Elementary Writing

Literature is always collaborative! Whole human Literature is process of serial collaboration defined by borrowing, synthesis and appropriation that flows from the manipulation of existing knowledge and can be widely asynchronous.

Very little of us know that most of the greatest works of literature, across time, across culture, and across language, are explicitly attributed to groups and have been revealed to be the product of collaborations.

Collaborative Writing Models and Definitions

Do you see the book ?

By Wikippedia, 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.

Collaborative writing is a slippery concept. It is clear that collaborative writing refers to writing in groups but there are as many ways to write in groups as there are possible combinations of individuals. Where does “a little help” and editorial assistance end and collaboration begin? There are no definitive answers.

In discussing collaborative writing in today’s literary world where the dominant paradigm is a single author theory, many models describe collaborations in several different conceptualizations:

• Group of individual authors working in an micro-economy model.
• Group of writers occupying the role and space of a single corporate or collective individuality.
• Complex organizational entities and aggregations of individuals.

For a limited but piratical working definition of collaboration, one can turn to technologists who define collaboration in more mechanical terms. In an article on the technology and processes of collaborative writing, David Farkas offers four possible definitions useful in approaching collaboration through an analysis of processes. For his purposes, collaboration is:

• Two or more people jointly composing the complete text of a document;
• Two or more people contributing components to a document;
• One or more person modifying, by editing and/or reviewing, the document of one or more persons;
• One person working interactively with one or more person and drafting a document based on the ideas of the person or persons.

Collaborative Literature – the broad concept

Collaborative writing tends only to imply synchronous and fully consensual group work. The concept of Collaborative Literature, on the other hand, is more than just the act of putting pen to paper.

While almost synonymous with writing collaborative literature implies connections between, and unity among, different written works over time and between authors in a way that “writing” does not. While not always defensible, these connective acts are always literary. Literature is always collaborative!

Main Benefits and Advantages of Collaborative Writing

• Interchange of ideas – collaborative writing could, in ways that can be tested empirically, produce better work and teach people quantitatively more than in situations where the same individuals write alone. Each aspect of the writing process—including invention, writing, and editing—are inherently social acts that benefit from and thrive in a collaborative environment ([Lefevre1987]).
• Flexibility and freedom – As computer technology appears poised to redefine literary production again, the technology itself is no longer “hardware” like printing presses and movable type but computer source code. As such, our ability to manipulate the terms on which we can communicate and collaborate, as long as we have access to source code, is instantaneously and almost infinitely flexible. We can add a line here, subtract a line here, change a line here and we create a different system and a different environment to shape and control the creation, distribution, or manipulation of literature.
• Fostering of discussion and debate – open collaborator’ eyes to how their work compares to that of their peers, giving them a better sense of their own strengths and weaknesses as writers and thinkers.
• Encourage authors to consider their audience – an important aspect of learning to write effectively and yet a component missing in many traditional approaches.
• By having students write essays and fiction in groups, students produced better work than when they worked alone. Collaborative writings’ effectiveness in the classroom has been repeatedly confirmed in what has become a large collaborative writing and collaborative learning discourse ([Gebhardt1980] [Bruffee1981] [Gebhardt1981]).

Skepticism about Literature Collaboration

In an article written for science-fiction authors on How to Collaborate without Getting Your Head Shaved, Keith Laumer, an author and collaborator, ends his short piece with the advice, “if you possibly can, write it yourself. Collaborations, like marriages, should only be undertaken if any alternative is unthinkable”.

In an article for Writer, Leonard Felder points out that not only should potential collaborators first agree to a division of royalties and payments, but that they must have “a written agreement on . . . the way your names will be listed on the book’s cover”.

It can be difficult to assess each collaborators contribution to the final product, making assigning attributes problematic.

Planning the assignment and meeting with collaborators to discuss their progress or settle problems can be time-consuming. Likewise incorporating interim deadlines into the project, such as requiring writers to submit drafts or outlines, is essential to warding off potential problems.

Collaborative Writing in Practice

In a true collaborative environment, each contributor has an almost equal ability to add, edit, and remove text. It is easier to do if the group has a specific end goal in mind, and harder if a goal is absent or vague.

Collaborative Writing Approach and Strategy

Successful collaboration occurs when each participant is able to make a unique contribution toward achieving a common vision or goal statement. Supporting this common goal are objectives that have been generated by each of the participants.

