Which do you prefer

Which do you prefer?

  • Adding to my own chapters

    Votes: 12 66.7%

  • Working with other authors and adding to each other's chapters

    Votes: 6 33.3%
  • Total voters
    18
wicker

wicker

Really Really Experienced
When it comes to writing, do you prefer to work alone or collaborate with others?
I've added to many stories where the story owner doesn't add to my chapters.
 
I generally prefer to write on my own, I rarely add to another author's stories. I have had a couple of people work with me on my stories and add to them though, which has worked well because we collaborated very closely on the content.
 
I've never added to another author's story. I've tried writing sequels to other author's stories, but I always ended up feeling constrained by the boundaries set up by the original story, so they never went anywhere.

I'm happy for other authors to add to my stories, but I set them to 'moderated' to ensure true garbage like "and then she said wow that was hot and he went thanks wanna bang ok and they fucked and she came a hundred times and when he came he was like a fountain and it was so good" doesn't devalue my own stuff by mere proximity. I suspect that's one reason why no one has ever added to one of my stories either.

I'm fine with both. Ultimately, for me, the act of writing is a solitary activity. There's stuff in my head, and I want it to come out onto the paper. I'm not categorically opposed to trying a collaboration, but I suspect I would find it unpleasant.
 
My problem is that I lose my inspiration too quickly to make my own stories alone. But I can add a few threads to a story someone else has started and move on to the next story when the next idea becomes my muse. Collaboration is also fun, although I seem to have trouble finding people to actually do co-ordinated collab with.
 
It seems a lot of authors just do their own thing on their own stories and only add to their own threads. Or maybe it's just the stories I add to.
 
I write so sporadically, I'd feel bad adding to someone else's story just to leave it hanging incomplete lol
 
So far I have only ever added to my own stories. I have been tempted in the past to add to someone elses, but this fear of someone taking what I wrote and changing it exists. I have one or two of my stories set to Moderated and I would fully welcome other's contributing, but I would likely be fairly careful with what I let through. All in all, I write with my vision and I worry that things I would not enjoy might appear in my own story.
 
I like contributing to other peoples' stories. I'm less fond of going back and forth with someone on a thread; I usually approach a story with an idea of where I'm going to take it from there, so I'll jump in and then write until I reach a conclusion or I'm out of ideas. If someone else continues from one of my contributions, it's rare that I will pick it up again from that thread.

Insofar as when they contribute to mine, it depends on how much I've invested in it personally. I wrote a Star Trek story which I was happy to see become popular with many contributors, because Star Trek isn't mine; I just made up a few characters and a starship and put them in a situation where sex would happen more often than not. On the other hand, I have a story based in a fictional kingdom in the 14th century which I've created and developed from scratch, and while it's open to submissions, I haven't actually had any... and I think I kind of prefer it that way. I've poured a lot of creative energy into that one, and I don't know that I really want to see it taken in directions I never intended.
 
wicker said:
If authors prefer to work alone, why do they let others add to their stories?
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Do you actually try to work together or just post a chapter in someone's story and expect that they will start generating content you like?

In my case, just because I consider someone's chapter good enough to be approved - doesn't necessarily mean that I love the style or that kinks and fetishes of the chapter interest me or that the plot direction intrigues me. I doubt it is too different for other people.

Note that going "hey, I like this story but it has no kinks I want, let me add one so this new cool branch will grow!" is especially unlikely to work - especially if it is accompanied by a tonal\genre shift. An example - you can't invade a romantic lesbian story with a branch in which they are both kidnapped into a BDSM dungeon to be raped by a group of males and expect that the author will continue it in any way. Many authors, justifiably, won't even approve it no matter how well it was written.
 
Hvast said:
Do you actually try to work together or just post a chapter in someone's story and expect that they will start generating content you like?

In my case, just because I consider someone's chapter good enough to be approved - doesn't necessarily mean that I love the style or that kinks and fetishes of the chapter interest me or that the plot direction intrigues me. I doubt it is too different for other people.

Note that going "hey, I like this story but it has no kinks I want, let me add one so this new cool branch will grow!" is especially unlikely to work - especially if it is accompanied by a tonal\genre shift. An example - you can't invade a romantic lesbian story with a branch in which they are both kidnapped into a BDSM dungeon to be raped by a group of males and expect that the author will continue it in any way. Many authors, justifiably, won't even approve it no matter how well it was written.
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This is spot on. The two times I’ve worked with other authors there’s a hell of a lot of conversation about what we’d write and the direction it would go. And that’s the fun part, bouncing ideas of each other is a wonderful experience.
 
