Collaborative Fiction - writing novels in a team
Collaborative fiction is the art of several authors writing a story together. This way authors can split the work of creating characters and planning the plot of a novel. Sometimes collaborative fiction involves writers working closely together or they may take the opposite approach and agree only on a few plot points.
What are some examples of collaborative fiction?
SCP Foundation
This website is written as if it was the internal database of a secret organisation investigating paranormal events that must be kept secret. The vibe is a mix of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Anyone can contribute to it but writing can be upvoted or downvoted by other users so only the best writing rises to the surface and is published. No-one owns SCP Foundation and there are no editors. The result is a wiki of thousands of short documents written by thousands of authors.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
These two authors had already known each other for five years when they decided to write a novel together. Good Omens is a parody covering the birth of the son of Satan and the end of the world. Pratchett wrote roughly two thirds of the novel and Gaiman provided the remaining third. They then rewrote each other's work to the point that when the novel was completed they could not be sure who had written what.
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
The Talisman was published in 1984 and is a fantasy-horror novel co-written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Twelve year old Jack Sawyer sets off on a journey across the US looking for the Talisman, an object that is believed to have the power to save the life of his dying mother.
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (a two-author pseudonym)
The Expanse is a science fiction series of nine books set a few hundred years in the future. The solar system has been colonised but is now divided by three powers: Earth (run by the United Nations), Mars (a militarised breakaway state), and the Belt (the asteroid miners who are treated very poorly). The novels were later adapted into a tv series.
What are the advantages of collaborative fiction?
Writing a novel with other people gives you several advantages. You gain another person's creativity, knowledge and effort. Writing collaboratively can get your competitive juices flowing and push you to grow as a writer and become better. It may also make the writing experience feel less isolating if you collaborate with other people.
What are the disadvantages of collaborative fiction?
There can be downsides to writing with others. You may have creative differences with one another. Also, you may have different timelines for completing your novel. Collaborative fiction isn't a good fit for people who don't want to work with others.
Where to read and publish collaborative fiction?
Fictra is the best place to read and write collaborative fiction. Fictra requires a 'floor-runner' to oversee a small team of writers. Each writer writes a different section, with different characters and a completely different angle. Still, everything is set within the same world. So multiple writers can contribute a small piece to a shared world, building something none of them could have written on their own.
Fictra is also great for readers as the website has a no-AI policy. So you can be safe in the knowledge that everything you read on Fictra has been written by a human being.