Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by two or more authors who take it in turns to write a portion of the story. A collaborative author may focus around a specific protagonist or character 'owned' by an author in a narrative thread, and then passes the story on to the next writer for further additions or perhaps a change in focus to a protagonist 'owned' by the next author. Alternatively, one author might write all the portions of particular subplots, and other narrative threads might be shared. Which author then integrates the whole and smooths the work into professionally submittable form depends solely on agreements between the collaborators, as does whatever percentages of remuneration are earned by each party. Thus, since royalty payments may outlive the individual authors, these matters are generally agreed to in advance, using written contractual terms, while the collaborators are outlining and designing the fictional work. The terms collaborative writing and peer collaboration refer to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. ... For the 2001 film, see Storytelling (film) Storytelling is the ancient art of conveying events in words, images, and sounds. ... Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge[1] and mutual learning between two or more people working together[2] toward a common goal typically creative in nature. ... A narrative thread, or plot thread or sometimes, but more ambigously, a storyline refers to particular elements and techniques of writing to center the story in the action or experience of characters rather than to relate a matter in a dry All knowing sort of narration. ... Authorship redirects here. ... A subplot is a series of connected actions within a work of narrative that function separately from the main plot. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A contract is a legally binding exchange of promises or agreement between parties that the law will enforce. ... An illustration from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland, depicting the fictional protagonist, Alice, playing a fantastical game of croquet. ... In fine art, a work of art (or artwork or work) is a creation, such as a song, book, sculpture or a painting, that has been made in order to be a thing of beauty in itself or a symbolic statement of meaning, rather than having a practical function. ...

Origins

Collaborative fiction seems to have grown from two distinct sources. Traditional fiction writers and writing circles may experiment in creating group stories, such as Robert Aspirin's Thieves World and MythAdventures. Writing games for collaborative writing have a tradition in literary groups such as the Dadaists and the Oulipo. The advent of the internet has seen many such collaborative writing games go online, resulting both in hypertext fiction and in more conventional literary production. For example, the Bean's bar forum, known as 1632 Tech, has been a prime force behind the many works in the popular alternate history 1632 series under the aegis of Eric Flint — especially The Grantville Gazettes. Author and scholar Scott Rettberg's paper "Collective Narrative" discusses connections between avant garde literary groups and online collaborative fiction.^[1] An illustration from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland, depicting the fictional protagonist, Alice, playing a fantastical game of croquet. ... A writing circle is a group of like-minded people needing support for their work, either through writing critiques, workshops or classes, or just encouragement. ... Thieves World #1 (Original Printing) Thieves World is a shared world fantasy series created by Robert Lynn Asprin in 1978. ... MythAdventures is the collective name for a series of humorous fantasy novels written by Robert Lynn Asprin that are popular for their whimsical nature, myriad characters, and great use of puns. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... Oulipo stands for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, which translates roughly as workshop of potential literature. It is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. ... Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. ... Cover of the Grantville Gazette II e-magazine. ... Alternative history or alternate history can be: A History told from an alternative viewpoint, rather than from the view of imperialist, conqueror, or explorer. ... The 1632 series, also known as the 1632-verse or Ring of Fire series, is an alternate history book series, created, primarily co-written-by and coordinated by historian Eric Flint. ... Eric Flint (born California, USA, 1947) is an American science fiction, alternate history, and fantasy author and editor. ... The Grantville Gazettes describes all the Grantville Gazettes in all published forms. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ...

The other source for collaborative fiction came out of the practices of table top and computer roleplaying gamers and related 'fandom' activities. Table top roleplaying has always been an exercise in collaborative fiction, but with more structured rules. Gamers of this variety may naturally wish to practice the more creative aspects of their craft without using the heavy structure of gaming engines. For computer roleplayers and genre fiction fans, much of the push has come from the effort to create fan fiction for popular characters designed by but not explored to 'satisfactory depth' by third party computer game, science fiction, anime, and similar companies. This article is about games in which one plays the role of a character. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc. ... Genre fiction is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to the fans of that genre. ... Fan fiction (also spelled fanfiction and commonly abbreviated to fanfic) is fiction written by people who enjoy a film, novel, television show or other media work, using the characters and situations developed in it and developing new plots in which to use these characters. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... “Animé” redirects here. ...