• Understanding the assignment.
• Defining the major components of the project.
• Agreement on the writing objectives, matters of style, including documentation.
• Delegating the tasks among group members. Each member, however, shares responsibility for the whole product.
• Setting up schedules for updates and revising drafts.
• Double checking all information from sources to be sure all source material is cited and cited correctly.
• Integrating the components of the project so that it reads like a coherent whole.
• Anticipating Troubles.
• Useing Technology.
• Crediting to all members of the group who participate.

Possible Collaborative Roles

It is important for each participant to “feel” as though he or she has a significant contribution to make to the achievement of goals. It is also important that each participant be held accountable for contributing to the writing project.

• Leader – comfortable with assuming responsibility, members of the group respect her/his opinions
• Encourager – responds positively to contributions of group members and encourages less dominant members to express their views.
• Harmonizer – tries to keep conflicts in check and focuses disagreements on the subject of the task at hand. Moves conflict away from the personality perspective and toward the objectives.
• Compromiser – willingly adapts or removes his or her suggestions in order to resolve a stalemate.
• Facilitator – adept at helping keep meetings focused and work-in-process produced in a timely fashion.
• Listener - carefully listens to each member’s opinions and values their opinions.

Collaborative Writing – the present state

Collaborative Writing: An Annotated Bibliography list hundreds of articles establishing the prevalence of collaborative writing in corporate, industrial and academic reviewing, storyboarding, translation, usability testing and the production conference papers, documentation, policies and procedures, proposals, and technical reports as well as more traditional forms of literature like novels, plays and poems ([Speck1999]).

This bibliography reflects an explosion of academic literature around collaborative writing over the past three decades; it covers nearly 1,000 sources written during the seventies, eighties, and nineties. In turn, this discourse reflects the growing popularization of explicitly collaborative writing. It reflects a shift in attention toward collaboration rather than a change in the prevalence of collaborative writing itself.

Collaborative Writing Tools and Technology

Collaborative writing tools are those technologies that facilitate the editing and reviewing of a text document by multiple individuals either in real-time or asynchronously.

Collaborative writing tools can vary a great deal and can range from the simplicity of wiki system to more advanced systems. Basic features include the typical formatting and editing facilities of a standard word processor with the addition of live chat, live markup and annotation, co-editing, version tracking and more.

Google itself has recently entered this field with its Google Docs, a fully-web based collaborative writing tool formerly known as Writely. Documents generated with such tools are always accessible to all the editors and can be easily downloaded and exported in standard word processing file formats.

Make Literature Online website and projects are the brightest example of Collaborative Literature and Collaborative Writing practice and great indicator of the direction in which the whole concept of online collaboration is heading to.

Do you see the book ?

Many, perhaps most, of the greatest works of literature, across time, across culture, and across language, are explicitly attributed to groups. As collaborative writing has gained scholarly attention in the last thirty years, many texts long-considered to be the product of single authorship have been revealed to be the product of collaborations.

Literature from the millennium before the Renaissance tells us that early texts were the projects of communities, not individuals. We know that these ideas and texts were the property of God or mankind; they formed a sort of intellectual commons in which all new knowledge was based and into which all knowledge flowed.

Early Models of Collaboration Before the Eighteenth Century

To one degree or another, almost every major novel, play, or large-scale poem written before the end of the Renaissance is the product of multiple hands.

Before the rise and eventual dominance of the Romantic notion of authorship, the authorial role was often compared to that of a commentator, compiler, or transcriber. Contextualized in such a way, it is unsurprising that authors’ actions in this period were intensely collaborative.

Before Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, books were written, by hand, by individuals or in scriptorium. Books, which were extremely valuable, were made of high quality materials like velum, and were passed between owners over generations. Often, each owner or reader of a book would make marginal annotations. As books were copied by hand, changes and corrections were made; histories were extended to include more recent events. Books were designed, written, caligraphed, rubricated, illustrated, illuminated, bound, and decorated by large groups of individuals. Every book was a collaboration and no two books were alike.

Imperial Chinese Literature

China had no laws resembling Western intellectual property or copyright until the twentieth century. Chinese refused to adopt intellectual property policies because they were fundamentally incompatible with Chinese literature’s basis in a creative process that elevated and necessitated borrowing, synthesis, and quotation—in a word: collaboration.

