Elementary Writing

Imagine how exciting Fiction Stories would be if they were devised and neatly fashioned by the avid anticipation of the readers themselves. The best way to achieve this goal is to compellingly involve readers in all stages of the creative writing process to the benefit of all.

In this article we explore the winning concept of collaborative writing of the real, solid state, ready to publish online fiction books! What was the roadblocks in the past, and why it is finally possible to achieve this right now.

Background - Collaborative Writing Concept

By Wikipedia definition, the term collaborative writing refers to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. Some projects are overseen by an editor or editorial team, but many grow without any of this top-down oversight.

There were few attempts of carrying out collaborative writing methods in an online environment. They can be roughly sorted in two major disciplines:

• Interactive fiction - process in which everyone can add a chapter or a section to an ongoing storyline making a set of possible alternatives. By submitting follow ups to their favorite scenario, contributors branch out storyline towards many possible outcomes. Main benefit is in allowing almost Darwinistic selection principles to determine the natural flow of the narration in favor of the most resistant variety. Downside of this form of collaboration is that it suffers from the lack of other regulatory principles. As a rule, the result is a cloud of incoherent visions and interpretations of initial plot or idea. Usually, such projects do not have clear mechanism to accomplish the story by navigating it to the closing chapter.
• Wiki stories - are fully accessible writings which content may be freely edited and modified by contributors. Usually, this kind of collaboration is suitable for scientific and encyclopedia-like publications, where the “collective wisdom” and community knowledge integration has a priority over esthetic and creative expression.

Make Literature Online - Fresh Approach

Unlike traditional Literature, where creative writing is secluded (”from the attic/basement”) process, fully subjected to the isolated author’s experience and imagination, we wish to use all advantages of Internet communication channels to provide intelligent collaborative writing environment in which readers and writers meat together, share their ideas, reviews, experiences and knowledge, and listen to one another all way through the new literature creation process. This new concept is named The New Age Elementary Writing phenomenon.

To avoid mistakes of previous similar attempts, we had to make a structural environment by adopting some rules of engagement:

• Project framework - The main unit in new Collaborative Writing conception is not the chapter (which is usually the case in interactive fiction schemes), but the New Fiction Book Project. To make a structural foundation for solid project management, we defined a framework in which all literature genres are sorted in six general categories:
  1. Science Fiction and Fantasy
  2. Mystery and Horror
  3. Crime and Thriller
  4. Romance and Comedy
  5. History and Adventure
  6. Children’s and Social

At one time, there may be only one active project in each genre. That makes six active projects simultaneously overall. In other words, all community efforts are focused on writing one particular fiction book in each genre.

• Project management - Each project comprises of stages that are organized like separate writing contests:
  1. Storyline - Ideas for writing a book submissions
  2. Opening chapter
  3. Middle chapter 1, 2, 3…
  4. Closing chapter
  5. Book cover design
  6. Book finalization tasks

Selection cycles are organized around the forum topics attached to each stage, with review submissions, user rankings and discussion. Writers in this stage may receive a valuable feedback for their writings. The goal is to select the best option for new chapter, one that reflects general desire of the community.

• Advanced rating algorithm - To be sure that only most quality content will be making the official draft, a complex rating algorithm has to be developed. It takes in consideration many different factors, some of which are:
  1. Submission time
  2. Popularity - how many unique views the item received
  3. Ranking - how members vote
  4. Number and quality of reviews
  5. Compliance to the main idea and storyline

It is important to stress that despite its complexity, this rating system has its transparent interpretation which can be easily reviewed at any time for each particular item.

• Project Micromanagement - One major problem related to dealing with collaborative writing projects is the fact that you cannot actually impose some firm timetable in the environment in which so many things depend on other people’s behavior and so many other limitations involved. The only way around is to establish the Project Micromanagement, the set of additional rules and criteria, that automatically handles each of these particular situations. Some of these criteria are:
  1. Minimal submissions per stage to start voting process
  2. Minimal number of ranking received before an item is considered
  3. Maximal number of submissions per same member
  4. Maximal number of votes per member per stage
  5. Minimal rank limit for selected item
  6. …
• Project Timeline - It defines each project dynamic by marking out significant check points and time frame in which each of them should be reached.
  1. Stage launching time
  2. Submission period
  3. Voting period
  4. Results consolidation period
  5. Project idle period - time between two consequent projects

In conjunction with Project management, Project Timeline determines transitional procedures between consequent stages and makes the spine of the project development.

We strongly believe that Fiction Collaborative Writing has a bright future. Loose coordination mechanisms and luck of editorial monitoring that was missing links in the past, with principles, rules and criteria presented here, no longer play a role in an on line collaboration. Writing the real, solid state books of fiction on Internet, with Make Literature Online innovative concept for the first time becomes present reality, not the future fiction.

Want to see some examples of Collaborative Writing Work: Read Online Stories >>
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Tags: Collaborative Writing, Elementary Writing, Literature Online, writing online