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.
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.