Rag Doll Stories
The October 19 issue of the New Yorker is very interesting from a writing point of view. The most provocative article to me was “The Gossip mill,”by Rebecca Mead, which takes the reader inside Alloy. a company that produces best-sellers by committee. They’re the minds behind the Traveling Pants and Gossip Girl series.
The first part of the article takes us inside a story meeting where a murder mystery morphs into a dozen different forms over the course of ten minutes. At first, I was a bit taken aback by this process, the story was like a rag doll of indeterminate species, its limbs being torn off and others being basted on, only to be replaced by something completely different and then turned inside out. But, you know, the story they were coming with was kinda interesting.
This approach to story making is antithetical to the solitary writer mythos. I’ve noticed that often people–consciously ot not–write a story to express a part of themselves. So when someone suggests changes to the story, the author feels personally attacked. The problem with hammering out a story in solitude and connecting it so deeply with oneself is that sometimes what seems obvious to the author is mystifying to the reader. The other problem is that storytelling, in the end, is an act of communication. It is the author knowing how to use the raw material of reader’s imagination to build something.
This rag doll approach to story might be a good way for writers to play constructively with storytelling. To explore the possibilities of a narrative and how it plays with an audience without having to put their own story on the line. Perhaps the insights writers have while playing this game will begin to seep into their work.
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October 27th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Well said. And, I suppose, easily said.
But the notion of creativity joining forces with collectivism, at least to this degree? I just can’t go there. I’m still, in my core being, one who believes that the individual is best capable of reaching into another individual.
But for money? Real money, I’d jump in. You can buy anything for money…
October 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am
One of my first posts to the AML-List, lo, these many years ago, was about the possibility of collaborative writing.
I think this is a provocative idea (although in many ways, that article was a little chilling — indeed, the process they go through is much more akin to the meetings in which advertising creative is brainstormed and decided on) — what should we do with it? Sadly, since I’m not local* I wouldn’t be able to get in on it unless it was done virtually. This would actually be an interesting use for Google Wave.
* Which in the context of Mormon letters still means “not in the Wasatch Front.”
October 27th, 2009 at 8:59 am
What is the basis for this belief, Lisa? After all, most of the works of creativity that reach an audience are collaborative in nature.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Yes, Wm, and I’m involved with a face-to-face writer’s forum. I amen all Stephen writes about storytelling as an act of communication first and foremost. And I don’t have a problem w. people using this way of crafting story. Heck, if I didn’t believe in collaboration, I wouldn’t even be bothered to read books on craft or what others writers write. I understand the value in collaborative efforts. If I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t be on board as Irreantum’s fiction editor.
But something in me balks at this because I see it less as collaborative and more as collective. Collaborative meaning people working to assist me to a) become all I can be as a writer, and b) communicate w. a reader in the best way possible; collective meaning people working together to fill the consumer needs of the mass. Nothing necessarily amiss there, just not the way I want to craft story. Sort of presumes a degree of automatum in the audience that, even if fair, bothers me. Accuse me of American conservatism if you will.
And capitalism. Did you notice the mention about money? If its in there, go for it.
I’ll begin: Story idea: Mormon woman wakes up in the morning beside a dead husband. Knife in his groin. There is a knock at the bedroom door…
October 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am
.
I think both manners of story-creation have their merits. It’s why I lust after a job in Pixar’s story department. But I still want my own work to represent me. I can’t see why both can’t exist and receive respect.
(Although committee’s primary motivation tends to be commercial success, which, you know.)
October 27th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Lisa:
Gotcha. As I noted, I think the idea is interesting but the basis for it in the particular NYer story, is, I agree, not the best one.
That said, I wouldn’t underestimate the value of collective if its based around an organic, self-created group who are working to create work within an area of shared interests and aesthetics. That’s wholly different from what’s taking place at Alloy.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Actually, Wm, it’d be fun to work with such a group of individuals if you could find them. but I bet if the cover were truly blown off Alloy’s process (and I haven’t read the article), we’d find political jockeying among players/writers. There is always a hierchy. There is always self-interest. Its, as Th says, commercial after all. So can there be a United Order of Mormon Writers?
