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Young Writers Society


A New Spin on Collaborative Writing



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Sun Jun 26, 2016 7:02 am
AceOfPayds says...



A few of my friends and I sat in on a rainy day. We tried to think of something to do to sort of pass the time. Seeing as there was not much productivity in merely sitting around, we decided to write.

We had no real "aim" or goal that we were trying to achieve. We simply just, writing. But eventually, we came up with an interesting idea; why not all of us write a story?

Sounds generic, I know, and this idea is extremely overused by many writers. But we thought of giving this practice a little twist. Why not spread the work amongst a number of writers and create numerous stories at once?

The main objective is to create multiple stories that can explain and demonstrate how the writer thinks and point out where that writer began and ended his portion of the story.

Now, this is actually quite entertaining, and I've seen some masterpieces sprout from this.

Here's how it works:

To start off, you need at least 3 writers. Each writer will start out their own story, giving their story a main idea. This is fun, because each writer will have their own approach to the beginning of their story. (You can also do this with just one person writing the intro to a story. But most people, including myself, find it more amusing to see more than one story produced. Each one has it's own interesting personality.) Make sure that each writer composes their intro the way they feel necessary. Some intros are written very short, and others may take some time. It all depends on how the writer wants to put it.

Next, each writer gives their story to the next writer. Now, it's best to make sure that each writer is only given one story. Once the second writer has recieved the first writer's work, the second writer must read the work and add on to it as they think it should go. Basically, the second writer provides the middle or body of the story. (All things considered, make sure that after exchanging each other's work each writer only has one story.)

Now, after the second writer has completely finished their portion of the first writer's work, the second writer passes the story on to the next writer, which is the third writer. (Remember this, you can use more than three people.) And again, if you haven't seen where this is heading yet, the third writer or, better yet, the final writer finishes the story. This is also very fun, because the story can end up being incredibly funny, or insanely dark and depressing.

Once the piece is finished, the final writer sends the piece to the original author or the first writer so that the original author can read the finished piece. Or, alternatively, the piece can be posted on YWS for other fellow writers to read and enjoy.

I hope this makes sense. And the great thing is, you can take this and make ANOTHER spin off of THIS version. I've seen my friends do this different ways each time. And if you have any ideas, just comment on this or whatevs.

(This is the first time I've done anything with a forum. So just bear with me...)

Any questions, just contact me.

Thanks

-Payds :smt020
  





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Sun Jun 26, 2016 2:11 pm
reikann says...



I did something akin to this in Norwegian class in middle school. It went terribly.
I'm up for a redemption round, if it so pleases anyone else!
  





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Sun Jun 26, 2016 7:40 pm
Aley says...



Hey AceOfPayds,

This sounds like a lot of fun!

Actually, if people are interested in doing this, you could make a request or a start to it in the Storybooks or Collaborative Writing section of YWS's threads. Either that or find a group in this thread and jump onto writer feed pads or so forth.

For those of you who don't know yet, WriterFeed Pads are places where two users can be on and editing a text document simultaneously or, separately. It saves all of the text and allows you to keep an up-to-date file at all times so you can see when people are writing. As a YWSer you automatically have a WFP account which you can access through clicking the "me" and then WriterFeed Pads. They're like Titan Pads, Pirate Pads, and Google Docs but a little different than each of those. Google Docs tries to mimic a word document while the rest don't. The rest just give you a block and automatically color your text with a highlighted color to say who wrote what. Pirate Pads are anonymous and you don't need an account to set one up. However, if you don't access the pad within a certain time frame, it vanishes so the random URL can be used for another user. WFP and Titan Pads require the user who sets one up to have an account so their URL will have their name in it.
  





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Sun Jun 26, 2016 7:47 pm
AceOfPayds says...



Thanks for the insight, I'm certainly aiming for a bigger impact then just a few writers' participation in this activity. I'll look into this.
  








These were autumn mornings, the time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world.
— Rabindranath Tagore, The Cabuliwallah