Our collaborative novel is open for writers. Sadly, no one has yet signed up outside of our group to help us write it. We're still hopeful, though; we have until the end of the week for the first draft to be due, and then the second and third drafts will be due on the 8th and 15th. So there's time.
After announcing on our Facebook page that it was time to start contributing, someone mentioned another collaborative science fiction/fantasy novel, Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea. I did a little research and found out Atlanta Nights was a hoax, written in response to several statements by PublishAmerica, an online publishing company. They claimed to accept high-quality manuscripts for publication. After submitting work to the site, PublishAmerica's Acquisitions staff reviewed the work to determine whether it was good enough for publication. Then they published an article that said this:
"[S]cience-fiction and fantasy writers have it easier. It's unfair, but
such is life. As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy
is a lot lower than for all other fiction. Therefore, beware of
published authors who are self-crowned writing experts. When they tell
you what to do and not to do in getting your book published, always
first ask them what genre they write. If it's sci-fi or fantasy, run.
They have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how
to find them a home. Unless you are a sci-fi or fantasy author yourself." (Author's Market: Never Trust the "Experts.")
In response, a group of science fiction and fantasy writers decided to write the worst novel ever and submit it to PublishAmerica. They were headed by James McDonald, and each author was given minimal information about the chapter outlines, plotline, character backgrounds, etc. and were expected to write a chapter without even knowing its place in the book. It led to random changes in setting, character races and genders, and plot (one character dies and then later shows up in the action). The authors made it even worse by misnumbering several chapters (there are two chapter 12's and no chapter 38).
They then submitted the work under the psuedonym Travis Tea (as in travesty) to PublishAmerica and were actually accepted by the Acquisitions staff who supposedly only took the most high-quality manuscripts. The team of writers decided not to publish in the end, and revealed the hoax. PublishAmerica then said that on further review, they would not take the manuscript.
Our collaborative novel, Chaotic Connections, is not Atlanta Nights. We have tried very hard to inform our writers of the plot, the chapter outlines, the characters, and the game setting. It's possible that we could have done more to help our authors understand these things, but even if there are discrepancies, we have plans to make the storyline smoother at the end with final revisions.
The greatest difference between the two novels, however, is that ours is meant to be somewhat readable, and the other was meant to be awful. We know that our novel may be a little strange in the end due to the many voices we have writing, but we hope that it will still be something you wouldn't mind reading. Atlanta Nights was constructed to be the worst book ever written.
I wonder which will be the greater success in the end. It seems to me that it would be easy for many authors to create something awful. It is much harder to create something good. I hope we achieve our goal at the same level that the authors of Atlanta Nights achieved theirs.
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