Friday, November 13, 2009

Collaborative Writing?



So a friend on my online critique group suggested a co-writing project where about 3 people or so each write a paragraph and continue a story. I'm curious to see how it pans out and I may even have a go at it myself. But something I've always wondered about is how writers collaborate on an entire story.

Take for example The House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. It is co-written by a mother and daughter. I can't really tell where they switch off but occasionally you can tell who is writing what. I read about two of the books and they weren't bad, but they weren't amazing either. Sometimes it felt like they were trying to make it so teenish. What with the language and all I kinda ended up losing interest. And I swear I thought their was a motherly lesson nestled somewhere in there. Perhaps, I'll re-read them and give an actual review. Then again they do have plenty of books out and so I'm sure they've learned one another's style more so as they've progressed with their stories.

As for the Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson-I couldn't tell where one's writing began and ended. Their styles are so similar that together they create a great story. I think that for collaborative works to work out writers must really have an understanding of one another's styles and preferences when writing and try to bring those to light when working together.

1 comment:

Amber said...

House of Night Series completely fell off the planet by book three. There were tons of typos and too many re-tellings of what happened in the previous books. The teen language is a little annoying as well. It tries too hard, I agree. My friends and I don't talk so teenish like that.

In any case, I tried a collaborative thing as a junior in high school, but it didn't work out.