October 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I also find the Alloy story kind of unsettling. It’s like they’re trying to capitalize on my needs, my imagination, my hopes. Their “collaboration” is about making a work more involving, more successful so they’ll push more copies. Sounds like a tobacco board meeting. Collaboration is great, but collaborating for greater profit, Really?
Call me naive, but I respect writers who have no pretension of getting rich. Sure, they hope it’ll happen and they can wake up and make a dozen pancakes for their kids, spend the hours around noon in front of a type writer, fall asleep on the lawn in the afternoon, and spend the whole night playing with their kids. That’s what I hope for, but I’d never want writing to become a ‘means’ to me, a way to earn my suburban utopia. I want writing to forever be the ‘end’, in and of itself. I’d love to work with others who have that same idea.
My issue with Alloy isn’t their collaboration, it’s the purpose that guides it. Who knows, maybe I should just be shameless, get my own “commercialized best seller”, then after I’m rich, I can enjoy the art of writing.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I just read the Alloy article a couple of nights ago and also found it fascinating. But a couple of points:
-The Alloy folks are pretty upfront about the idea that they’re not necessarily creating “art.” They’re creating products for mass consumption, which is an entirely different ballgame.
-Even though they sit together in a room and brainstorm ideas, they still commission the book out to one person, and this person still goes into a room by herself and writes the thing. Coming up with story ideas is one part of the process, yes–but the actual words-on-paper part of writing is and will always remain a solitary act. Until you get to the editing phase, that is
.
And speaking of commentary on writing and national magazines, I recently read an article about Hamlet and writing-by-committee in Newsweek with an excellent opening paragraph. Here’s the link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/216513 and here’s the paragraph:
“Shakespeare had the good fortune to write Hamlet before anyone could tell him how to fix it. Were he working today, the playwriting system—-in this country, at least—-would exhaust itself trying to improve the thing. In workshops, his fellow playwrights would nudge him to be more specific: ‘So is Hamlet mad or isn’t he? And what did Gertrude know? Right now it feels a little general.’ Artistic directors would shift uncomfortably when faced with a script this long and sprawling: ‘You know we love ambitious writing here, Will. But in these tough times, let’s cut Guildenstern. Also Act IV.’ The critics would acknowledge Shakespeare’s gift for phrasemaking, but assail plot twists-—e.g., the unlikely pirate attack that sends Hamlet back to Denmark—-that keep the play from completely ‘working.’ If the author would ‘do some editing’ and ‘decide what he’s trying to say,’ his play might one day be almost as profound as Gypsy, though ‘the songs aren’t as good.’”
Amen, Jeremy McCarter of Newsweek.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
“which is an entirely different ballgame”
Not entirely different.
Also: that Newsweek article is quite funny, but it ignores the fact that for all we know Shakespeare’s writing process was quite collaborative and that his words and scenes have been routinely changed, cut, added to and interpreted over the centuries in thousands of productions of his work. In addition, I think it says more about the negatives of the workshop process than the possibilities of collaborative/collective writing.
For models, think less workshop and more roleplaying games and fan fiction and wikis.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Fan fiction as models? Oh boy. I don’t know what “wikis” is/are. ‘splain each pls.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Okay. I’ll cut “entirely.” But I won’t cut “different.” Because, seriously folks, what, say, Michael Cunningham is setting out to do is not what the people who are trying to sell lots of Gossip Girl books are setting out to do. They have different primary objectives. Cunningham: art, illumination, language, ideas. Alloy: entertainment, money, fun, cheap thrills.
And of course we have no idea how Shakesepare wrote his plays. There are lots of people who aren’t even sure of Shakespeare’s identity, let alone his writing habits. And of course people change his plays all the time to suit different needs–but the play as he wrote it is this quirky, strange, glorious thing that would have probably been torn apart by a workshop group or an aggressive editor and then never would have been amenable to all the different permutations it has spawned over the last few hundred years.