I have collaborated a couple times but on both occasions the other writer just stopped adding to what I was doing without explanation, even though we had been talking about what to do and how to proceed on the particular branch.

As for what Hvast said, I agree that there is no obligation for the creator to allow to what others have submitted since some ideas/kinks just don't fit into the story that the original concept was going for.

Stories have a guideline for a reason. Alternatively, as long as the new writers stay within the specs that were set for the story, they are free to write as much as they want even if the editor does not want to add their own threads into such branches. (Granted that I write very little and the only story that I started is very bare bones, so I have no authority on this subject. Which is why I prefer to add to existing stories. That way it doesn't matter if I only wrote one chapter as the other writers give the story more life.)
 
I have never tried a collaboration. One person keeps asking me, but I was not interested in the story. I am not against doing a collaboration, but it would have to be something that interests me.
 
I can't answer this question. I would love to collaborate but it is so hard to find the right person to collaborate with. So far, most of the people I have tried to collaborate with fall into two categories.

The most common problem I run into is the person who wants to collaborate by having me do all the work. They contribute practically nothing but want half the credit or they want to tell me what to do like they were a king and I was their litter bearer.

The second most common problem I have is the person who wants to collaborate by completely overriding my ideas and running off down some rabbit trail. I don't remember any examples so I'm going to make up a fictitious example of what I'm talking about: Me: "John is a young athletic man with brown hair and green eyes." The person who says he wants to collaborate with me: "John dies and a new character appears who is one third white rabbit, one third unicorn and one third motorcycle and this rabbit/unicorn/motorcycle fucks all the ladies and they elect him president of the universe." Me: (left speechless with no idea what to say.)
 
The latter part is so weird when, we are specifically doing a choose your own adventure. Therefore if the other half of the collab wants to do something different, you could go on separate branches. Like, start with the same story and same premise, but branch it out early so that the different ideas don't have to conflict. ...Which is still technically a collab as you are writing the same story and helping it grow even if you take different paths, you don't have to necessarily conflict with each other.
 
raziel83 said:
The latter part is so weird when, we are specifically doing a choose your own adventure. Therefore if the other half of the collab wants to do something different, you could go on separate branches. Like, start with the same story and same premise, but branch it out early so that the different ideas don't have to conflict. ...Which is still technically a collab as you are writing the same story and helping it grow even if you take different paths, you don't have to necessarily conflict with each other.
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I'm not complaining about people adding chapters that go in a different direction. That is not collaboration but I'm perfectly fine with people going a new direction. What I'm complaining about is people adding chapters that completely demolish my chapter or adding chapters that go off in some extremely weird direction. Like you said, "Stories have a guideline for a reason. Alternatively, as long as the new writers stay within the specs that were set for the story, they are free to write as much as they want" Collaborators that completely ignore the guidelines are bad collaborators.
 
bejjinks said:
I can't answer this question. I would love to collaborate but it is so hard to find the right person to collaborate with. So far, most of the people I have tried to collaborate with fall into two categories.

The most common problem I run into is the person who wants to collaborate by having me do all the work. They contribute practically nothing but want half the credit or they want to tell me what to do like they were a king and I was their litter bearer.

The second most common problem I have is the person who wants to collaborate by completely overriding my ideas and running off down some rabbit trail. I don't remember any examples so I'm going to make up a fictitious example of what I'm talking about: Me: "John is a young athletic man with brown hair and green eyes." The person who says he wants to collaborate with me: "John dies and a new character appears who is one third white rabbit, one third unicorn and one third motorcycle and this rabbit/unicorn/motorcycle fucks all the ladies and they elect him president of the universe." Me: (left speechless with no idea what to say.)
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To be fair towards your fictive friend, Unicycle Rabbit president does sound like a pretty awesome premise for a story.

...

Unicycle Rabbit president
Unicycle Rabbit president
He ratify your bill in the morning
And fucks your wife at night!

Unicycle Rabbit president
Unicycle Rabbit president
You may not like his stance on immigrants
But you gotta love his riiiiiiiiide!


(I'm sorry)
 
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