Building a house isn’t collaboration. It’s a group project, and it’s common practice for it to ALWAYS be a group project. And building a house the way you describe is a HORRIBLE WAY TO DO IT. If you want to learn to build a house, get a job with a contractor and start learning how to build a house.

Collaboration on writing, on the other hand, is not common practice. It’s rare, and it’s even rarer for it to work well. This is why we usually warn new writers away from it. If you want to learn from another writer while you write your book, there’s a better way to do it : Join a writer’s group with that writer, and critique each other’s work.

It’s possible that the two of you will realize you’ve got synergy happening, and should be jointly working on the same book. It’s more likely that you’ll be glad your projects are your own, and that all you’re required to accept from the other person is some advice, rather than a late chapter that completely breaks the world you so carefully built.

In short, collaboration is probably the WORST way for a new writer do more writing and more critical thinking. Socialize, converse, and critique with other writers, absolutely, but don’t expect a joint project to fly. You’ll hobble yourself.

I love this podcast, and find the tips and tricks to be right on the money. However, I do have to take an exception to the idea that collaboration is not good. I think collaboration can be fantastic, as long as you set your expectations correctly.

Imagine I’m trying to build a house. I know everything there is about framing a house, but nothing about plumbing. I hook up with my friend Alfonzo who is a plumber extraordinaire. By the time we’re done, we have a well framed house with a working toilet, shower, and sink. The foundation is cracked the roof leaks, and pretty much everything else is crap, but now I know a little more about plumbing, and Alfonzo knows a little more about framing. We haven’t built a functional house, but we’ve learned.

Treat collaborative writing collaboration the same way. If you collaborate expecting to produce a perfect book, you’re going to be disappointed. And as the three gentlemen said, don’t go in thinking the writing will be easier. But by all means, when you’re learning the craft, collaborate every chance you get, as long as you have the time. Learn from other writers’ strengths and weaknesses. Brandon says don’t collaborate to make up for a skill, learn that skill yourself. I say collaborate so you CAN learn the skill. If you have a writing friend who writes wonderful dialogue, and she’s willing to collaborate, by all means, collaborate and use that opportunity to polish the skill yourself. And if you’re very good at world building, when you have to explain the ins and outs to another person, you start thinking critical about the skill you already have.

Collaboration leads to more writing, more work, and more critical thinking, ALL of which are important when you’re learning the craft.

I’m also currently working on a collaboration. We’re 95% done with the first book in a 3 book series.

That said, it wasn’t twice as much work. I’d say that the collaboration was 3 times more work. If it wasn’t such a darn good book, we would’ve bagged it a long time ago! Collaborating is a serious pain in the rear, and we did the easiest kind (alternating characters).

I totally agree with the contents of this podcast. The guys nailed it.

hillkinglance@gmail.com. Just replace the word “hill” with “mountain”. Drun spambots!

Thanks Matthew!

“Assigning more programmers to a project running behind schedule will make it even later.”

If you have n people working together on something there are n(n − 1) / 2 communications channels to deal with (one for each pair of people), I think this explains why you rarely see books with more than 2 authors, since a story is really hard to chop up into bits that can be assembled later. (It’s not easy to do this in software either, but it can be done, mainly by heavily limiting how different parts can interact, which is not really an option for a story…)

This is actually the first episode I listened too, as my curiosity was peaked when footnotes said that this is a big ‘no’ for newbies to writing.

I have to say that I agree a lot with what was said, but at the same time there’s always exceptions. I started writing in the sixth grade, and it was a collaboration with my best friend. We started writing the series just for fun. In fact, when we started it, I’m not sure that we even knew that it was going to turn into a series. But the reason that this collaboration worked for us as newbies was because we were just doing it for fun. Really, I think that ‘fun’ is the keyword when newbies do a collaboration. If the collab is just for fun/practice, there is no pressure. At least, that’s the way it works for me.

I still collab with her, seven years later, as well as two other friends I’ve acquired. I also RP (the written word) with people from around the world. Collabs have helped me greatly in improving my own personal writing, because it allows me to see the mistakes that others are making, as well as see how others do things really well, such as one RPer I know who does an amazing job with villains.

In the end, though, it really depends what kind of person you are, what type of collaboration you try to do, and (in my opinion) when you start trying to do collaborations.

I can work pretty well with other people (as stupid as some of them can be), because of my years of collaborating and my years of RPing. If I had never done a collaboration before, however, and tried to do one now, I don’t think that I could do it very well. My writing process would have developed differently, making it harder for these collabs to go on.

Also, the only type of collab I can do is where we each control our own characters. I can’t even write with my own outlines (hence why I write my essays for school first and then create an outline because we have to have one), so I could never write with an outline someone else gives me. Like I said, it depends on what kind of writer you are.

I could go on and on about this, as it’s a part of writing that I feel like I actually know what I’m talking about, but… I think that I’ve put my two cents in.

Anyways, just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve heard!