robotgort:

sunalsolove:

ao3commentoftheday:

Are you indicating who wrote what? 

I’ve written with a friend before, and I tend to do well with dialogue but I’m pretty bad at action so she takes all of the action scenes. Those tend to get more reaction than the conversations I write (unless I’ve got a good line in there). It might be the nature of your sections? Perhaps your partner’s scenes play more into the plot or some sort of trope the fandom likes?

If you don’t indicate who wrote what, I’m not really sure how to go about asking for feedback on your sections. 

People might not know that they’re commenting on the other author.

As someone that’s co-written several stories, I can tell you that readers are usually not going to pick up on who wrote what. My coauthor and I write alternating chapters, and to readers, it still sounds like a seamless whole, so if it’s different scenes in the same chapter, there’s really no way for the reader to tell. Heck, *I* forget sometimes which scenes I wrote and which she did. We were asked in a podcast once what a favorite scene written by the other person was, and we both were like…OMG, which one belongs to who? 

But I have a bigger question: are you having fun? Why are you coauthoring a story? Why is the other person? 

The first one @robotgort and I did was sort of an accident with no planning, it was just short bits to entertain each other. And then it got longer and longer, and despite the fact you can tell at one part that neither of us wanted to describe something and dragged out the plot, we decided to publish it. Because we’d had so much fun we wanted to share. 

The second one was planned, and we had an outline, but it has the most ridiculous concept and we spent the entire time doing our best to make each other laugh as hard as possible. 

The latest one was planned, and we outlined together, and it started as a way to ease my friend into a new fandom, but then it took on a life of its own and became this complicated story with an entire spy-plot and I think we both really enjoyed the challenge.  Our readers aren’t going to know we had to poke at that plot A LOT to make it work and go back to the outline and rework things and ad lines into completed/unpublished chapters. Heck, I doubt most readers are even going to worry about that plot outside of the shippy elements. And I’m thrilled with that. It was supposed to look effortless. I’m super proud of what we did together! 

And it was fun! I tend to get the smutty parts of the story, she gets the team scenes because I think she’s way better at dialogue than me, but we both push each other to do the opposite and to try new things because we both want the other to succeed. 

tl;dr Co-writing shouldn’t be a competition. You’re working with someone to create a story. It should be a fun and positive experience where you’re supporting each other and celebrating successes together! 

Writing fic with @sunalsolove is literally one of the greatest joys I have experienced in fandom. If you’re not getting what you need out of it, maybe it’s not for you?

As a reader (with ADHD), I often don’t even KNOW a story is being co-written. 

If I got a notification, I just assume it’s by the authour I follow. I went an entire year once, commenting on a story every chapter, before realizing that there was a second authour that I’d been ignoring. I felt really bad, but I struggle with names and titles.

If I find the story myself, or end up leaving it open on my computer until I’m ready to read, I’ll check the authour before commenting. But I tend to think any names other than the first are people being gifted the story or something. ADHD really messes up your reading comprehension.

End notes are REALLY helpful for me! Mention that you had a lot of fun writing X. Mention that he’s great at Y. That clues me in on the situation, and I’ll start thinking of you guys as a group, instead of a single person!* Plus, I’ll be able to connect writing style/content type to authour.

*Please note that the first authour isn’t actually getting all the recognition. I check the name so I can use it in the comment, but I don’t actually remember it. You are remembered entirely by writing style, and I sometimes end up reading both authours and not noticing that they’re different people if you guys mesh well. Sometimes I get confused that this authour is a lot smuttier today, or I can’t find a favourite story in their archives.