Imperial Chinese literature was rooted in a conception of authorship that identified the author as a craftsman and a historian. Authors assembled and connected existing pieces of literature in the creation of new works; no good author, even one secluded in the woods, works alone. Consequently, originality was defined not in the context of a lack of influence but from a context of a rich meaningful interaction with existing knowledge.

In the absence of a meaningful collaborative literary process—with authors both living and dead—Chinese authors were doomed to inefficacy and unoriginality. This attitude toward literature is summed up with Isaac Newton’s famous phrase, “If I see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

To paint without taking the Sung and Yuan masters as one’s basis is like playing chess on an empty chessboard, without pieces.
Wu Li (1631-1718)

This famous thinker plainly decry the idea of solitary artistic creation.

The Talmud

In its simplest form, the Talmud is a compilation of ancient Jewish law and lore created by large groups of Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis between the late first and seventh centuries A.D. As such, the text’s relevance in the context of a discussion of collaborative creation and control needs no further justification.

Detailing the nature of the collaborative process that produced the Talmud is a tedious and confusing process attempted over centuries by historians and Talmudic scholars. Recently, these have included Hermann L. Strack, who published an English-language Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. His books explain that it is clear that the creation of the Talmud spanned centuries, perhaps millennia, and in its current form represents the intellectual work of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rabbis, thinkers, and jurists.

With its conversational quality and with no beginning and (one must assume) no end, the Talmud exists as a text that is designed to be the product and material for a continuing collaborative process that ensures its continued organic growth.

The King James Version of the English Bible

Given this rich collaborative foundation, it should come as little surprise that collaborative efforts have been employed in the most revered translations as well. This is evident in the paradigmatic case of the King James Version of the English Bible: the most popular Bible translation and, by many estimates, the single most influential text in the English literary canon.

The committee assembled was catholic and intelligent on the whole, including most of the ablest men available, whether High Church or Puritan. This ideologically diverse group was divided into six sub-groups which met at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge.

Each location housed a group translating the Old and New Testaments. The scholar translated the text individually and in small groups. Groups came to consensus on a rendering that was then forwarded to a final committee of revisers. This final committee referred to works in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Italian and other languages making use of ancient and modern translations . . . and consulting the old manuscripts that were available to arrive the most informed decision possible.

KJV succeeded where singularly (or simply less collaboratively) authored translations failed because it was the product and process of intense collaboration. The freedom to collaborate not only ensured the persistent popularity of KJV over almost four centuries, but provided the foundation for several derivative translations including the popular Revised Version and the American Standard Version.

Post Copyright Authorship and Collaboration

Especially prompted by the rise of copyright in Britain in 1709, the eighteenth century introduced a new concept of individualized authorship based on the idea of a creative genius working alone. This idea—one at odds with collaborative, collective, or corporate creation—has remained widely influential despite powerful arguments made by theorists like Foucault and Woodmansee and a growing body of evidence that collaborative and collective creation is more effective than individual work.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this community-based concept of authorship and the mechanisms for literary ownership, production, and control were overhauled. At that transitional point, legal changes saw literature become the property of individuals. It is at that moment, and others like it, that the following history is centered. Through major transitions in the nature of the mechanisms of control, collaborative writing has evolved and persisted.

Peter Jaszi and a growing numbers of legal and literary theorists argue that it is copyright, a system designed to allow economic and political control of literary knowledge and expression, that has enshrined Romantic creativity in ways that have been difficult to challenge.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the mechanisms for collaborative writing took explicit form in the creation of coterie groups of authors that acted as forums for idea interchange, discussion, manuscript circulation, critique and small-scale publishing.

The most famous, and consequently most well documented, is the now famous “Cockney School” that included, at different times in its life, the company of Shelly, Byron, Keats, Hunt, Reynolds, Smith and Hazlitt. Through their letters and correspondence, it is clear that each of these poets turned to associations and interactions within the group as a means of cultural production.

The group’s collective work included the production of commonplace books, collaborative projects, and “contest” poems as well as major individually attributed efforts which were executed in the context, and with the assistance, of the members of the group through a system of manuscript circulation and revision.

Over time, the popularization of Wordsworth’s concept of ideal authorship has strengthened and reinforced copyright to the detriment of collaboration. Contemporary authors cannot collaborate in the same unapologetic fashion in the context of more rigid technological, social, and legal systems of control. As the publishing industry has been reshaped by these powerful and lucrative systems of control reinforced by the discourse of Romantic authorship, it ultimately shaped the dominant systems of literary production.