I believe in the power of workshop and the power of collaboration. But (and I’ll say it again) . . . when is an individual artist ever good enough to be left alone? Amazing art can (and has) been created, over and over again, by individuals sitting alone in a room, but sometimes here at RBS the vibe I get is that such thing is nigh unto impossible. Yes, most of the work we get at our respective magazines needs a lot of work, and yes, all of us need to be open to editing and multiple revisions and can learn a ton from intelligent readers who help us see the flaws and holes in what we create. But in the end, I still believe writing is a solitary art, and the best art is often expressive of a singular, individual vision that would be compromised and even cheapened if a committee of editors had at it, wielding their red pens like daggers.
And, finally, role playing games? Fan fiction? Wikis? I’m with Lisa. Confused. And possibly too old.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Role Playing Games:
This takes many forms, but at its most basic level, a role playing game like Dungeons & Dragons can lead to some excellent storytelling and even sophisticated writing in play-by-post (on web forums) or play-by-e-mail settings. This is not something that I’m personally involved in, but I have online friends whose RPGing has not only created some fascinating stories, but also lead to further writing. One example: the Wild Cards series has turned in to a decades long series of books, but started out as an RPG created by a group of friends (some of who were or later became major speculative fiction authors, of course). These are more mass market than, say, Michael Cunningham. But then again, so was Shakespeare, and the one Wild Cards book I read dealt with some interesting issues and was well-crafted while at the same time was a rollicking story.
What’s fascinating about an RPG is how the writing styles and personalities of the authors behind the characters impact the overall story. One still needs the (not-so) benevolent dictator i.e. the Dungeon Master to run things, of course. Anarchy doesn’t work in artistic creation. But it is a truly collaborative experience.
Fan Fiction:
It’s easy to dismiss. Yes, there are reams and megabytes worth of poorly written stuff. Yes, some of its gets very weird or even pornographic. And no, I don’t read it so it may seem odd that I bring it up. I did because it represents a fascinating way that readers interact with authors that can’t be ignored. Sadly, yet understandably, of course, copyright law means that the interaction between author and fan that fan fiction could be doesn’t happen — actually some authors do dip their toes in a bit — or maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know, but something must be happening considering the sheer amount of it being generated. On the one hand, it’s the ultimate compliment. On the other, it’s kinda scary. But either way it is a collective effort to expand, twist and pay homage to stories, characters and worlds that are capable of attracting fans.
I think what we need to take away from it is the idea of shared worlds and that no work is wholly inviolate and that readers are not passive individuals there to consume what we feed them. I also am aware of individuals who first found the joy of writing through fan fiction and then went on to write wholly original work. Some published authors also like to slum (covertly or publicly) it up in the fan-fic world. The one piece of fan fic I have read is a very cool novella by Steven Brust that takes place in Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe.
Wikis:
A wiki is essentially a web page that “anyone” can edit. It is the most successful form of collaborative writing I am aware of. Wikipedia is the most well-known example. But wikis have also been used to create or document shared creative spaces/experiences/endeavors.
One example that I recently ran across and find incredibly fascinating is the wiki for the webcomic Erfworld. It represents a fascinating collaborative effort to document and speculate and even extend the world of the Erfworld comic. The comic is about a loser RPGer who gets transported to a world that closely resembles a game he had been creating, one that relies heavily on puns and on a sort of cartoon-ish version of D&D (yes, I know D&D already comes across as cartoonish, but Erfworld is actually a very clever meta-commentary on RPGs and on gaming culture and American consumer and loser culture — I didn’t get many of the jokes, at first, I must admit). What’s fascinating about the comic is that the world has very complex mechanics as well as multi-layered riffs on culture, which lends itself well to a wiki.
