30 Day Fandom Meme Day 28

[leethet]

Day 28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
No. I don’t see how it’s possible! In fact, once I polled some people in HP about how they collaborated because I simply can’t imagine it working (even though it clearly does – many collaborations are just fantastic). I can’t imagine writing a story with someone else and either enjoying the process or having it come out well, even though I’ve seen that it can happen. Fascinates me.

In HP a couple of artists have done art for my stories (Lizardspots did a sort of comic strip, trekkiegrrl and yael created single scenes), not in collaboration but just because they felt like it. It's very cool to see how other people interpret scenes, and how close they sometimes come to what I was seeing in my head. I don't know if that's coincidence or simply that I described it effectively - you really can't know - but it's very cool to see how others visualize my words.

Comments

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I have been lucky in finding four people with whom I'm on the same wavelength

I suspect this is key (not the only one, of course - but maybe a sine qua non?) - generally the same level of writing skill and the same outlook regarding story arc and level of detail - in a very broad sense, similar writing styles. I would think that without that, it'd be impossible, at least, to keep the seams from showing.

I really appreciate your articulating this!

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

I think similar perspective is important but not writing styles. I think only Linda has a style similar to mine. Nancy is far more cerebral; Nan and Fara, more emotional. But I guess we were all in the ballpark at least. And I don't think there could be too much difference in proficiency.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

Yes, I didn't really express that clearly, because I don't really mean like styles so much as a broadly similar approach - that is, someone who writes crack humor and a dry serious writer would have a hard time, I think, producing a seamless collaboration, but if each of you can bend toward a common style that's not too far from your strengths, I think that could work (I mean, in my head - obviously I've never done it!). Or at least it would help.

For reference....

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Find an excerpt from “Small Sacrifices” still only available in print here.

An excerpt from Escape/MFU written with Nan is here and here.

"The Children of the Night Afair," written with Linda, is here.

And "Risky Business" written with Fara is here.