Contemporary Industry Collaboration

Joint authorship is steadily increasing in popularity and influence. Empirical studies have shown that instances of joint authorship—a measurement taken by tallying books and articles with more than one person on the byline—are becoming increasingly popular and prominent While these collaborations are important in highlighting the persistent power of collaborative writing, they are hindered by the hostile climate of control and authorship created by copyright.

In an article written for science-fiction authors on How to Collaborate without Getting Your Head Shaved, Keith Laumer, an author and collaborator, ends his short piece with the advice, “if you possibly can, write it yourself. Collaborations, like marriages, should only be undertaken if any alternative is unthinkable”.

In an article for Writer, Leonard Felder points out that not only should potential collaborators first agree to a division of royalties and payments, but that they must have “a written agreement on . . . the way your names will be listed on the book’s cover”.

Unfortunately, this advice is all perfectly sensible in today literary climate. While many of these articles also mention the potential benefits of joint-authorship, they explicitly, and accurately, approach the collaboration as a business relationship; their emphasis is on avoiding the pitfalls of such joint work.

Collaborative Writing: An Annotated Bibliography list hundreds of articles establishing the prevalence of collaborative writing in corporate, industrial and academic reviewing, storyboarding, translation, usability testing and the production conference papers, documentation, policies and procedures, proposals, and technical reports as well as more traditional forms of literature like novels, plays and poems ([Speck1999]).

This bibliography reflects an explosion of academic literature around collaborative writing over the past three decades; it covers nearly 1,000 sources written during the seventies, eighties, and nineties. In turn, this discourse reflects the growing popularization of explicitly collaborative writing. It reflects a shift in attention toward collaboration rather than a change in the prevalence of collaborative writing itself.

Conclusion

History has shown that the importance and power of collaborative creation is one of the most powerful mechanisms for the creation, organization and dissemination of knowledge. The dominance of the Romantic notion of authorship has forced us to ignore both the importance and power of collaborative creation and the effect that this type of ownership has on collaborative models. We need not ignore the power that ownership and individualized control bring to the table, but we should not dismiss collaborative work because it’s incompatible with the ideology that lets us control, and amass fortunes, from our ideas and from those of others.

The fact that joint-authorship and collaboration can function, and even experience massive growths in popularity, in this hostile environment, is testament to the power of collaboration. Without a strong system of control shaping the landscape of literary creation, there is no guessing what other works we might enjoy.

Collaborative Writing Project – Official Blog

A tale of people that collide into each other. That fight with each other.
That seek for acceptance, friendship and love.

Collaborative Writing – Quick Introduction

In this collaborative writing project everyone may write a storyline or a new chapter of the novel.

Every submission goes directly to our selection catalog. Other members review, discuss and rank your writing and if they find it the most inspiring and intriguing to be part of a new novel, it becomes the official new chapter and you the official co-author of new fiction book.

There are many advantages and benefits of collaborative writing approach, but first and the most obvious one is the instant feedback on everything you write.

PEOPLE – Novel Storyline by Raluca Enescu (Romania)

The Opening Discussion

How and what you will read and write in the future. New trends and challenges in literature

Literature Questions

Do you see the World?

The world is changing at accelerated pace. It becomes more and more like a giant stage with numerous postmodern screenplays flashing tremendously before our eyes.

You do not share this view?  This is just a short reminder of the recent news:

Geneva, 10 September 2008. The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometers of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning.

A European court says the idea a new supercollider project could create a “celestial vacuum” (nice name for the black hole) and eventually consume the Earth is worth discussing, but the project can move forward on schedule anyway.

We wake up each morning  to a cheep 70’s SF movie. Just a mirror reflections of  the “state of the art” in human evolution. You have to admit it. We split the atom, the center of everything, and in so doing we created chaos.

The Contemporary Poets reflect this chaos. Postmodern literature does the same thing. Pick out the fragments. Out of the chaos, the modernists and the postmodernists pull fragments of life around them. They then leave it to the reader to put these fragments back together.

But do not let yourself think in traditional ways when addressing Modern and Postmodern literature questions. You have to be open to the experience and it will make sense!

The modern author intentionally leaves the work open to the readers interpretation. Endless endings, very much like the world we are living in. Are these just a signs of  new artistic tendencies or a definitive literature response to new, altered reality?

Literature Response

Do you see the book ?

