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Collaborative writing (I am not good at it.)

I recorded this last Friday, and I finally re-watched it right now. I say “it’s interesting” a lot. Funny how you don’t notice your verbal habits until you start vlogging again! So excuse the repeated phrases, and the distraction at the end. Haha!

But in regards to collaborative writing vs independent writing: what are your strengths and weaknesses?

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5 Comments

  • Avra-Sha Faohla

    I think you’re doing great with the videos! Your rambling is pretty much on topic. Although I admit I was distracted by that cute baby of yours so I might have missed something. . . but I don’t think I did. I think I heard everything.

    Anyway, I totally understand what you’re saying. I wrote a long comment about this already, here. (That saves me having to rewrite!)

    I think that collaboration is something else, though. When you collaborate with someone, you plan on doing it together from the start. It’s not like you’re pouring your heart into a story and then someone else who hasn’t been doing so tries to make suggestions; you’ve both been pouring your hearts into the story from the beginning. Also, it’s not the same sort of “cheating” as simply taking someone else’s ideas for your own story. If the book gets published, both the authors’ names go on the cover. So, yeah, collaboration is great, if you can do it! And it’s definitely a good skill to have.

    Keep making these videos; I’m really enjoying them!

    • Eccentric Owl

      Haha, I got distracted by Asa too. 😀

      I think when I said it felt like cheating, I meant that even though we’re working together on it and it will be credited to both authors, I am so used to writing my own thing and I’ve advocated original writing for so long (partially out of having been plagiarized) that to build upon someone else’s idea just doesn’t feel right to me. In the sense that… it feels like I’m not being as original or creative as I might be were I coming up with the ideas by myself.

      I’m really just not comfortable writing with other people on a collaborative project. I was going to say in the video that with collaboration, I feel like I have to constantly ask the other person what they think and what they’d like to happen rather than shooting off my own ideas for them to consider, and it becomes a process of them dictating and me writing. Haha! So… I’m just so used to letting other people have their stories while I write my own that I can’t get into the whole process of building on each others’ ideas for one story.

      • Avra-Sha Faohla

        Oh. Hmm, well, no, I don’t think of collaborating as cheating unless it’s almost entirely one person’s ideas. As long as both are contributing roughly 50-50 (or 40-60 is close enough), it’s fine and fair by me.

        But collaborative writing IS hard, and I can understand why you don’t like it. Working with others is not always easy, and when it’s in a subject like writing that you’ve always been very confident, comfortable, and happy doing, and have always known that you’re very good at it . . . well, it makes sense that it’d be very hard for you to collaborate with others on it.

        I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to work with others–because I think humans are naturally very self-centered so it’s always a good idea to try to work with others on things if you can–but it is completely understandable and natural that collaboration specifically in writing is very difficult for you. I would applaud you if you decided to try writing collaboratively, but I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. 😉

  • Mom

    I have always wanted to write a book and used to imagine what it would say, but I am not good at coming up with sentences. Usually it comes out as a list and is pretty boring. I think that I would be a better collaborative writer, because I don’t have many original ideas. I know that your stubbornness makes you not a collaborative writer, but you are the best writer I have read and understand that if you are good at something, why should you try and work with someone’s else’s idea? You are good at working with others on other things and that is great. We are excited to think that some day we might even see our daughter’s writing in print.