The Pleasures and Frustrations of Collaborative Fiction Writing

Writing a novel has traditionally been understood as a solitary and often grueling affair. Novels are frequently taken as the detailed expression of a single worldview or sensbility, even if this is distributed across multiple characters and plot points. In the New Yorker, fiction writer Ceridwen Dovey profiles three writing collectives that explode the traditonal view of the novel as an individualistic enterprise. These collectives (one working in romance fiction, another in erotic fiction, and the other in historical fiction) have each published multiple successful novels composed through elaborate collaborative writing methods. Together they demonstrate that writing doesn’t have to be the exclusive province of the solitary tortured “genius.” Check out an excerpt from the piece below.

To read the full article on conversations.e-flux.com, click here