The Fantasmagorical Collaborative Story

In his blog Techoti, Lance Ulanoff describes a collaborative writing experiment he conducted using Google+ and Google Docs. Lance put the beginnings of a story in a Google Doc, and set up that doc so that it could be edited by anyone who had the link. He then made a Google+ public post (Let's Write a Story) describing the project, providing the doc link, and inviting participation. That invitation would have appeared in the stream of every Google+ participant who had Lance Ulanoff in their circles. There's no available record of exactly how many people that was when Lance made his post, but as of this writing there are 8537 people who visibly have Lance in their circles. Of the thousands who may have seen Lance's invitation, about a dozen chose to participate in the project.

In his initial invitation, Lance laid out a few rules: "no changing what anyone else--including me--wrote before you. You need to take what came before and build on it. Notes about suggestions for what could come next are welcome here in Google+, but not in the story." and "Post your name before and after your entry so I know what you wrote." In his retrospective description of the project, Lance reports that "Interestingly, virtually no one followed these rules." Various comments added to Lance's post by participants reflect this:

Moshe Berman - +Lance Ulanoff I don't think anyone read the instructions. Everyone is just marking up what is there and slowly adding. It's the nature of the beast.

Darryl Wright - Some folks are editing/adding to other people's entries though - it's a bit jarring if you're the author and you watch your words suddenly become something you hadn't wanted to say.
Darryl Wright - I guess that's what it feels like to be a journalist and be edited. :)

Bert Knabe - Since We're not supposed to be changing other contributors words, a little annoying, too. Oh, +Darryl Wright, I think you're supposed to put your name before and after your contribution, like this:
 
Bert Knabe
This is my contribution
Bert Knabe
 
If you put your name twice and write between them then people can put their contribution before and after yours. In fact, While someone is writing about Miss Whittle and Jeffersons first meeting, I could be writing about what brought Jefferson there. Some changes would be necessary when you find out who he really is, but that's just details. :)

Sean Lodespoto - Love the idea but, It's getting a bit nutty in there. Perhaps I'll make my contribution a bit later
Moshe Berman - Yea, it is getting nutty.

Lance Ulanoff - The story is getting pretty interesting, though it has taken a decidedly sci-fi bent. Also, someone aged my main character an additional 10 years...and now she sound somewhat senile.

In his initial invitation, Lance asked participants to do the writing work in Google Docs, and to use Google+ for discussion of the story concept and other communication that might be required to coordinate activities. Early on, participant Moshe Berman suggested that Google Docs comments also could be used for communication. In addition, Moshe initiated a Google+ hangout (i.e. real-time video conference) in which he was joined by three others. There may have been additional communication between project participants through other channels, but there is no indication of this in the Google+ comments or in Lance's blog posts.

Once work began, the story grew quickly. Comments in Google+ show that there were multiple people working on the story simultaneously within Google Docs, sometimes with additional people viewing the doc simply to watch the work in progress. Comments in Google+ show a few episodes of conflict or potential conflict that appear to have been defused by further communication. All this happened on August 18, the day Lance issued his initial invitation.

On the morning of August 19, a little less than 24 hours after posting his initial invitation, Lance posted a comment requesting that the group tie up loose ends and have the story finished by 5PM EST that day. Subsequent comments show participants responding to this request, and about four hours later, Lance posted a comment saying "Looks like we're about done here. All contributors might want to go back and take a last look, clean up any typos and then we'll publish." Further comments indicate some additional proof-reading and editing occurring that day. The next day, August 20, Lance published the story, now titled Agatha's Secret.

Writing in his blog about the collaborative writing experiment, Lance indicates that it did not turn out quite as he had expected:

The one big problem was that no one seems to understand that this was a short story and not a novel. By the second day it had almost 10 chapters. Short stories typically do not have chapters. I sensed I had lost control of the situation.

However, the group effort did produce a finished story. While it is not likely to win any literary prizes, I found it entertaining to read. We tend to appreciate art, whether visual, musical or literary, when it produces a certain degree of tension. In the case of this story, I found enjoyable tension in the departures from literary conventions rather than in the plot, which was a bit too convoluted for me to invest in.

In summing up, Lance notes that the story "shows the flaws of group writing: varying writing styles, gaps in logic, characters introduced and unceremoniously dropped, confusion of place and time." These flaws are not inherent in group writing, but they serve to illustrate that certain kinds of coordination are necessary to produce the desired result from a collaborative effort.