Co-Writing is Worth the Effort

For the past year, I’ve been working on a major project with a writing partner, and it’s been hard. Really hard, even.

Currently, we’re working on a set of scenes and character sketches that are intended to build the world and round out some of the so-called minor characters in the fantasy world we’ve created.

The #AtoZChallenge is super difficult to do by yourself, and particularly if you’re not “blogging” in the classic sense, but instead writing fiction. What we have built together over the last eleven months is a very thorough world that is ours. Neither of us has pure ownership over it. Every aspect has been work-shopped between us and we’ve settled on some agreements for what it will be.

This makes this month’s writing so much easier in certain respects. Like our normal world, we know it, and the characters in it (for the most part). Where it’s been really fun so far is in the discovery writing of the situations and characters that are on the fringe of our main story, which we’re still working on completing.

Another amazing aspect is how much we’re still learning about how our invented world works. We keep running into technical challenges our characters face in a harsh landscape. We have to invent devices, tools, and even vehicles that suit the space, and all in the service of a character that isn’t actually pivotal to the main story.

But they’re part of the world, and that’s what we’re really building out this month.

Today’s post at chorusrebellion.com was edited and a large section cut at the last minute when we realized that including it would break the plot of the main story. It was a scene I’d worked hard to create with characters I wanted to bring into the main manuscript at some point.

Alas, Andre Fleuette was right (again) and that whole scene was scrapped (for now…) but the piece is better for it.

Please take a peek at the world we’re co-building and drop some comments if you have questions, want to see more or know more about a character or a place. We love to hear what is (or is not) working!

#AtoZChallenge

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