The Writer's Id Forum Losing Yourself to Collaborati..

I heard an interesting story this morning on my drive in to work . . . talking about collaborative music sites like jamglue.com and eJamming.com and splicemusic.com . . . very cool sites and some of the creations are amazing . . . But it made me wonder about collaboration in creative writing. Alot of sites that are taking advantage of the digital medium and making collaborative creations ... It's not so unusal and seems to be becoming more of a norm . .. So what happens to the author's identity (as we have traditionally thought of it) in light of collaboration?

For example, consider the poem Two Trains by Victoria Chang . . . The flash, collaborative piece can be found at the following link: Two Trains by Victoria Chang. What do you think happens to the whole of the piece, the identity of the author, the artist, etc. in the collaborative piece? I could write more (and more . . . ), but I'll leave ya' with that to ponder . . .
Note: You are all so very cool. ::cool::

first of all, I expected the trains to crash...

What was the question again? Oh yeah, losing identity to collaboration. I don't really know about this. I haven't ever worked with anyone in quite that way writing anything. I hated group projects in school and I seldom meet anyone who writes... so... I haven't really had the opportunity. I have to say that the idea of a collaboration doesn't appeal to me at this point because my writing is so personal, though I wouldn't rule it out entirely for the future.

I think you can still maintain your identity, or voice as a collaborator. And, if you feel it start to slip away, perhaps it is changing for the better, perhaps it is time to stop. I have no answers really... sort of rambling now.

In college I had a writing partner for certain projects. We were theatre majors at the University of Washington and we headed a creative playwriting workshop much like the contests you run here. Our best stuff always came out of colaborative sessions, and one play that we were working on quickly turned into a trilogy. One play we wrote came out of a "heated" discussion with an abundance of expletives. I have another writing partner who sticks to mostly movie scripts. Often times we will collaborate by sharing concept and scene ideas, etc.

I don't know, maybe its just a certain type of person that chooses partnerships. I like the sharing of ideas and the melding of different thought processes. In most cases I find that it is a matter of desired result. One person will always have a better grasp of humor or tragedy than the other, and that creates balance. Also, perhaps I enjoy it more because I tend to commit to collaborative projects that are less introspective. When I do have ideas based on personal experience however, I usually pursue them alone.