“Crowdsourcing” may be a good word for it, but it’s probably a bad idea. Penguin has launched a novel writing project in the style of Wikipedia, allowing anyone–anyone–to contribute and edit the novel.
“Day by day, night by night, fantasies and tales emerge. Collaboration is about to unveil and sparkle, witness the amazing power of a WikiNovel.”
Did the guys who came up with this idea ever spend time with writing stories as a group? It can be fun, but it can’t be serious unless everyone in the group is committed to serious writing. A million writers the world over won’t be serious. “Big Bababoobey Ooby flexed his pinky . . . “? Give it up.
In this post on their blog, the administrators describe their difficulties with vandalism.
This is the kind of nonsense only the college-educated could take seriously.
I predict it’ll be nothing but sex and bad writing.
Like many things online (including MMORPGs), this sounds more interesting as an informal anthropological experiment than anything else.
I suppose in the Brandywine Books community we could start our own “crowdsourcing” novel project. I’ll even offer the first line myself:
It was a dark and stormy night.
Michael, I foresee a dazzling career in novel writing ahead of you. I look forward to your next contribution.