Collaboration and Cronenberg

[przed]

I always used to say I could never see collaborating with anyone on a creative project.  I could only see the loss of control that such a working method would necessarily result in, without seeing the benefits.  Well, I'm currently working on a collaboration (about which, all will eventually be revealed) and I've found it to be a remarkable experience.  Together, we've produced something better than either of us would have produced by ourselves, and it's been an often exhilirating experience.  And then today, Salon published an interview with David Cronenberg where he talks about collaboration in terms that I can now completely identify with:

"There was a time when I was very arrogant about that -- you're not really an auteur if you don't do your own stuff. Then I realized with "The Dead Zone" that fusing your sensibility with someone else's -- in that case, Stephen King's -- can be quite interesting. You wind up making something that neither one of you would have come up with separately. It's like a marriage. It's like mating.

"The other thing is that you can bore yourself. Working alone, you can keep going back to the same routine, your own set of rails that might have been liberating initially and have now become a rut. All it takes is someone else to come at you sideways and you find yourself exhilarated and energized. If it feels that good, it can't be bad."

Now, I still don't know that I'll ever do a writing collaboration--my writing working method is a bit nebulous for me to consider that at the moment--but I'm far more open to the idea that I ever was before.

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I've really loved collaborating on fan works -- both stories and vids. There have been some missteps, of course, but I always learn tons, and the results are always better than anything I'd have done myself.

[przed.livejournal.com]

It is an amazing learning process. I'd say it helps to work with a collaborator with whom you share a complementary, though not identical, aesthetic. And that you both go into the venture open-minded and as ego-less as possible.

One of the great discoveries for me is how much of a joy it is when your collaborator comes up with something exceptionally cool that you would never have thought of.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I love that part. (: I try to collaborate on about one vid a year, if I can, and with a different person each time. So I'm always being blown away by something new that I couldn't have come up with on my own. I just hope I'm giving back as much as I'm getting!

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

A big me too on the collaboration part (like Laura I've done both vids and stories). I like the gestalt mind that appears and drags wonderful ideas and concepts out of both people. And I also enjoy the sometimes push/pull of the joint creative process. I am thinking of collaborating with xlorp on some stories - he has such a wicked way with dialog.

[przed.livejournal.com]

It really does invoke a sort of gestalt mind. And it's interesting how you can push each other to do interesting things.

Still don't know how I'd do this writing, though. I tend just to flail around mentally with stories till something gels. At that stage it seems such a delicate process that I'm always afraid verbalizing what I'm doing will have it all fall apart in my hands.

[justacat.livejournal.com]

I don't write fic, so I've never done a true writing collaboration - but I do have one or two collaborative-type writing relationships that work interestingly. I suppose it's less a collaboration on the writing and more a kind of early, and intensive, beta process, in which I'm "involved" from a very early stage (and all along the way, to varying degrees), for bouncing ideas, trying things out, discussing directions the story could go, helping to think of ideas, etc. etc. It's not an equal collaboration - the direction of the story, and of course all the writing (except very small bits - word choice, restructuring a sentence) come from her, but it is a way for her to get additional ideas and input and new ways of looking at things during the writing process, not just at the editorial stage.

It's rewarding for me because it allows me to be slightly involved in the writing process, flex some creative muscles, without having to write myself (something I have no real interest in doing); hopefully it's rewarding for the author for the reasons you describe, the injection of new ideas and a different perspective, as well as the brainstorming effect; i.e., that rabbit-like propensity of ideas to multiply!

But if I were a writer, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be letting someone else actually write large portions of the story ... I suppose it would depend on how well our writing styles, and ideas and visions, complemented each other ...