It is more and more difficult to make today’s media-savvy new generations to acquire a taste in reading classic literature, given the powerful influence of movies,  the Internet, and mentioned circumstances.

You can blog, phlog, vlog and podcast, all for free, and get ready, appreciative readers too. You can write and publish your own books (e-books) at a fraction of the cost of a printed book. You may say this is a bright side of life lyrics. Everybody can be a writer and writing doesn’t look formidable anymore.

There are opinions that chatting on the Internet or messaging frequently over the mobile phones impair our children language skills.

Communication and language skills have actually improved with the arrival of the Internet. Basically as we chat more, be it through the net or email or mobile, so we write more, express more and somewhere the communication skills improve and fear of English, French, German, Serbian or any other language itself goes away.

Emerging Literature Trends and Technologies

famous literature visualization

Understanding symbolism of new literature medium may seem like a scary experience. First step to understanding is observation. So let’s observe what are the main carriers of literature response in new Millennium.

• Collaborative Writing

  Wikipedia definition of Collaborative Writing (this famous web encyclopedia is an illustrative example of collaborative writing itself): “The term collaborative writing refers to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually”.

  There is a sayings “teamwork makes the dream work”. Collaborative writing can often lead to books that are richer and more complex than those produced by individuals. Having many people working on a project has added to the creative process. Also, they can be an immense support to one another.And you never know where the story is going! Endless Endings?

  Start recognizing post-modernistic symbols?

  Another analogy: Instead of sequential method of plotting in traditional writing, Collaborative Writing brings all means off interactivity in creative process. By using tools of communication like Internet, mobile phones, collaborative writing software etc. , the writing process is deconstructed and newly assembled, managed preferable by the group, community, even readers – the audience, rather then being solitude and selfishly controlled by one person.

  Literature born from the chaos. Is it another symbol of postmodernism that we have just discovered in applied literature practice?

  This is why, despite many tangible complexities related to Collaborative Writing idea, it presents respectful literature phenomenon. It is here to stay. The main challenge in the future will be how to put it in the write, “acceptable to all” context, rather than keep denying its relevance.

  Make Literature Online site is the brightest example of the Collaborative Writing community.

• Self Publishing

Because of digital technology and the distribution possibilities offered by the Internet, small publishing is more feasible today than ever before. Independent voices can be affordable made available to the general reading public, providing fresh titles, both fiction and non-fiction.

However, establishing and running a small publishing house may seem like a complicated endeavor. Acquiring International Standard Book Numbers, Purchasing a unique Internet domain name for your publishing house website, Determine a niche for your publication efforts, Locating the book printer most appropriate for your needs, Contacting small press friendly book reviewers and sending attractive press kits, Visiting small press trade shows and network with other small publishers … are just few parts in the puzzle that many independent writers are not ready or not willing to deal with.

While big publishing might claim the majority of the profit margin, small publishing remains more and more alive and well among the small, entrepreneurial set.

• Literature Visualization

This is a “hot term”, one of those that can make you look smart in the party. However, the roots of the literature visualization reach back in the first half of the last century. We all remember “The War of the Worlds”, by H. G. Wells, famous radio broadcasting, and few of you also, with nostalgia recalls the Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version with such a star like Richard Burton as the narrator-protagonist.

In its broad context, the literature visualization imply all mans of different media interpretations of literature. From recorded storytelling, popular movie stars children’s literature reading video sessions, end big budget movie project, over literature digitization and e-book publishing, to large international projects like it is project Gutenberg for instance. The industry of Book Teaser Videos is more and more prominent.

Another important aspect and interpretation of Literature Visualization term is related to new, novel writing techniques. Summarized in two words: “Show, don’t tell”. Anticipating growing aspirations of new generation of readers that attend a lot of movies and most think visually, authors tend to think of their books as of a mini-movies, with multi-dimensional characters with a definite point of view.

• Social Networks Media Broadcasting and new Copyright Models

In the age of WEB 2.0, the Social Networks create a completely new medium for distributing the message to the masses.

Music Industry was the fist to acknowledge the full potential of the Internet and on line Communities. Many popular music stars and bands published their work on Internet first. They timely understood the potential of live and proximate interaction with their audience and the benefits that it brings short-term and long-terms respectively.

The same processes are developing within the literature community. The major issue of Copyrights was successfully digested by introduction of ingenious Creative Common License that offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them.

