Are there any books that are written by like… Teams of people?
Books are the only entertainment medium that is entirely dominated by individual authors and hasn’t turned into something where whole teams of writers work on a project. I guess the editor usually has a bit of input but still.
It also seems considerably better off for it, as a medium.
The Expanse is an interesting example because even knowing there were two authors while reading it I couldn’t tell when it shifted from one author to the other. In fact, it had a remarkably consistent style throughout the series. I wonder if they’ve ever spoken about how they split the labor.
Are there any books that are written by like… Teams of people?
It’s going to be a thing very soon that you essentially have teams of plot outliners, character developers, AI prompt engineers, and editors quickly drafting novels together. You’re going to have the hypercapitalist speed-focused methods of software development (Agile, Scrum, etc.) leaking into creative fields in order to make them more profitable and have faster turnaround times.
It’s a natural consequence of cinema, video games, etc. that they will require teams of people most of the time because of the sheer volume of disciplines involved. Books only require one most of the time, just like painting, sculpture, songwriting, etc.
Maybe videogames and cinema are also better off with one dedicated writer, and an editor. I know “too many cooks” is already a thing that has been popularised in the past but perhaps it needs to make a return.
Several projects would genuinely be better off if the internals of the companies had a “keep your hands off” attitude to the writing, and kept it in the hands of one talented person rather than a team of people all trying to stamp their soulless addition on it while pushing and pulling internally over control.
Every example of “design by committee” can be matched by an example of a legendary writer’s room (eg: golden era Simpsons)
Every brilliant auteur can be matched with an example of an “idea’s man” who had to be reigned in by a team or was really a team all along with one person taking credit (eg: George Lucas).
I think it’s more likely there are no hard rules for projects being better off with dedicated writers or teams of writers.
It’s like asking if it’s better for music to be written by singer-songwriter or a band working collaboratively. Both methods can produce great art.
But much like it exceptionally difficult to impossible to predict or manufacture a hit, I think it’s probably a generally hard problem to determine what should be written by a team or a solo writer until after the work is already done.
Even comic books are often made by two people before it gets to the editors. That said, I agree and I don’t think anyone really likes design-by-committee other than the people making money off of it.
As a communist, my gut reaction is that this is an antisocial way of organizing things but that it should be totally possible to have people collaborate in a more constructive way. That probably requires actually understanding those systems though, and I do not.
In a no copyright environment you’d have everyone, literally everyone, writing folklore, ideas, stories, coming up with their own twists to the lore, their own takes. Historic mythology didn’t develop from one writer it developed through people telling stories and adding bits or their own twists.
The good ones caught on and were adapted by others, the bad ones did not. The overall story and the “popular” mythology of the character/tale would form this way collectively. But it would still be a bunch of individual storytellers doing it.
The property model is what prevents this occurring collectively in a more natural human fashion.
I know that Wheel of Time was handed over by Robert Jordan to Brandon Sanderson, because he was dying. It can be very jarring to suddenly see a change in writing style.
Maybe that’s how historians of literature feel when they detect forgeries or misattributions.
I think maybe it would make more sense to have authors write individual stories and contribute to a shared setting. Not like spin-offs and fandoms, but like open source contribution I guess.
I had this idea for one of my novels. It’s this absolute playground of a setting where, in essence, s have full reign over character customization in an MMO in the halted-dystopia future. I have the POV characters with entirely different plots so there’s infinite stories you could tell. If grimbo the goblin gets a cult following, then another author could write about their goblin-y adventures and it could contribute to the same world.
I think maybe it would make more sense to have authors write individual stories and contribute to a shared setting. Not like spin-offs and fandoms, but like open source contribution I guess.
That’s sort of how the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k novels worked. I think that’s what they did with the Star Wars novels that are no longer canon. You end up with a couple good books and a lot of slop.
There really are very few examples of good “collaborative” books out there. And even in something like Good Omens, I found it pretty easy to tell which were the Terry Pratchett sections and which were the Neil Gaiman ones. I guess there is simply no substitution for one hyperfixated recluse fugueing paragraphs onto paper. (I hope there is no substituting it for my sake at least)
Stephen King is a lib and I don’t think he’s written anything particularly good in 30+ years, but the stuff he wrote when he was bonkers on drugs and booze… I think it’s actually veeery good.
being a lib is about control after all (credit to disco Elysium), so it would make sense for a mind that is out of control to be more distant from libitude
The Long Earth series is a wet fart though. Like damn, you’d think discovering the multiverse, finding out humans appeared once, ever, would be an interesting thing to explore. But no, it’s 4 books of a guy being misanthropic all leading up to a total lack of climax.
Yeah literature by comitte sounds like a terrible idea. Like sure single authors will stuff their books full of their weird eccentricities and sometimes that can lead to bad stuff, and it is definitely good that editors existed, but I agree that it makes for a better medium.
GRR Martin contributes to a collaborative series, Wildcards, and his heart seems to be in it more than the Game of Thrones series (asoiaf) which is probably the main reason asoiaf remains incomplete.
Are there any books that are written by like… Teams of people?
Books are the only entertainment medium that is entirely dominated by individual authors and hasn’t turned into something where whole teams of writers work on a project. I guess the editor usually has a bit of input but still.
It also seems considerably better off for it, as a medium.
