SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I posted this on the Fantasy Book Club site but thought to repeat it here since SF authors have been "guilty" of this as well and I'm interested in knowing what other people think:

This was brought to mind by a little back and forth I've begun with another GR friend about Andre Norton's Elvenblood, which was written with Mercedes Lackey (you know who you are, Elizabeth ;-) -

1. Do you think collaborative efforts work or is it a matter of "too many chefs in the kitchen"? It's not a new phenomenon: Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford collaborated, though not very successfully; and Shakespeare worked with other playwrights (Pericles and Henry VIII immediately come to mind).

2. When do collaborations work and why do you think that's so?

And by "collaboration" I don't mean a shared-world series like Liavek or Thieves' World or the Forgotten Realms but a work that's ostensibly written by more than one hand.

I think it depends on the authors involved. Some authors just don't work well with others while some do. I think, in part, it's a matter of personalities meshing, or not. And being able to compromise on where the story is going. I'd imagine it would be more difficult to collaborate than to write alone.

Not necessarily. I work much better in response to someone else than I would on my own. There's no urgency about my own work, but if someone asks me for it, then, well, they're waiting, aren't they? Some of my best and fastest work came from contests with deadlines, or requests for stories, etc. My last MS took multiple years to write because something else was always coming up.

Marc,
We're you writing alone for these requests/deadlines?
Unless someone else is involved in the writing process as well, it's not a collaboration.

One advantage I do see in a collaboration is brainstorming. Bouncing ideas off of each other, and having them grow.

I wasn't collaborating on my short stories. I was just saying that the knowledge that someone out there wants it, has asked for it, is waiting for it, makes a tremendous difference in the speed with which I come up with ideas and get them down on electronic paper. A collaborator would be much the same, at least for me.

I thought that Weis and Hickman did pretty well with the original Dragonlance trilogy.

Hunter's Run, great 2008 collaborative effort.
Escape from Hell, out in Feb, Niven and Pournelle. I hope it is better then The Gripping Hand...

Marc,
I see what you mean now. That would be a good incentive.

Mercedes Lackey has many collaborations that are successful. Andre Norton also.

I agree with one of the previous posts, that it really just depends on the author(s). It also depends on what you consider a collaborative effort. Myself personally, I do all the writing of my stories completely by myself, but I like to get my best friend's help polishing out the plot. I make the majority of it, but I'll ask her questions and ask for her opinions, and she'll offer suggestions on how things should go, or how a character should be. I consider that a collaborative effort to write the story. :)

I'd say if both authors are open to being collaborative, and they agree on how to split the work, the work can turn out great. I mean, why wouldn't it? They don't both have to write it to make it a team effort.

(I'd love to co-write a book with another author someday. D:)

Maigan (Silverstein) wrote: "I agree with one of the previous posts, that it really just depends on the author(s). It also depends on what you consider a collaborative effort. Myself personally, I do all the writing of my st..."
I would imagine that collaboration requires at least two different authors writing different parts of the story. Even parts based on another person's advice is nonetheless written by you. Unless you just act as a secretary, writing it down as fast as they say it, with no editorializing of your own,
their advice is being filtered through you, not directly from them. Its a contribution to be acknowledged, yes, but not credited.

I personally thought the collaborative Empire trilogy by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts was stronger than a lot of the original Riftwar series by Feist alone (heresy though I know that may be to some.)

Still thinking back to my early authors, Anne McCaffrey did a lot of fairly successful collaborations in the Brain & Brawn series that introduced me to some authors I might have overlooked otherwise.

Marc, re #12, in the intro to Good Omens, Terry Pratchett said that he did most of the physical writing, but that he and Neil Gaiman discussed it so much that Pratchett lost track of what was whose idea. It definitely feels like Pratchett's style, but it seems he thinks Gaiman was integral to the book being written. I'd definitely consider that a collaboration (and apparently they did too).

Dana wrote: "I personally thought the collaborative Empire trilogy by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts was stronger than a lot of the original Riftwar series by Feist alone (heresy though I know that may be to som..."

Not heresy to me. I thought the Riftwar books were quite poorly written.

I'd love to know how much of the Obsidian Dale Trilogy was written by Mercedes Lackey, and how much by James Mallory. The first three books in the trilogy where excellent. I loved their take on magic, the well written characters, and the clash of human vs elf culture. However, the more recent books are absolutely awful! Its such a shock - the tone seems different, the style is not as cohesive. I can't figure out what went wrong? Such a disappointment.