Team writing has many benefits as well as many challenges. Authors often consider collaboration fiction as contrary to their vision which is to create unique works that could only be written by them. There are indeed attempts to create this type of story that fail spectacularly. On the other hand, when authors succeed in such an endeavor, they can produce works with a richness and cohesive style that are a pleasure to read.
Collaborative works are produced for a number of different reasons. They can be attempted as an educational exercise thus helping all the participants to develop their writing skills. Writing groups often produce such stories. It is also done for commercial purposes where experienced authors decide to work together for various reasons.
When working together in this way, as with any other project requiring people to work together, everyone has to relinquish total control. The unique skills and ways in which each individual works have to be taken into account. Each individual has to be open to encouragement as well as criticism. This can only happen if there is mutual respect. If there is a creative synergy between authors, this can speed the process of writing and increase the motivation of each person.
It is often difficult when combining the output of several people to produce a coherent, consistent story. In order to do this, it is important for each individual to have a specific role, know what this is and rely on others to perform their roles too. Each author will often have different talents and recognizing and utilizing this is one of the best ways to produce a good end product. For example, one may push the story forward and another work on developing dialogue and settings.
The division of work is done differently in each case. Some collaborations are looser than others with no plot outline from the beginning and authors contributing randomly, as and when they can. Others are very structured with the basic plot being brainstormed at the beginning and each author knowing exactly what they are responsible for, whether it be developing a certain character or writing specific chapters. Sometimes each author will write sub-plots and they will only be interwoven at the end.
Various problems can arise when a group of authors collaborate on a story. One person may feel that the workload has not been evenly distributed or that his or her suggestions are consistently ignored. Another may want to take over and tell everyone else what to do. A clash of egos can result in disaster.
There are websites where anyone can contribute to an ongoing story. This type of collaboration is interesting but as visitors to sites vary so much in talent and background, the results produced are often quite incoherent. Another example of collaborative writing is produced by developing the narrative between characters from role-playing games.
Works produced in such a way where each author has relinquished total control have the potential of being better than what can be produced by each individual. On the other hand, there is also the possibility that the final effect is inconsistent and unsatisfying to read. Like any other type of fiction, there is a place for it and the best attempts are rich, creative examples of what is created when authors work together.
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