Hey Everybody, I've been thinking about possibly collaborating with a friend of mine. What are the best things you've created through collaboration?
I studied in film with a focus on screenwriting. So I guess you could call all those films collaborations. Quite a few of those turned out really well. On the writing side of things, I usually work alone. I collaborate when I start trading beta reads with other writers and trade feedback.
Me, my brother, and one of my friends once collaborated a short story together. I wrote and they brainstormed. We wove a maddening tale of Kitsune land pirates, a coffee shop run by orcs, and an omnipresent fifteen year old with a high-pitched voice who gets stabbed repeatedly by Sephiroth, but never dies.
In 1990 during the first gulf war, I was in the navy and collaborated with three others on what I would see as a fantasy story. We would alternate chapters, each one picking up where the other left off. We were in the gulf for 13 months so it was a good time killer. We got about 200 pages in when we stopped. I wish I still had the manuscript now, it was a decent story. Only thing that sucked was waiting for your turn to write. Each of us did 8-10 pages before we handed it off to the next guy. I was always done in like two days and had to wait forever for the others. I loved it. I still talk with one of them, he really likes my wip I have now. If the people you work with are serious, you will have a great time.
Depends on what you mean by collaboration... My husband doesn't necessarily sit at the computer with me and write. But my story wouldn't be where it is without him. Some of my most beloved elements in my current WIP are because of him. When I get stuck or come up with a new idea, I shoot it by him for feedback. More often than not, he improves on what I had already planned, adding elements I hadn't considered. It's mostly minor things -- adding a little thing here and a little thing there. But the impact they have is more important than the idea itself. He actually just helped me out of a rut today! I have such a good husband.
I would say he is more your inspiration. My wife is mine also. When I get lazy, it always ends with her smacking me in the head and telling me to get to work.
I constantly brainstormed with my wife on my WIP. Had to come with a plausible way to get my (western) Romans out of China, did it as Buddhist monks. But then what to do with the woman? Shaved head, but disguise her as 12 year old boy? Endless alternatives, in the end just made her a bukkhini Buddhist nun and kept it simple. She also contributed enormously to the female POVs. She has started her WIP (66 pages in) and I am returning the favor, and encouraging her to draw the story out. Collaborating with some fellow shipmates on a Navy non fiction: "True Believers, the Founding Fathers of TACAMO" with each founding father contributing a chapter. Got four so far, but it is like herding cats.
