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

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

There's a certain investment in "my" story being mine (that's a great pleasure of fanfic for me); I can't help thinking I'd resent someone else changing it or telling me I had to change it or even simply taking it in a direction

Oh, this makes perfect sense, and you do have to sacrifice ego a bit. With Nan and I, we have different skill sets. I'm better at propelling the story arc; she's better at managing emotional nuance so we sort of guided each other. The narrative that emerged, we both agree, was a third voice, part her, part me.

With Nancy, our characters were set against each other so it was more competitive than collaborative, with the characters sort of outmaneuvering each other. It was exhausting but totally absorbing and the result was very sharp.

My collaborations with Linda and Fara were more like romances [the material was softer, lighter] and the give and take was a bit different.

Each collaboration was a different sort of relationship and personally, I treasure them all.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

Oh, so many questions I have ....

With Nancy, our characters were set against each other so it was more competitive than collaborative, with the characters sort of outmaneuvering each other. It was exhausting but totally absorbing and the result was very sharp.

But did you agree in advance who was going to "win" so to speak (plot/character wise, not personally!)? Did you have a clear outline that you stuck to?

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

No, and no one 'won' either. As you can see by the intro, this was Nancy's idea. She proposed it to me and I saw a whole range of possibilities of where the story could go ---probably more than she did. [We were very much like Solo and Illya in that way.] She saw it as a methodical way to explore a scientific subject. I figured all hell would break loose. I was right.

What happened early on was that I had Solo react in a way I thought consistent with Nowhere Aff but not quite what Illya was expecting. Then, when Solo woke up without knowing who he was, I just followed that and acted according. Suddenly, there were options I didn't see either but I just followed the logic of it. So did she. Suddenly, she and Illya realized they were in trouble and she even brought in the first OC characters to add to the chaos.

We really didn't have a plan for this for some time and just followed the logic. Somewhere along the line, we agreed Solo should probably escape, so in that way, she had to hold Illya back a bit. But not much, since Illya would not have killed Solo anyway. Poor Illya did get pummeled however, and both she and he had to allow it to happen. We never explicitly agreed, but it was clear this would not be a death story and we would resolve it by the end. It was my idea to bring in April and then Angelique which complicated matters even further. On the other hand, she did the doctor [who ended up the antagonist] and the lab guys.

The hardest part of the story for me was playing Waverly to her Kuryakin. We didn't realize AW would be so important and it worked better if I played AW. But then I was pitted against her Illya and had to discuss philosophy and occasionally out-argue him. That was really hard and I did the best I could. The title arose from one of those exchanges.

I believe that if you're writing logically, stories fall into almost pre-determined structure see [lit theory and Joseph Campbell] . We followed the logic of the situation even as it became more and more complicated.

As with Nan, we had a lot of side huddles --- time outs in which we talked about what was happening as if we were just witnesses. Writing this way gives you a feeling of being on a team ---you and your characters -- of both acting but also simply watching the characters in action. So, yes, we did take occasional time outs to talk about where things were going, but we always share what we individually would do about them. Sometimes, it's better to allow the characters to react.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

This is most interesting - looking at the excerpt and knowing each of you took a character makes the back and forth very interesting to read (I find myself putting myself in one or another writer's place and going "Shit, now what?"). I can see how that would be challenging! I can't imagine being able to produce a story arc without some kind of outline, but I see that you guys did "outline" by consulting as you went about how the story should go (and, presumably, should not go), so you began to channel your efforts as you went along, it seems (correct me if I'm misreading it). I don't know how you could have finished without doing that, but I also suspect this has something to do with both of you being pros at the writing craft. It was unlikely either of you would suddenly do something ridiculous.

Did you find you had to throw out chunks that went in a wrong direction, or did your constant communication keep you both from veering too far?

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Shit, now what Yeah, that's the risk part, but also makes this process addictive. There's the part where *you* as a writer have to come up with something and then there's when you're hit with something from the other side.

As I said in another comment, I think stories have an in-born structure and that begins to emerge. And yes, you must be able to trust that your writing partner won't do someting stupid. I was in another multi-player collaboration where half the writers were "serious" while there were two people throwing monkey wrenches into the plot just for the 'fun' of it. There's no way to finish a story like that and I bailed. The project fell apart.

The only time I have ever thrown a huge chunk out was with Nan. We couldn't decide whether or not a character should overhear an argument. We decided he didn't and then kept writing and realized a couple of dozen pages later we'd made a wrong turn. So, we reconsidered, found the turning point and backed up. It was like the proverbial road not taken and the second way worked much better. If only real life could work that way :)

To answer your last point, communication is vital. It doesn't require fairly regular huddles between writers if plotting is key. I think I had fewer huddles with Fara and Linda because those stories were less plot-driven and I could speak to them *through* the characters. This was particularly true with Napoleon and Angelique.

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

bTW: I'm speaking about Small Sacrifices. On the boat thing, we had absolutely no plan or agenda and pretty much let the characters say and do what they wanted. It's pretty much a PWP, but with talk and not sex.