Forms of guidelines

Collaborative fiction can be fully open with no rules or enforced structure as it moves from author to author; however, most collaborative fiction adopts some form of 'writers guidelines' on what constitutes an acceptable contribution. An illustration from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland, depicting the fictional protagonist, Alice, playing a fantastical game of croquet. ...

Common rules deal in It has been suggested that Convention (norm) be merged into this article or section. ...

• Enforcing a specific genre
• Not killing off or otherwise permanently changing a major character owned by another author
• No God Mod'ing, i.e., not making a character a God, invincible and never wrong when all other characters are not similarly endowed
• No writing for another author's characters, unless agreed by the author
• Sticking to a certain 'point of view'
• Keeping a certain pacing, theme, or style emulation
• Keeping up grammar and spelling and staying to a certain language
• Sticking to rules regarding 'adult content'.
• Staying with 'the story'.
• Minimum and/or maximum word counts per contribution.
• Restrictions on or requirements to work together outside the story over plot and other elements.
• Restriction on who can contribute, and how often, when the work is being put together in an open area such as an online forum or mailing list.

Look up genre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the 2001 film, see Storytelling (film) Storytelling is the ancient art of conveying events in words, images, and sounds. ... A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as quotes and spoiler brackets A forum discussion heavy in emoticons and Internet slang An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. ... A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. ...

Role-playing games

Role-playing games can be seen as a form of collaborative fiction, and some games are played with the specific goal of producing stories.^[2] This is particularly true of online text-based role-playing games (OTBRPGs). Most of the OTBRPG groups have a board of editors that approves characters and resolves disputes. This article is about traditional role-playing games. ... An online text-based role playing game (OTBRPG) is a role-playing game played online using a solely text-based interface such as TELNET, an internet forum, or in a chat. ...

See also

• 1632 series
• Addventure
• Collaborative writing
• Dungeon series
• The Grantville Gazette
• Hypertext fiction
• Interactive fiction
• MUSH: Online environment often used for collaborative fiction
• New Worlds Project Online creative writing project featuring active collaborative fiction
• Play-by-post gaming
• Play-by-mail game
• Round-robin story
• Storytelling game
• Join My Cult
• Wikinovel

The 1632 series, also known as the 1632-verse or Ring of Fire series, is an alternate history book series, created, primarily co-written-by and coordinated by historian Eric Flint. ... An addventure is a type of online interactive fiction that combines aspects of round-robin stories and Choose Your Own Adventure-style tales. ... The terms collaborative writing and peer collaboration refer to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. ... A series of fantasy novels written under the auspices of Philip Jose Farmer. ... The Grantville Gazette is a ongoing series of electric books edited by Eric Flint. ... Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. ... Zork I is one of the first interactive fiction games, as well as being one of the first commercially sold. ... The login screen from M*U*S*H, the centre of development for PennMUSH. A MUSH (sometimes said to be an abbreviation for Multi-User Shared Hack, Habitat, Holodeck, or Hallucination, though these are backronyms) is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the... It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern: NN online creative writing project; fails WP:WEB If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. ... Play-by-post gaming (PbP), or Message board role-playing, is a class of games, usually role-playing games, carried out on Internet forums. ... Play-by-mail games are games, of any type, played through postal mail or e-mail. ... A round-robin story, or simply round robin, is a type of collaborative fiction or storytelling in which a number of authors each write chapters of a novel or pieces of a story, in rounds. ... A storytelling game is a game where two or more persons collaborate on telling a spontaneous story. ... Join My Cult is a subversive, satirical novel written by James Curcio and released by New Falcon Publications (publisher of some notable counter-culture authors such Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Aleister Crowley). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Collaborative fiction. ...

External links

• MetaCollab.net - Collaboration & art - a free collaborative encycolopedia on collaboration.

Further reading

Ashton, Susanna M. Collaborators in Literary America, 1870-1920. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Rilstone, Andrew (1994). Role-Playing Games: An Overview (HTML). RPGnet. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.