Collaborative Writing: Three Ways to Do It by Jasper Ezekiel
This week’s featured article is “Collaborative Writing: Three Ways to Do It by Jasper Ezekiel.” Enjoy!
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My husband and I write together more often than we go on dates.
Almost every day has a portion of it dedicated to working on our current stories.
This relationship model has helped us stay together through 2 years of East Coast-West Coast long distance, serious health issues (on both our part’s and the dogs’..)
Our collaborative writing is done in the style of 2000’s forums roleplays, something we both grew up doing, where I write a paragraph, then he writes a paragraph, but there are plenty of ways to write collaboratively. Here are a couple of ways that you can do it.
1. Paragraph Roleplays
Paragraph roleplays are an excellent way to collaborate.
The process is pretty straightforward, in my opinion.
After talking as much or as little about the plot as you want, one of you writes a paragraph starting the story.
Each one of you “controls” one (or more) characters of your choosing and you keep your writing to the actions and inner thoughts of that character.
This works great for character driven stories, where the character gets to make all of the decisions and that’s how the plot is moved forward.
One thing to keep in mind about this style of collaborative writing is to be respectful of the other person’s character, to not overstep your power over them. In the forum world, this is called “godmodding,” referring to the term “mod” or short for moderator, the name of the writer behind the character.
On roleplay forums, the character you’re writing is called your “muse.”
For example, my muse is a character named Briar, who is an evil dictator of a fantasy world. My husband’s muse is Patrick, his right hand man. (We love to write dark stories about villains.)
2. Back and Forth Chapters
Another way to collaboratively write is for one writer to write a chapter, then the next person to write the next chapter.
This style works well for both discovery plotting and having a pre-established plot that you’ve agreed on.
In this style, each writer has a little more control over all of the characters because the assumption is that both writers are making more decisions for each character due to the drawn out style of writing chapters rather than snappier paragraphs.
There are actually entire published novels in this style. One that I can think of is will grayson, will grayson by John Green and David Levithan.
Both authors write about two different young boys, both named Will Greyson, and about how their lives parallel and overlap as they go to the same high school.
This book was a great inspiration for me and my adventures in collaborative writing and when I was younger I wrote a book in this style with my best friend at the time.
3. The Consultant
The final form of collaborative writing that I’d like to share works when your creative partner may have ideas but may not be a writer.
While my husband may be an avid roleplayer, he rarely writes in his own time, so when there’s a story I want to write with him, sometimes we work together on the backend and I draft it myself.
Our process generally goes like this:
- We discuss the concept and the plot together. He gives me a bunch of ideas of scenes and dialogue and things his characters might do that I can write about.
- I write the first draft of the story on my own based on the notes I took from our discussion.
- I read it to him and we edit it together.
- I go over everything with a fine toothed comb for the final draft.
Ta-dah!
Another collaborative project finished.
While he may not have been involved in the drafting process, his contributions to the important, nitty-gritty pieces of plot are vital to the success of our collaborative project.
I wrote an entire novel this way with him (still in the editing process, though!)
Which is Best?
It’s hard to say which style of collaborative process is going to be best for you.
If you have a writing friend you’d like to try this out with, just send them a text asking!
While everyone says writing is a lonely process meant to be done hunched over a desk late at night with a pot of coffee, my best work has been done in the company and with the help of my friends and lovers.
Happy writing!
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About The Author
Jasper Ezekiel is a poet and all around writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s also an illustrator, a photographer, a fiber artist, a jokester and a huge dork. His book of poetry is called Good, Clean Mania and is available on several digital platforms, as well as in print through Amazon.
You can find him on Instagram @s8nicangel on substack
Good, Clean Mania is a collection of three zines that Jasper Ezekiel put together over the years of 2020-2022. These zines have been further edited into completion to be the book you hold in your hands today. Topics of Jasper’s poetry spans from things like God and love to a bad day at the hardware store to a connection with his cat right before she passed away.