What I find interesting about the wiki is that it started out as a fan project and has now been brought under the aegis of the author and is broken down in to canon, proposed canon, speculation, fanon (fan created work that is in line with canon) and banon (fan created work that is “forked up” meaning that it is not in line with canon, either intentionally or because further revelation of canon now makes it invalid). This is all explained on the Canon wiki page and by following the linked words to other types of material.
Okay so this is all a rather long example, but hopefully it illustrates some of where storytelling is going in the post-publisher age. Add in that there are web forums for the Erfworld comic, that the comic has also gone through a period of prose updates, and that fans have created art to go with some of the updates and some that art has been elevated to official and been placed alongside the update, and you end up with a fascinating mix of contributions and ways to contribute. And if you take the time to read the entire thing (both book 1 and the summer updates), it’s really quite well done. Certainly not to many people’s taste. But it’s funny and compelling and, oddly enough, touching and trenchant. It’s art. Which is weird, but it is.
Now, in the end the story is still one guy. There’s a guiding genius behind it. And the art is one guy (although the original artist is leaving and there will be new one coming on board in a few days). But the way he allows fans to interact with his property is very interesting.
So that’s what I meant by rpgs, fan fic and wikis. Now, this is all the world of genre fiction, and specifically, speculative fiction.
But I don’t see why they have to be limited to fantasy worlds (that is non-literary-realism worlds). In fact, way back in the day, Quinn Warnick and I discussed the possibility of creating a Southern Utah version of Yoknapatawpha County as an online project involving several writers of Mormon fiction where we would collaboratively create the setting and then each contribute characters and then build individual stories out of the materials, with each of us taking our own created main characters but pulling in the work of others. Sort of a literary RPG. It didn’t happen because Quinn went off to grad school and I started AMV.
But my point is that there is solitary cloistered and cut off, and then there is solitary in the studio and the salon. I’m not saying that Mormon letters needs writing by committee. But it might be interesting for us to rattle the shackles of romanticism and modernism, especially since none of us are making much (or any) money in Mormon fiction anyway.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I just wrote a long comment that may be stuck in your spam filters because it includes several links. Thanks!
I’ll take this time to add that while I’m a strong believer in individual vision, I don’t know about that word singular, and the word best is used because you’ve been trained to see art that is created in that way as the best art. So have I. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the only way to views things, and, in some ways, much of the singular, best art of the past century has been a failure. Or at least it comes with its own limitations and baggage.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Angela wrote that she “still believe[s] writing is a solitary art, and the best art is often expressive of a singular, individual vision….” Exactly. No matter how much feedback I get from my writing group or cyberspace critique buddies, its still me who has to write it/fix it/make it work..and me who fails (too often). So that fits my experience. Well said.
And as far as Shakespeare and collaboration, heck, the point was that the Hamlet we have today could be considered technically flawed, so it doesn’t matter who along the way had an impact on it. I’m happy to see that the greatest art is imperfectly constructed. Who wants botox art? I find beauty in that imperfection precisely because it gives me hope. I will never produce perfection. Sadly. None of us will. Including the good folks at Alloy.
Wm, I don’t see the links, but I’d like to read what you had to say and see those links. If it doesn’t come thru here, would you consider posting to the AML list?
October 27th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Oh, I take it back. I have what you wrote. duh.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I rescued your comment, Wm. And thanks–very informative. I agree that the three examples you site probably work best with speculative fiction, and I also agree that there are probably some real benefits to this kind of collaborative effort. There’s a different kind of mojo that happens when people get together in a room (or virtual room) and start sharing ideas.
I guess what I’m chafing at is the idea that storytelling-as-collaboration is a *better* method than the traditional solitary-writer-in-her-room model—that better stories are created when more people are involved. Although I agree that collaborative storytelling can have interesting and effective results, the lone writer’s been known to spin a pretty good yarn, too. And while the lone writer can make an incredible mess of things, how many Hollywood movies have you seen that were completely spoiled by a story where there were obviously too many cooks in the kitchen?
