Collaborating

[sartorias]

My BVC post today is on history that never was.

Another thing I've been thinking about is collaboration. I just finished writing the first draft of a YA post apocalyptic adventure with rachelmanija. It's been great fun. (She talks about it here.) I've collaborated a number of times over the years, and in different ways, beginning as a kid with another kid

Comments

[sartorias]

Yeah, the ownership question seems to be the sticking point for a lot of people.

[houseboatonstyx]

So what about your Oz stuff? Can we read it?

[sartorias]

Well, two of the books got published, though you'd never know it. The bookstores briefly carried them stuck back in the classics section. The third one, I'll put up for free on the net once I go over it.

[jonquil]

Thank you. I love reading about other people's process, and that looks like a really happy collaboration.

I also look forward to reading the Exordium rework.

[sartorias]

Thanks! :-)

[rachelmanija]

Thanks for writing this up

[sartorias]

*nodnodnod*

[shveta_thakrar]

I really enjoyed this post and Rachel's comment. Thank you both. :)

[sartorias]

:-)

[jediboadicea]

Oh, this is such a great topic. I am compelled to drag myself out of two year lurkerdom in order to join in

[sartorias]

Very good points--thank you. I agree completely.

You also brought up something that I hadn't considered. While I felt oppressed by implied ownership with two of my collaborations (Baum, who was dead, but his family gave the okay, and Andre Norton, who was okay with it, as long as she had final say) I feel that liberating sense when I write fanfic, even though I work exactly as hard to stick to canon and reproduce tone. Interesting.

[jediboadicea]

I feel that liberating sense when I write fanfic, even though I work exactly as hard to stick to canon and reproduce tone. Interesting.

I know, right? I admit I find this strange myself. I can't quite explain why this is so. For me, the whole point of fanfic, the whole impetus behind my wanting to do it in the first place, is to get more of what I loved to begin with - and this, for me, means sticking to canon and reproducing tone. I don't treat writing fanfic as something any "less," it's just... different. Argh, I really can't explain it. But like I said before, it's coming from a different part of my brain. I'm not moved to it by the same need, and as such I don't create in the same manner

[sartorias]

Interesting--and yes, that I find intrusive as well. But then people have interrupted artists, or artisans, who are concentrating fiercely, to ask obvious (or stupid, or even not stupid) questions for centuries, smashing their focus to smithereens. I think I recall something about Michelangelo complaining of it, and I know I've read of many writers who wished they could work uninterrupted. (Mostly women; men seemed better able to get people to respect a closed door.)

I wouldn't say never, re being commissioned to work again in someone else's play yard. But the circumstances would have to be different than the ones I've found uncongenial.