To date, I've written three collaborative pieces for the EMCSA: two with Tabico and one with trilby else (I don't count the Quick and Dirty Anthology as a collaboration, since each chapter was written separately by a different author; and anyway, I'm not allowed to say much about that ;-P), and each collaboration was lots of fun. Of course, it helps that Tabico and trilby are my two favorite authors on the EMCSA; and our styles and kinks mesh well enough that we were able to create stories that, IMO, come across as seamless wholes rather than pieces of Frankensteinian patchwork.
Each story came about under very different circumstances. I'll tell you a bit about all three now, and Tabico plans to stop by later with her own thoughts, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned.
My first collaboration was on Arachnae, or the Icky-Squicky Spider (Tabico and I couldn't agree on a title, so we used both of our ideas. Guess which one was mine. ;-P). It began with my reading Tabico's Adaptation, at the end of which she expressed an interest in squick and wondered if anyone else out there felt the same. She and I had already exchanged a number of e-mails, and as a matter of fact, I was privately toying with the idea of MC by spider bite; so I suggested a collaboration. I didn't have anything like a coherent plot in mind when I wrote her; I was just fascinated by the idea of being so deeply enthralled by something abhorrent that you end up reveling in what should send you screaming. Well, Tabico took that idea and ran with it, quickly coming up with the alien spider queen concept, which allowed for all the variations on freaky bondage and body modifications that we both enjoy so much. We worked up the overall plot together and divided the sections pretty evenly, with one of us taking all but one of the above-ground scenes and one of us taking all but one of the below-ground scenes. I won't spell it out for you, but if you've read much of our writing or know anything about our backgrounds, that's probably enough to tell you who wrote which bits. ;-)
I can't remember which of us was the first to suggest a second collaboration, but I do remember that I'd recently had a dream that gave us an excellent starting point. I dreamed I was a brainwashed slave trying to prevent intruders from taking over my Mistress' compound. There wasn't much more to it than that, but on waking, I was intrigued by the notion of a slave molded for helplessness and passivity being all that stood between her Mistress and victory for her Mistress' enemies - which would have been victory for the slave, as well, if only she'd been in a position to appreciate it. As before, the division of work on Salvation was pretty equal; but this time we swapped off in the middle of scenes as well as between scenes. As a result, when I went back to reread the story a few months ago, even I couldn't remember which of us had written certain sections (though I do recall that Tabico wrote the opening and I wrote the close). I guess that's a testament to how well our styles meshed.
The situation with trilby else was a bit different. As I've said before, he likes to stay in the shadows (a great place from which to snark, I might add) and had never collaborated with anyone else. As a matter of fact, I'd broached the idea to him at least a couple of times before, but he'd always responded with a polite "Thanks, but no thanks." Then I hit a rough patch in a number of different ways; and suddenly there was trilby, offering me a collaboration as, I guess, a way of cheering me up. Unfortunately, that rough patch extended to my creativity, and I'm afraid most of the best bits of Goldilocks are his. I did come up with the basic idea of a woman stumbling onto long-abandoned alien technology and MC'ing herself with no one to rescue her, but trilby was the one who really fleshed it out. I hadn't even thought of setting it in the future, on another planet; I just had a sort of vague, Tommyknockers-ish idea of a unearthed spaceship or secret silo or something, somewhere on earth.
Then there was the matter of names. Idris' ship took its name from a way-beyond-cool William Gibson heroine (trilby's idea, but I recommended the book to him ;-)). When it came time for a story title, of course we had to use just a single word, since that's a trilby else signature. Our first idea was "Bauble," but then he happened to mention Goldilocks in passing, and a little light bulb went off in my head. He liked the idea, too, so there you go. Much easier to name than the spider story. ;-)
Looking back on my three collaborations, I can't help noticing that though the actual work was either evenly divided (with the first two) or more heavily shouldered by the other person (with the last), all three ideas began in my head. I don't know if that's coincidence or if there's more to it than that. Certainly, I'm not the kind of author who can be handed someone else's suggestion and dash off a story just like that - not most of the time, anyway. So don't hold your breath waiting for me to contribute to any other anthologies. But if someone whose work I respected and whose style meshed with my own offered up the right idea, it could conceivably strike a spark in my head. Who knows? I wouldn't rule anything out.
Anyway, collaborating - with the right partner - can be terrific fun. I highly recommend it.
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