I guess my personal pov on the topic of writerly independence is that 1. writers need to learn the craft, 2. writers need to be willing to revise, 3. writers can learn a lot by listening to other people (editors, friends, Dragon Masters), 4. in the end, a writer’s work is his or her own–it isn’t the editor’s or friend’s or Dragon Master’s story. That’s part of both the risk and the joy of creating a piece of art, isn’t it? After learning the craft and doing the hard work, putting something out there in the world that represents your vision and letting it stand or fall on its merits?
October 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am
William,
Those collaborative writing ideas are very interesting and exciting. There’s a Young Adult series of books called “The 39 Clues,” that takes a bit of this ethos. It’s a kind of epic where two teenagers are trying to find 39 clues, in competition with a huge cast of characters, that will help them inherit a fortune. Each book is written by a different author. The first was Rick Riordan, whose book The Lightning Thief will be released as a motion picture pretty soon. The second was by Gordan Korman, a favorite author from my own youth.
So obviously the story outline was hammered out at the beginning, but it’s fun to see the different voice each author brings to the series.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:11 am
All,
Kind of what I was envisioning was a story night where a group of writers gets together to make a story–they’ll only invest 2 to 3 hours into it, and there will be food, so it won’t be a waste.
The idea of it would be to go kinda wild, to throw things together that haven’t been thrown together before and make something new. I find myself sometimes getting morassed in my own story ideas. They become too canoical and staid. It would be fun to see what a group could conjure up.
Then, if the story is especially interesting to someone, he or she can take it up. But the purpose would be to exercise your story muscles on a regular basis and keep your creativity fresh.
I actually did a mini version of this with a class I taught once, and it worked out well.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:41 am
That would be interesting, Stephen. But what would be even more intriguing to me would be if such a group established a story outline, complete w. characterization,setting, etc, and then each writer in that group wrote the group idea into a story on their own. Something tells me the versions would be surprisingly different.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Fan and self-published fiction in Japan–known as doujinshi– has evolved into a major cultural movement, to the extent that it has carved out a gray area in Japan’s copyright law to allow for its continuing existence. Doujinshi conventions are like the NCAA–lucrative but not quite technically “professional”–and function as a sort of “minor leagues” for commercial publishers. Some of the biggest names in manga and anime started out in collaborative doujinshi clubs (called “circles”).
October 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Stephen, that would be fun. I really like Lisa’s take on it too.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am
I enjoy Lisa’s no-nonsense replies. And Stephen’s 10/29 response is interesting. I lead a small writers workshop and attend two others (one small, one quite large) and find it fun to hear wild ideas being strewn about. But Lisa’s right. When it comes down to it, I have to SBIC (sit butt in chair) and do my own writing with my own voice, and the inner me alone knows where I want my story to go. I save collaboration for anthologies, which are fun also.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Autopoiesis lives on!
November 4th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
So, who knows what poiesis means? Ug.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Sorry about that — I did intend to come back and explain, but I got distracted.
Autopoiesis is term used in systems theory to refer to an autonomous system that contains within itself the ability to engage in the processes that sustains itself. The term was appropriated by Mark McGurl for use in a cultural studies/literary criticism-history context — most prominently in his landmark work The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Being a literary critic, he, of course, has to turn it into the pun “autopoetics.”
He applies it specifically to creative writing programs and writers produced by creative writing programs that create “a cultural system geared for the production of self-expressive originality” (49). McGurl specifically creates an abstract model of the “creative writing process” as composed of the interplay of three major values promoted and pedagogied by creative writing programs:
* Experience (Authenticity) Memory, Observation, “Write What You Know”
* Creativity (Freedom) Imagination, Fantasy,”Find Your Voice”
* Craft (Tradition) Revision, Concentration, “Show Don’t Tell”
I hope to write more about McGurl’s work. It’s got a lot of theory in it so it’s a bit of a slog, but he raises some interesting issues, and, more importantly in my case, he disabused me of some of the reductive notions I had in regards to creative writing programs.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:32 am
thanks Wm.
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