• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Hi!

eliamartin65

Dreamer
Josh is quite wrong, and I think he kicked the dust off his sandals when he burned up yesterday...

Almost every week someone comes in here wanting for find collaborators. I am a prominent personality, and I usually say. I dont collaborate, and not many others will chime in. But the real issue is not that there are no collaborators, but that those who want to dont stick around to invest in making the site a home, and thereby they get nothing back. If you stay here and become a regular and become a part of the conversations, you will get things of value. If you dont, you stick around for a day or two and drift off...we'll just be another ship passing in the night.

I dont get to choose it, you do ;) I just say welcome here.
Noted. I'll try to make this a good, safe space, and fantasy writing home (AH.com is my home for historical fiction)
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Well...I've been a number of places. I am not sure what AH.com is. I settled here for a while. Mosly, I like the chance to work out solutions for the many topics that arise. Skip is our historical fiction pro. I just try to tackle everything. And I have my own books to write. They are always getting out of hand.
 
Welcome Laura!

We're generally a friendly place eager to help. There are plenty of opinions and bits of advice to find here. And like pmmg I feel that you get out of it what you put in.

As for collaboration, my personal feeling is that it's a bit like starting a romantic relationship with someone in the sense that you're stuck together for a long time and have to work together closely. Writing a novel takes a while (at 500 words an hour, a first draft of a 100k novel takes 200 hours, and that's without planning and worldbuilding and editing and all that). It's not uncommon to spend a year or more on a project.

That means if you're collaborating with someone, then you'd better get along well with them and have the same ideas about effort put in and story direction and all that sort of thing. It's not really something I would personally do with just anyone.

And that's without the legal head aches you can get. After all, what happens if the thing suddenly becomes a success? What if I write a spin-off that suddenly becomes succesful, do I share royalties or not? What if I published it via my Amazon account, and I get an offer from a movie studio for option rights together with a $25k check? I'd like to believe we could work it out, but people are people when big sums of money are involved... So I personally am very careful with collaborations.
 

Josh2Write

Troubadour
Josh is quite wrong, and I think he kicked the dust off his sandals when he burned up yesterday...

Almost every week someone comes in here wanting for find collaborators. I am a prominent personality, and I usually say. I dont collaborate, and not many others will chime in. But the real issue is not that there are no collaborators, but that those who want to dont stick around to invest in making the site a home, and thereby they get nothing back. If you stay here and become a regular and become a part of the conversations, you will get things of value. If you dont, you stick around for a day or two and drift off...we'll just be another ship passing in the night.

I dont get to choose it, you do ;) I just say welcome here.

Welcome Laura!

We're generally a friendly place eager to help. There are plenty of opinions and bits of advice to find here. And like pmmg I feel that you get out of it what you put in.

As for collaboration, my personal feeling is that it's a bit like starting a romantic relationship with someone in the sense that you're stuck together for a long time and have to work together closely. Writing a novel takes a while (at 500 words an hour, a first draft of a 100k novel takes 200 hours, and that's without planning and worldbuilding and editing and all that). It's not uncommon to spend a year or more on a project.

That means if you're collaborating with someone, then you'd better get along well with them and have the same ideas about effort put in and story direction and all that sort of thing. It's not really something I would personally do with just anyone.

And that's without the legal head aches you can get. After all, what happens if the thing suddenly becomes a success? What if I write a spin-off that suddenly becomes succesful, do I share royalties or not? What if I published it via my Amazon account, and I get an offer from a movie studio for option rights together with a $25k check? I'd like to believe we could work it out, but people are people when big sums of money are involved... So I personally am very careful with collaborations.

Welcome Laura!

We're generally a friendly place eager to help. There are plenty of opinions and bits of advice to find here. And like pmmg I feel that you get out of it what you put in.

As for collaboration, my personal feeling is that it's a bit like starting a romantic relationship with someone in the sense that you're stuck together for a long time and have to work together closely. Writing a novel takes a while (at 500 words an hour, a first draft of a 100k novel takes 200 hours, and that's without planning and worldbuilding and editing and all that). It's not uncommon to spend a year or more on a project.

That means if you're collaborating with someone, then you'd better get along well with them and have the same ideas about effort put in and story direction and all that sort of thing. It's not really something I would personally do with just anyone.

And that's without the legal head aches you can get. After all, what happens if the thing suddenly becomes a success? What if I write a spin-off that suddenly becomes succesful, do I share royalties or not? What if I published it via my Amazon account, and I get an offer from a movie studio for option rights together with a $25k check? I'd like to believe we could work it out, but people are people when big sums of money are involved... So I personally am very careful with collaborations.
See, just like I told pmmg at the beginning: greed is evil. This is why no one trusts each other. You're not thinking of the story, you too busy contemplating stabbing each other in the back when it's done. "It's mine!" "No, it's mine!" "I came up with the idea." "Ideas are worthless." "I'll sue your ass!"

The first should be so easy. Whoever presents the idea is the primary, and the secondary easily understands this and helps it along, and vice versa. If it becomes a success there is absolutely no reason they can't say "we did it together" or the primary saying "I had help from my partner (name)". 50/50 profit. Both names now in the spotlight to either work together again or branch off into their own projects now with others knowing what they're capable of.

The second part can be tricky yes, but if you're not listening to the toxic voice of greed whispering trickery in your paranoid ears it should be easy:
If the original does well all continuing royalties are forever split 50/50, no hard feelings, because they were partners and are now reaping the rewards of that partnership. But, if one of them is suddenly inspired to write a sequel (or prequel) and for whatever reason only one of them works on it (maybe the other is too busy on another project or doesn't want to write anymore in that world, or whatever) there should no hostility. Wish each other success. Because anything either of you create after the first is now to get attention. Especially if the original gets picked up for a show or film.
Whoever solely creates a sequel gets all the royaltiess from that sequel, not to stab the other in the back, but because they created it themselves.
Maybe (because they support each other) they work together again on the third book (which of course is again 50/50).
It's about creating stories using trust and lifting each other up.
Collaboration.
Not that hard to understand.

Or at least I have honor enough to understand this. Is honor truly dead then? Are there none left who have decency and honor borne of creativity and imagination that would so willingly allow their partner to profit from further creation? Wishing good fortune instead of desolation from jealousy? Outwardly you all write of noble knights, yet creep in the shadows to conspire with dark wizards borne of greed and lust.
It's why they're called deadly sins, because all they do is destroy.
True collaboration rises above that.
 

SamazonE

Troubadour
I used to write in my childhood on lined paper in a folder. It was not much of anything, but it still remains to this day. Then I bought a computer, with my own money, and started researching things I thought of, and liked. I remember screaming in the house, when it finally burned down and caught fire. No more encyclopaedia Britannia, no more Total Annihilation, just the reminder that with technology comes great reward. There gets to a point these days, when I ask myself, why am I doing this? There is the social side of it, yes, but matters become pressing. I see motorbikes performing wheelies, drinking around a pool table, but I miss the smell of paper, and lying on the grasses.
 

Krissy

Dreamer
Hello everyone! My name is Laura, I'm 24 years old, and I absolutely love writing fantasy and alternate history (and often combine the two for maximum fun). I look forward to making friends here too and sharing my works (if that is possible).
Hi Laura, my name is Krissy and I'm a newbie. You sound very passionate about your work - that is amazing to see🙌
 
Top