens. I'm not sure that's quite exciting to write about.
Michelle, as someone who used to tell people it was the law that you had to moo at cows as you drove by, until the legislature passed a law making it illegal (seriously).
Who says that 1) we can't be swallowed whole, a la Jonah, and wear suits that are impervious to digestive acids?
I'm thinking "Journey through the Four Stomachs" or "Wild Ride through the Small Intestines". It should be something in the spirit of Fantastic Voyage crossed with Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Maybe it was an alien digestive tract infestation that killed the dinosaurs... and going back in time and being swallowed is the only way to tell for sure! Maybe we can even learn the secret to catching, being ingested by, and traveling inside their starfaring dragons!
Steve,
Since we're clearly a group who have big problems with impulse control...we've begun a couple of days early. Thanks again for the plug.
Steve,
My friend Zap and I had a joke that we wanted to make talking cows.
When humans drove by and yelled, "MOO!" at them, the cows would turn and say, "Moo, mother f--er, moo."
Thanks for reminding me of that.
And Jeri, I so do not want to explore the digestive tract of ANYTHING. But I especially don't want to explore the digestive track of a carrion eater.
Jeri, well, I'm really going for the horror thing with this one, so I'll need to keep the whole "digested for 200 years, Fantastic Voyage" concept for another one.
Although the digestive track/time travel sounds like a mash-up of the Star Trek episodes "City on the Edge of Forever" and "The Doomsday Machine" (and here Steve collects his geekdom/Chuck E Cheese tickets to redeem for valuable prized).
Michelle, one of my good friends has a vanity license plate of "Mooo", just in case he would miss a cow because of inattention, his car could perform the duty (and no, I'm not kidding... Hi, John.)
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