The Expanse was written by a pair of authors under a single pen name
The Expanse is an interesting example because even knowing there were two authors while reading it I couldn’t tell when it shifted from one author to the other. In fact, it had a remarkably consistent style throughout the series. I wonder if they’ve ever spoken about how they split the labor.
I’d heard they did alternating chapters, which if so is impressive as there is no change in feel from one to the next.
It’s going to be a thing very soon that you essentially have teams of plot outliners, character developers, AI prompt engineers, and editors quickly drafting novels together. You’re going to have the hypercapitalist speed-focused methods of software development (Agile, Scrum, etc.) leaking into creative fields in order to make them more profitable and have faster turnaround times.
That’s not even step-away-from-the-lathe. Some dickheads are working on that right now.
It’s a natural consequence of cinema, video games, etc. that they will require teams of people most of the time because of the sheer volume of disciplines involved. Books only require one most of the time, just like painting, sculpture, songwriting, etc.
Maybe videogames and cinema are also better off with one dedicated writer, and an editor. I know “too many cooks” is already a thing that has been popularised in the past but perhaps it needs to make a return.
Several projects would genuinely be better off if the internals of the companies had a “keep your hands off” attitude to the writing, and kept it in the hands of one talented person rather than a team of people all trying to stamp their soulless addition on it while pushing and pulling internally over control.
Every example of “design by committee” can be matched by an example of a legendary writer’s room (eg: golden era Simpsons)
Every brilliant auteur can be matched with an example of an “idea’s man” who had to be reigned in by a team or was really a team all along with one person taking credit (eg: George Lucas).
I think it’s more likely there are no hard rules for projects being better off with dedicated writers or teams of writers.
It’s like asking if it’s better for music to be written by singer-songwriter or a band working collaboratively. Both methods can produce great art.
But much like it exceptionally difficult to impossible to predict or manufacture a hit, I think it’s probably a generally hard problem to determine what should be written by a team or a solo writer until after the work is already done.
Even comic books are often made by two people before it gets to the editors. That said, I agree and I don’t think anyone really likes design-by-committee other than the people making money off of it.
As a communist, my gut reaction is that this is an antisocial way of organizing things but that it should be totally possible to have people collaborate in a more constructive way. That probably requires actually understanding those systems though, and I do not.
In a no copyright environment you’d have everyone, literally everyone, writing folklore, ideas, stories, coming up with their own twists to the lore, their own takes. Historic mythology didn’t develop from one writer it developed through people telling stories and adding bits or their own twists.
The good ones caught on and were adapted by others, the bad ones did not. The overall story and the “popular” mythology of the character/tale would form this way collectively. But it would still be a bunch of individual storytellers doing it.
The property model is what prevents this occurring collectively in a more natural human fashion.
Hell yeah transformative works.
I know that Wheel of Time was handed over by Robert Jordan to Brandon Sanderson, because he was dying. It can be very jarring to suddenly see a change in writing style.
Maybe that’s how historians of literature feel when they detect forgeries or misattributions.
I think maybe it would make more sense to have authors write individual stories and contribute to a shared setting. Not like spin-offs and fandoms, but like open source contribution I guess.
Yeah in a way I guess super hero comic shared universes are kind of already this.
I had this idea for one of my novels. It’s this absolute playground of a setting where, in essence,
s have full reign over character customization in an MMO in the halted-dystopia future. I have the POV characters with entirely different plots so there’s infinite stories you could tell. If grimbo the goblin gets a cult following, then another author could write about their goblin-y adventures and it could contribute to the same world.
That’s sort of how the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k novels worked. I think that’s what they did with the Star Wars novels that are no longer canon. You end up with a couple good books and a lot of slop.
warrior cats, which serves your point because it sucks
Brandon Sanderson does the primary writing work, but he does have a small team under him to develop it.
any 39 clues enjoyers in the chat
Im sure they suck, but i did enjoy them
There really are very few examples of good “collaborative” books out there. And even in something like Good Omens, I found it pretty easy to tell which were the Terry Pratchett sections and which were the Neil Gaiman ones. I guess there is simply no substitution for one hyperfixated recluse fugueing paragraphs onto paper. (I hope there is no substituting it for my sake at least)
Stephen King is a lib and I don’t think he’s written anything particularly good in 30+ years, but the stuff he wrote when he was bonkers on drugs and booze… I think it’s actually veeery good.
being a lib is about control after all (credit to disco Elysium), so it would make sense for a mind that is out of control to be more distant from libitude
Good omens and long earth are pretty good on that part
The Long Earth series is a wet fart though. Like damn, you’d think discovering the multiverse, finding out humans appeared once, ever, would be an interesting thing to explore. But no, it’s 4 books of a guy being misanthropic all leading up to a total lack of climax.
Great world building exercise, awful book series.
Gotta be honest, only read the first one, liked it, but never read the rest
Stardust
The Expanse series was written by two guys
Yeah literature by comitte sounds like a terrible idea. Like sure single authors will stuff their books full of their weird eccentricities and sometimes that can lead to bad stuff, and it is definitely good that editors existed, but I agree that it makes for a better medium.
GRR Martin contributes to a collaborative series, Wildcards, and his heart seems to be in it more than the Game of Thrones series (asoiaf) which is probably the main reason asoiaf remains incomplete.