Thinky Thoughts...
So I've been pondering co-writing and all the various shades of co-writing recently.
I say I don't co-write often, but that's not exactly true. I don't co-write often in the sense of "I write some and the other person writes some." It's more complicated than that, and I don't always give credit to the extent it's due, I don't think. This post is the result of my random musings on the topic...
First off is
damo_in_japan, who is my "beta," but it's a hell of a lot more than that. There's hardly a single story I write that isn't heavily influenced by him at some point, and some stories ("Nightwing & Flamebird" and "A Taste of Pomegranate" spring to mind) are almost entirely re-envisioned by him in what I might call "pre-beta," but is really just us sitting around and talking. He finds the weak spots in my stories before I even write them, which saves HUGE amounts of revision time, and I pick his brain ruthlessly for plot ideas. It's safe to say that in most cases I give him the basic plot, he gives me the details of how to make it work, and I write the actual dialogue and descriptions.
With
rai_daydreamer, a fair amount of time the entire plot is her doing. With both "The Unbroken Circle" and "Dreams of Sunlight," among others, it all starts with Rai emailing me and saying "You know what I'd really love to illustrate? A story with this plot. Do you think you'd like to write it?" The answer is always yes. :) We hammer out the smaller details together, but almost all of the actual plot points are hers. I'm just lucky she's decided she'd rather have her stories told in English than in Japanese, otherwise I'm sure she could do it herself! In those cases, I'm somewhere between a co-writer and a ghost writer, really.
With
arch_schatten, we share so many weird ideas that we can no longer remember who is stealing from whom! I was just writing up a story we've been talking about for almost a year now with varying degrees of seriousness, and had to ask her if the plot point of Kara being a big sister/quasi-mother to Kal in an AU where Krypton didn't explode was her idea or mine. :) (It was hers! I couldn't remember!) Luckily for me, she steals ideas back now and then so I don't feel like a TOTAL leech. But I'm sure I've swiped more ideas from Mina than I could bear to admit...and I shall probably do it again, muahaha! *claps hands over mouth* I mean, I shall never do so again.
So...random thinky thoughts about co-writing! Yes!
In less random thoughts, "Trinity" looks AWESOME! I shall have scans up soon for squeeing purposes!
I say I don't co-write often, but that's not exactly true. I don't co-write often in the sense of "I write some and the other person writes some." It's more complicated than that, and I don't always give credit to the extent it's due, I don't think. This post is the result of my random musings on the topic...
First off is
damo_in_japan, who is my "beta," but it's a hell of a lot more than that. There's hardly a single story I write that isn't heavily influenced by him at some point, and some stories ("Nightwing & Flamebird" and "A Taste of Pomegranate" spring to mind) are almost entirely re-envisioned by him in what I might call "pre-beta," but is really just us sitting around and talking. He finds the weak spots in my stories before I even write them, which saves HUGE amounts of revision time, and I pick his brain ruthlessly for plot ideas. It's safe to say that in most cases I give him the basic plot, he gives me the details of how to make it work, and I write the actual dialogue and descriptions.
With
rai_daydreamer, a fair amount of time the entire plot is her doing. With both "The Unbroken Circle" and "Dreams of Sunlight," among others, it all starts with Rai emailing me and saying "You know what I'd really love to illustrate? A story with this plot. Do you think you'd like to write it?" The answer is always yes. :) We hammer out the smaller details together, but almost all of the actual plot points are hers. I'm just lucky she's decided she'd rather have her stories told in English than in Japanese, otherwise I'm sure she could do it herself! In those cases, I'm somewhere between a co-writer and a ghost writer, really.
With
arch_schatten, we share so many weird ideas that we can no longer remember who is stealing from whom! I was just writing up a story we've been talking about for almost a year now with varying degrees of seriousness, and had to ask her if the plot point of Kara being a big sister/quasi-mother to Kal in an AU where Krypton didn't explode was her idea or mine. :) (It was hers! I couldn't remember!) Luckily for me, she steals ideas back now and then so I don't feel like a TOTAL leech. But I'm sure I've swiped more ideas from Mina than I could bear to admit...and I shall probably do it again, muahaha! *claps hands over mouth* I mean, I shall never do so again.
So...random thinky thoughts about co-writing! Yes!
In less random thoughts, "Trinity" looks AWESOME! I shall have scans up soon for squeeing purposes!