Literature is changing inexorably, following closely the global trends. For literature scholars, authors and consumers, it is important to recognize the meaning of both contemporary literature questions and symbolism of genuine literature response to new-age challenges. This new comprehension will add quality tools to our literature arsenal letting us enjoy it in various, new, exciting ways.

Do you see the book ?

This is the second article in series called: Top 5 Secrets of Successful Writer Marketing in which we introduce five core tenets of promotional, writer marketing that will carry you to your first substantial advantage over 95% of other perspective writers that didn’t adopt these genuine doctrines.

In this sequel, we are discussing the techniques mostly related to the psychology of success, and the next big thing you need to know about successful writer marketing – power of the Low of Attraction.

The Low of Attraction

Do you really think that all those extraordinary people who transmitted the essence of inspiration to the generations’ through the simple assets of their words, were driven only by that inspiration itself?

You’re attracting everything that comes into your life. When you understand this law – you understand The Secret – and you can now dictate what you choose to come into your life.

The Law of Attraction works all the time, as long as you’re consciously thinking. Recognizing its presence, functionality and influence helps you reviling the higher side of yourself – Your true-self.

1 .Set the goal

It’s amazing how many people live their lives without setting any clear, specific goals.

Before anything that you want to happen can happen, you have to have a desire that it will happen. You have to believe that it can happen. And you must expect it to happen. Sounds simple? Perhaps, but there is a lot more to it.

A good goal should SCARE you a little.

And EXCITE you A LOT!

~ Joe Vitale

2. Develop these virtues: Desire, Belief and Expectation

You cannot accomplish your mission by being mediocre.

• Get in the habit of thinking big. Believe that it’s possible. Build your belief system by aiming for bigger and bigger goals each time you accomplish something new.
• This is not something that you should assure about – just say everyday to yourself: “it is possible”. It will change your belief system – what you believe that is possible for yourself.
• Finally, expect good things to happen. As you develop these winning qualities you’ll notice streams of beautiful coincidences pushing you in the directions you seek.

3. Make your thoughts Become Things

As a writer you already posses this crucial ability to move energy into the materialized artifacts. As self promoter you need to master a skill of making these artifacts of solid influence that bring you appreciable benefits in the real world.

We become what we think about! Like most people, your dominant thoughts are usually about your daily worries, fears, and what you lack.

The difference between mediocre people and successful people is that mediocre people dwell on the present. Successful people look excitedly to what COULD be. Operate out of your imagination, not out of your memory.

It’s time to escape the current reality trap and to create your future anew.

• Visualize What You Want – Picture yourself in different scenarios enjoying this result in your life.
• Use Your Senses to materialize your imagination (both physical and spiritual)
• Bring Emotions Into The Mix as the emotions create energy leading to Action
• Apply Definite Action – Start doing something – anything – to move you towards acquiring your goal.

It’s beautiful and so simple. You just have to keep your thoughts focused on the dream and move forward. The Law of Attraction will do the rest. It will attract to you the exact right circumstances, meetings, opportunities, inspiration, people and offers you would need to move forward towards your dream.

5. Set the final Action Plan – Meat your Deadline.

Let’s face it, as an artist your fate is to make thing happens. Now that you know what you want, what you are getting, and you are prepared for better, it is time to utilize this potential.

It is time for action!

If you work for yourself, it can be tempting to cut yourself slack on your own deadlines. Big mistake.

Setting and meeting deadlines is a major form of taking action and responsibility for yourself.

That web site will take forever to get up and running. That phone call to the new agent of publisher will never get made. That book won’t get written, the video won’t get shot, the ad will never be placed.

Do you know why most novels never get written? Because there’s no deadline. Writers think about the plot for years on end, whittling their thumbs. Come up with brilliant twists while showering. Make vague plans about renting a cabin in the mountains someday and finally finishing the damn thing.

And it never happens. Because there’s no deadline.

Deadlines make your goals become reality. They form a brick wall in the misty netherworld of “tomorrow” that keeps you in line.

The ONLY way to attack a problem… is to roll up your sleeves and dig in. And have a plan that includes a friggin’ deadline for finishing it.

Action, not excuses for inaction.

The compound effect of described techniques if practiced every day, gives you the access to unlimited power you have got within yourself. It boosts your Self-Esteem and gives you the ultimate answers to those crucial questions:

• How to open yourself to inspiration?
• How to make this inspiration tangible in the ways you desire?
• Finally, through the course of your active implementation of these tactics: How to be the writer beyond the Ordinary?

