Comments on: Wikinovel

Wikinovel

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:09:35 -0800

After an abysmal, embarrasing attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:31:19 -0800

There is a series of ancient legends, going back in to the mists of time and forward to King Arthur's roundtable and as recent as last spring, in which souls are transformed by an unexpected encounter in the forest. Welcome to Beltane... It's not a good sign when the first and only sentence of a collaberative novel sucks.

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:32:24 -0800

or even a collaborative novel

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:35:25 -0800

The first draft of anything is shit... someone somewhere said that once.

By: rabbitsnake

rabbitsnake — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:39:03 -0800

The art of writing is re-writing. Someone I knew put it that way once.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:39:46 -0800

This is a stupid idea. How can you collaborate on something that is supposed to have a singular vision towards which all of the elements aspire? The characters, setting, themes, diction, plot and style are supposed to work in concert to communicate the author's thought or message. So why does the world need this?

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:41:03 -0800

TV writers do it all the time, don't they? (there are no stupid ideas. or, just not many. stupid people though, well... just read comments on any community-driven site and you'll see.)

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:49:51 -0800

Writing is re-writing, it has been said.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:52:45 -0800

This is a great idea. Collaborating on a work will give it multiple visions towards which the elements aspire. The characters, setting, themes, diction, plot and style are will work in concert but will communicate many different thoughts and messages. This is what the world needs. posted by Pastabagel at 6:39 PM on May 30 [+] [!]

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:53:21 -0800

Truthfully, I worked on a similar project back in the BBS days with great success. Mind you, the introductory parts were pretty weak, but, about a quarter of the way in, we found quite a nice rhythm and started turning out some pretty good work. An unspoken consensus arose about character and plot fundamentals, which is often a problem for such, but there were a lot of (plausible) plot twists and interactions I doubt any given one of us would have been able to come up with solo. I think the biggest issue with these works are their public natures. You need the right community to get the right novel... (Wish I could find that story...)

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:59:05 -0800

The difference between this and a group of writers on a TV show or some informal group assembled to work on the project is that they (a) are employees who usually take direction from someone, the shows creator or a producer, or (b) have some general idea of what they want to accomplish. This is not the same thing at all. This is any random person wrenching the story in whatever direction they want it to take.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:00:55 -0800

I came across a site years ago, where the aim was to create a "common world" - the individual stories were written and submitted by individual authors, but they all shared characters and settings. One story might mention a minor character - someone else may then take that minor character and fill them out in a new story, give them their own adventures. This seemed to work quite well, and I think it's probably a better way of doing "collaborative" fiction than everyone trying to work on the same story at once. And it's probably also suited to the wiki format. If some past adventure of a character is mentioned in a story, it could link to the wiki page where someone else has written about that past adventure.

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:03:14 -0800

Pastabagel-- you're not up to speed. The site has a paid editor.

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:05:59 -0800

Jimbob - you might be thinking of Lexicon. My friends and I started one a while ago... it had spin-offs, it was fun, it didn't last too long.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:10:13 -0800

I actually wasn't thinking of lexicon, I was thinking of a place called "Angwel Common World", but since that no-longer exists and I've been looking for something similar for a long time, thank you very much for those links.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:26:18 -0800

No, I am up to speed. you can write and edit anything and everything, whether it's your work or someone else's. That implies that anyone can add or edit anything, regardless of whether it has an editor. I actually like the idea JimBob describes, sort of a collaborative open source "universe" of characters that anyone can draw from to populate their stories.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:31:48 -0800

...and then suddenly a meteor struck metafilter with the force of a thousand Hiroshimas, killing all the little mefites and saving democracy forever. The End.

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:33:56 -0800

You complained that they weren't receiving guidance like tv writers would. You're wrong.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:37:59 -0800

THE END, DAMMIT. THE END!!!!!!11!!1!!

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:52:40 -0800

multiple visions towards which the elements aspire. The characters, setting, themes, diction, plot and style are will work in concert but will communicate many different thoughts and messages. Sounds like a Pynch... OH SHIT. Thomas Pynchon is a committee just like Stanislaw Lem and Shakespeare!!!

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:55:29 -0800

It was a dark and stormy night. (this is going to be bad)

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:13:52 -0800

It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy night... I had taken a creative writing course! RIP, MST3k

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:30:47 -0800

I hope something eventually gets Pynched off.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:22:21 -0800

I would actually expect that Wikinovel has the potential of developing something like Wikipedia's policies and guidelines -- that is, the community could work out what its consensus plot arc and character beats were, and stuff that didn't conform could be reverted as incompatible with that consensus. Writers who don't build toward the community-preferred end product will get frustrated and leave the project. It isn't just the edits. Over half of Wikipedia's content is on the Talk pages and Wikipedia (community) namespace.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:37:17 -0800

Consensus plot arc. Can't wait.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:43:40 -0800

Hollywood already proved that story wikis don't work. A movie sucks in direct relation to how many screenwriters were hired to fix it.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:49:01 -0800

A hot female English proffessor comes into possession of some scrolls inadvertantly, while looking for ammunition in a divorce case, and uses them for leverage, hoping to force a settlement while not realizing that encoded symbols reveal how to avert catastrophe from the motion of large objects in space. The Chimps have known all along, however, and have been trying to tell us. No, wait. That doesn't work.

By: bruce

bruce — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:59:35 -0800

no thread about collaborative fiction would be complete without a link to this, one of the oldest and best, which actually spent one week on the new york times bestseller list.

By: talitha_kumi

talitha_kumi — Thu, 31 May 2007 05:01:46 -0800

I have to say the prologue is off to a good start, although it doesn't bear much resemblance to the beat sheet.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 31 May 2007 05:29:09 -0800

But.. I don't want to read a collaborative novel - it's art by committee. Some things are better non-egalitarian.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 31 May 2007 06:13:39 -0800

From the Main Page: Each scene needs laid out with a single sentence, describing what happens Were it goes, is up to you. Um, yeah, this is going to be a masturpiece!

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:02:45 -0800

there's also, apparently, a new project called Wikiworlds -- similar to what you guys wer talking about. It wasn't there a day ago.