thread: 2009-07-13 : How About Some Q and A
On 2009-07-23, Christian Griffen wrote:
How about we compare it to collaborative writing.
Say four people want to write a novel together. They figure out the genre, chat about characters, and make some rules. Primarily, they distribute authority: each one is going to take turns adding 300-500 words to the story, then pass it on to the next guy.
Now, 25,000 words down the line, one of the players writes something that totally destroys my investment in the characters and the story. S/he took a hard turn and just totally ruined, in my mind, all the cool stuff we'd built up. Maybe s/he wrote "And then they realize they've been in the Matrix all along, and none of it really happened!"
So sure, s/he had the authority to do that, and I agreed to it. But I'm still going to say, "Come on, you just totally spaceangeled* our novel. I can't keep playing/writing like this. How about you do something else instead?"
That's not me refusing to play by the rules, that's me telling the other people that they're losing me. Now maybe the other two agree with me, and suddenly it's not the "complainer" who might find themselves on the outs, but the person unwilling to take back what they did with their previously-granted authority.
In either case, stuff like this comes up in creative endeavors, and it doesn't matter that we agreed to a certain authority structure in the beginning. It matters that we find a way to stay invested, by working out a compromise that will retain everyone's assent.
* see the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica.
