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co-writing



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Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:58 am
Alpha says...



How does co-writing work?
I'm about to try it, but I'd like to hear what people who tried it think about it.
How do you do it?
How do you plot the story you both want to write together?
Do you do exercises or stuff before you start the actual novel?
Thanks!
Alpha
  





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Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:18 pm
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Rydia says...



Heya!

I've found that it works really well sometimes and really badly other times. It all depends on who you're co-writing with!

The first time I did this was with my sister. We'd written poetry together before and decided to start co-writing a novel. We planned it together in person and wrote the early chapters, but after she left for university, we conducted most of the writing over the phone. That time it went really well as we had writing styles that meshed nicely and we didn't have many disagreements.

The second time was over the internet with a writing friend. We storybooked together first so we had a firm idea of each other's styles and the two main characters we used were plucked straight from a storybook. Then we decided on a very brief plot, like, only the beginning of it. For the actual writing process, it was very different to what I did with my sister because we took it in turns to each write a chapter from the point of view of our character and didn't really discuss the key elements of the plot in detail. We just e-mailed each other brief notes and questions. We didn't finish the novel but it went rather well. We were just both low on time or something I guess.

Then I've done a few others that haven't got far for various reasons. With one we decided very early on that our styles were just too different and weren't blending very well. For the other, we had difficulty agreeing on plot and stuff so we decided to just leave it.
Writing Gooder

~Previously KittyKatSparklesExplosion15~

The light shines brightest in the darkest places.
  





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Thu Mar 10, 2011 6:40 pm
Alpha says...



Kitty15 wrote:Heya!

I've found that it works really well sometimes and really badly other times. It all depends on who you're co-writing with!

The first time I did this was with my sister. We'd written poetry together before and decided to start co-writing a novel. We planned it together in person and wrote the early chapters, but after she left for university, we conducted most of the writing over the phone. That time it went really well as we had writing styles that meshed nicely and we didn't have many disagreements.

The second time was over the internet with a writing friend. We storybooked together first so we had a firm idea of each other's styles and the two main characters we used were plucked straight from a storybook. Then we decided on a very brief plot, like, only the beginning of it. For the actual writing process, it was very different to what I did with my sister because we took it in turns to each write a chapter from the point of view of our character and didn't really discuss the key elements of the plot in detail. We just e-mailed each other brief notes and questions. We didn't finish the novel but it went rather well. We were just both low on time or something I guess.

Then I've done a few others that haven't got far for various reasons. With one we decided very early on that our styles were just too different and weren't blending very well. For the other, we had difficulty agreeing on plot and stuff so we decided to just leave it.


Thanks Kitty! I'll give it a try, then!
  








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