Supercharge your Writer Authority and Presence Online

In the next sequel of this series, we will discuss the third secret of successful writer marketing:

How to exploit the power of Viral Marketing – WEB 2.0 and Social Media

• To stay tuned, be sure to subscribe to our feed by pressing that big oval button on the top of this page, or leave you email address to receive updates straight in to your inbox.
• You may test all tactics described in the article live at the Make Literature Online – the home page of the most intriguing Collaborative Writing project online.
• You are very welcome to share your experience and views about the subject. If it is going to bring value to the general theory on the topic, we will include it with your permission to the next revision of this post.
• Finally, don’t forget to socially bookmark this free online course and spread a word to everyone that may benefit from it.

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Do you see the book ?

The literature graveyard is crammed with great artistic achievements that failed because the advertising didn’t elicit that all-important desire to consume HERE AND NOW.

The single biggest problem with many courses offline and on the web today is their focus on gimmicks and tricks for creating self-publishing prospects, as opposed to proven principles.

In this article series we introduce five core tenets of promotional, writer marketing that will carry you to your first substantial advantage over 95% of other perspective writers that didn’t adopt these genuine doctrines.

You may ask what makes this 5% different. You don’t have to understand the biology or chemistry that goes on… but you DO have to realize that like with closing any sales deal, self promotion requires a little skill.

It’s not difficult.  But it’s not something most people naturally learn to do.  So, without further ado, let’s dive in to discover our first great secret of successful Writer Marketing ;

Practice Superior Salesmanship

It’s simple, and it’s basic:  Your number one weapon in advertising and writer marketing, especially on-line, will always be superior salesmanship. Few key secrets to salesmanship:

1. Keep it simple, stupid:

Indeed, the holly grail of any salesmanship is sublimated in three simple declarations first formulated by the guru of promotional marketing Mr. John Curlton:

• This is what I’ve got.
• This is what it will do for you.
• This is what I wish you to do next.

The power or these three deceptively simple components of the selling system that works every single time like a charm, originate deep in the common psychology of people.  It makes them bring the decision for themselves (explicit determination) rather than being solicited by you.

Think about it: If what you have got is good and something that you are confident in sharing with the rest of the world, there is really no need for messing around. You give people a cool staff they want to use. Based on the cool staff that you give them, they decide for themselves that they want to do business with you. End voila:

“Hey, Let’s see what outrageous story he’s got to tell me today!”

2. What I’ve got is damn hot:

Are you confident in relevancy and appealing of your writing work? (script, novel draft, short stories collection, an article, …whatever it should be)

To make it interesting fore everyone else, you have to deliver your  message in a way that nails its “passionate sweet spot of need”.

In salesmanship terminology, you have to make USP (unique sales proposition), as it is exactly what drives your customer’s mind when he thinks about you. If you have something that sets you apart, tell the world, and put some teeth into the way you say it. That is the essence of your USP.

You should be able to explain, in a single phrase, why a prospect should deal with you and not the other guy… or why he needs what you offer at all.

Make your addressing not only a pitching session, but informative and insightful ass well. Aim to be abreast of your industry as you are bringing something fresh, that ought to change established readers concepts.

You want your prospect (agent, publisher, audience…) to say after experiencing your promotional pitch:

“Wow!  How do I get one of those?”.

3. Accept the success:

If you’re not comfortable around the idea that you deserve to be recognized, even famous, it’s because you’re dealing with an idea that is foreign to your conditioned nature.

This is the point in your life that you make ultimate decision to extend beyond your physical boundaries – to increase your service to a larger audience in need of your talent. And, in so doing, riches invariably came their way.

These should be common sense for all writers dealing with the promotion of their portfolios… and yet it will be your secret weapon.  Because most of your competition will forever ignore the fundamentals of good salesmanship, or screw it up ,since they’ve never bothered to pay attention to the promotional lessons in their writer marketing or self-publishing agenda.

Make the Law of Attraction Works for You

In the next sequel of this series, we will discuss the second secret of successful writer marketing:

How to be the writer beyond the Ordinary.

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• You may test all tactics described in the article live at the Make Literature Online – the home page of the most intriguing Collaborative Writing project online.
• You are very welcome to share your experience and views about the subject. If it is going to bring value to the general theory on the topic, we will include it with your permission to the next revision of this post.
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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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