by Cate Ellink
I’ve had the pleasure lately to be involved in a few group efforts. Each has been a unique experience because of the different people involved changing the dynamics. No matter what the dynamics, here are a few of the reasons why I enjoy these experiences.
- Brainstorming sessions are heaps of fun. You never know what you or someone else might come up with. Someone’s idea might spark something really crazy in your mind.
- You never really know people until you work with them. Writers are notorious introverts, so it’s not easy to get to know us. But working in a group allows for interaction, communication, and an online form of ‘bonding’. You cyber-meet, sometimes become friends, with people you may never have met otherwise. You’re working towards a common goal, which immediately gives you something in common–that’s great for introverts.
- You learn. My writing always improves. Sometimes it’s because of someone in the group’s feedback. Sometimes it’s watching how another works with critique. Other times it’s learning how people develop stories. Or how much importance some writers place on factors you had dismissed, or hadn’t thought of. There’s always something to learn.
- You’re exposed to story ideas/characters you’d never have thought of yourself. Take Lana from the Sydney Housewives series. I would never have thought of, let alone tackled, a character who was an older woman who loved young men. Yet that was my task. It was challenging. Lana stretched my writing ability and my imagination. I had to work with a character a long way outside of my experience. She was a challenge I’d never have had if I hadn’t agreed to the project.
- You share the promo with others. Promo makes me shudder, sweat, wriggle and squirm. When you can promo in a group, it takes the pressure off. I’m not shoving my book down people’s throats…I’m sharing our group project with the world.
That’s why I love group projects. Do you like group projects or reading books from group projects?
Guest post contributed by Cate Ellink with a special thanks to Escape Publishing for permission of use. Cate has pursued a career in science as well as writing stories with a high temperature level. She can be found on Escape Publishing’s website.
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Great post! Thanks for sharing 🙂
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You bet.
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great tips! i need to write in groups more often, it is a lot of fun. thanks!
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It might be interesting to learn more about how to find groups that want to collaborate on writing projects.
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Hi Koehlerjoni,
I’ve been involved in 4 group projects – 2 were publisher driven and 2 author driven. Of the two author driven ones, the first one started out as a bit of a joke and then we took it seriously, wrote stories, edited each others’, and were aiming to self-publish but one girl spoke to her publisher and they picked most of them up. The other author driven one began with a couple of friends. We thought maybe we could work together on connected stories. We brainstormed it, discussed the idea with our publisher who gave us the go ahead, and we wrote. Now we’re thinking about another set of 3 connected stories.
I’m lucky that I’m involved in a national writing group where I meet like-minded souls, and my publishers are open to group ideas.
That’s my story with finding groups.
Best wishes,
Cate xo
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Reblogged this on The Darkness in the Light.
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Great thoughts… But #2…. you don’t always “like” what you “learn”!!!
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It sounds like fun. I’m just wondering where you find the groups.
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Thanks for this – I think it can be intimidating (maybe because of flashbacks to horrible group project experiences in school?), and this post helps showcase collaboration in a new way. Thank you!
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Thanks for reblogging my post, Ryan. Thanks for your comments, everyone.
A few of you have asked about group projects and how you find them. I’ve been involved in 4. Two were publisher-driven, the other 2 author-driven.
In the publisher-driven one, the publisher had the idea and approached the authors. We were given the characters and a ‘theme’ to address, or given the background information for the stories.
With the author-driven ones, I’m lucky that I’m involved in a national writing group (Romance Writers of Australia) where I get to meet like-minded souls. In that group, there’s sub-genre specific groups and my first author-driven project started out with the erotic romance writers. A flippant idea was turned into a real project of short stories. We all wrote one, then worked together on editing each others’. For an unpublished author, that was gold and led to my first publication, after one girl mentioned the project to her editor who took up our stories.
The other author-driven project was with friends. Three of us write for the same publisher and we talked about created interlinked stories. Then we hit on a way this could work and it took off from there. Living on 3 sides of Australia, we don’t see each other much (only at the annual conference), but we email constantly. We worked out how to make the stories work with our 3 very different writing styles, then we asked our publisher what they thought, and then we wrote and submitted. They’ll be out next year.
So there are lots of ways to get involved. And it’s not always roses 🙂 It’s still can be like school projects, but mostly we’re all adults and any problems have been resolved. In the end we all have the same goal – to have our stories published.
Good luck with your writing! And please give me a yell if you’d like to discuss group work more.
All the best,
Cate xox
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Glad to have you, Cate.
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