Need help from any level of writer beginning to expert

ok I have always wanted to write a book, but I am just not good enough. So I want to do the next best thing. Write part of a book. I looked around the internet but I just couldnt find a site that did this and I was shocked. So I created one. I just started it. I need some help though. I think this could be amazing.Just Imagine writing a book that gets published. I think this is very possible. With the power of the internet there will always be somebody working on the book,editing and we will have thousands of ideas and suggestions.
The purpose of the site: To write a fiction book. Please help if you can, I think I made it pretty easy to use. We dont even have a beginning yet.
www.ourfirstnovel.com

Mike, if you hang around here long enough you'll find that most of us here have written a book, that's what we do, and many have written multiple books. Interview a few members and you'll get pretty much the same insight from all--that writing a book is an individual and solitary calling, not a committee project. The one recent cooperative project we did take part in is a soon-to-be-published anthology, a collection of individual stories and poems, all different, not a homogenized single pail of milk collected from the herd. It just doesn't work that way.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

Not a good idea, Mike. Listen to what Jim said. He gave you the straight dope. Fact is, if you can't write a book, you can't write part of a book. If writing is a serious goal, then work at because it is as hard a job as you will find. There aren't any shortcuts.

Hi!

Your idea almost sounds like a high school group writing project, to encourage teamwork. It could be interesting.

Actually, I have written "stories" with other writers (in a different forum) in similar way as an exercise. But it was for fun. And the results were not something we ever intended to have published.

I agree with what Jim said. To me writing is a very individual thing. I have written six novels and I am working on two others. I can not imagine anyone else "touching" my work in progress. My characters are mine. My story is mine. My writing is mine. And he is right. Most writers are very possessive of their work.

Sometimes you will find collaborated works. But these are usually limited to two people who already know each other.

Jim and Dick are both very kind gentleman and they are giving you good and honest advice.


On the other hand, I do not like to dash hopes, burst bubbles, or shatter dreams. (And that is NOT what Dick or Jim are doing ... they are giving you realistic tips) In fact I am usually the first to say that you can do anything you set your mind to.

If you do move ahead with your project I would recommend you research how the publishing world and copyright works. Having too many writers with rights to one novel can get tricky. And finishing the novel is only the beginning. Getting it submitted is a whole other job.

ps - I did go to your website. You did a great job building it and it is very easy to follow. I read your introductory scene. It looks like you are trying for a suspense story. I don't know if you plan to revise and edit later or as you go along. I did notice you have some places where quotation marks are needed in the dialogue but they are missing.

Good luck on your project!

Mystery authors Philip Craig and William Tapply each had a long developed character for their individual books. The two happened to be close friends and more or less neighbors on Martha's Vineyard. Both authors' books were published by the same house. They may have shared an agent. It was almost a given that they would collaborate on several titles. Each installment of their dually authored books featured the authors' individual protagonist in alternating and interacting chapters until, toward the end, the storylines had to merge and the two authors had to write into each other's chapters. The collaboration worked because of the reasons noted at the start. It would not work for Internet strangers. Philip Craig, my friend, passed away a couple of years ago, so the unique association came to a close. These two, and probably others with a like association, can make a collaborative effort work, but it's not for the masses.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods.

Twenty-five years or so ago, Bill Pronzini and his good friend Barry Malzberg collaborated on a novel although Bill lived in California and Barry in upstate New York. They spent about 45 minutes on the phone every night and that wes long before cheap cell phone rates. Both Bill and Barry were very skillful, very experienced writers. Each had already had many books of their own published. It worked out fine, but as Jim said, this is not something the average person could do successfully or should even consider trying. I agree with JoElle in that Mike's idea sounds like a high school writing project.

Melinda, your comment, "And one writer will have to have final say" hit me right between the eyes.

I am collaborating on a workbook for my book, Life is Like Making Chocolate Chip Cookies. I say it is her book (becasue she had a vision for this workbook). She says it is my book (because it comes from my original book). She always wants me to have the final say. I want her to have it. She usually wins. I am the creative writer. She is the psychologist writer. She does better in some areas than I do, and I in others. Bottom line: I am 'stuck' having the final say.

Her vision and contacts for this workbook far outreach mine. If I don't follow through with this workbook,
she will drop it even though it was her idea to begin with; something
about it being my book originally.

I don't think I will collaborate on another book. Too stressing. Now an anthology is different.

Sorry I rambled.

Remember, Mike's idea isn't to collaborate with another writer, it is to involve a large number of people. On his website he mentions "thousands."

I collaborated with one other author on a collection of our short stories. Her eight stories and my eight, in alternating sequence in the printed book, hers the lead story for reasons of alphabet and 'ladies first," are not related in theme or content, neither her stories to her others nor mine to mine. It simply was a product of our friendship and appreciation of one another's writing. We shared costs of a catered coming out party for the book for dozens of other mutual friends, and sold enough copies to our captive audience to just about pay for the party. That was the extent of the book's commercial success. In our eyes, though, it was a literary success with copies of the book being in the libraries of our contempories. Incidentally, that may be the case with the anthology that those of us here coontributed to.

Jim Woods
www.ultrasw.com/jwoods

It sounds like a good idea for the right people but not for me. After all if script writers can do it why not other writers and you won't get anywhere if you do,'t try, right.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Remember, Mike's idea isn't to collaborate with another writer, it is to involve a large number of people. On his website he mentions "thousands."

Exactly.
A collaboration between two writers or maybe a writer and an expert in the field that the book is about is one thing. It has been successfully done.

However, a novel written by a bunch of different people of different writing levels with different visions of the final work ... is a whole other ball game.

Too many cooks can spoil the broth as it were.

There are some fields of writing, perhaps when producing a substantial volume of non-fiction, where many collaborators could not only become an advantage - but a fundamental necessity. If you remember the old 60s Star Trek episodes, Captain Kirk did not voyage alone onboard the USS Enterprise... he needed the support of his medical team, engineering team, navigation team, security team, etc. to contribute their individual filelds of expertise to the overall mission.

I expect Shelagh has done something similar as a 'Captain' on our friends anthology, and as a brilliant one at that an all.