Collaboration
February 9th 2007 08:21
Penguin - the publishers - have launched a Wiki to see if it's possible to produce a novel by collaboration,
collaboration that is not just with a few people working together, but with writers from around the planet via the Internet. I quote from their intro:
"Penguin is launching its first wiki and in a project called A Million Penguins we've created a space where anyone can contribute to the writing of a novel and anyone can edit anyone else's writing.
"Over the next six weeks we want to see whether a community can really get together, put creative differences aside (or sort them out through discussion) and produce a novel. We honestly don't know how this is going to turn out - it's an experiment. Some disciplines rely completely on collaboration, while others - the writing of a novel, for example - have traditionally been the work of an individual working in isolation. But with collaboration, crowdsourcing and the 'wisdom of the crowds' being buzz words du jour, we thought we might as well see if these new trends can be applied to a less obvious sphere than, say, software development.
So we've got a team of MA students in to kick things off and seed a community, a Penguin editor is on hand to write regular reading reports on the novel in progress (which we will publish here) and now all we're waiting for is you, dear readers, to fire up those creative juices, leave your egos at the door and get stuck in.
Can a community write a novel? Let's find out."
The problem is that if people can edit other people's work: will it ever come to a final point? A few years ago I began just such a collaboration with a group of writers on a novel. I was about 7th or 8th in line to contribute, but the novel kept veering off into impossible corners, and the person before me never got round to completing her section. And we were relatively well organised. It also didn't help that the bulk of the writers were in the US - and I was in NZ. Would I, or could I, have shifted the story several thousand miles south when it came to write my section? Yes, it would have been possible. Logical? Maybe not.
"Penguin is launching its first wiki and in a project called A Million Penguins we've created a space where anyone can contribute to the writing of a novel and anyone can edit anyone else's writing.
"Over the next six weeks we want to see whether a community can really get together, put creative differences aside (or sort them out through discussion) and produce a novel. We honestly don't know how this is going to turn out - it's an experiment. Some disciplines rely completely on collaboration, while others - the writing of a novel, for example - have traditionally been the work of an individual working in isolation. But with collaboration, crowdsourcing and the 'wisdom of the crowds' being buzz words du jour, we thought we might as well see if these new trends can be applied to a less obvious sphere than, say, software development.
So we've got a team of MA students in to kick things off and seed a community, a Penguin editor is on hand to write regular reading reports on the novel in progress (which we will publish here) and now all we're waiting for is you, dear readers, to fire up those creative juices, leave your egos at the door and get stuck in.
Can a community write a novel? Let's find out."
The problem is that if people can edit other people's work: will it ever come to a final point? A few years ago I began just such a collaboration with a group of writers on a novel. I was about 7th or 8th in line to contribute, but the novel kept veering off into impossible corners, and the person before me never got round to completing her section. And we were relatively well organised. It also didn't help that the bulk of the writers were in the US - and I was in NZ. Would I, or could I, have shifted the story several thousand miles south when it came to write my section? Yes, it would have been possible. Logical? Maybe not.
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